How do I know if my spokes are tight?
If spokes are laced, pluck them where they cross. You will then be listening to the sound of two spokes at once. If the tension of two laced spokes is very different, you will hear a dull thud. Pull the spokes across each other with your fingers to see which is looser.
Does spoke tension affect wheel stiffness?
Spoke tension does not affect wheel stiffness. As long as a spoke has some tension the wheel will be as stiff as if it were in high tension. Therefore, the reason for the spoke tension on the drive side rear to be high is to increase the tension on the non drive side – to prevent them from loosening.
How important is even spoke tension?
They should be as even as you can get them and they’re more important than absolute trueness of a wheel. This ensures that all spokes are doing the same amount of work and therefore metal fatigue in any lower tensioned spokes will be reduced.
How often do spokes break?
You may break a spoke with these wheels every 5 or 6000 miles, but that’s not because the spokes wear out. And that seems fairly frequent to breaking spokes on average, especially for a rider of your weight. There would have to be something going on with the spoke or wheel to cause it to break.
What makes a bike wheel stiff?
First and foremost, the number of spokes, and their thickness (or ‘gauge’). More spokes and thicker spokes make a wheel stiffer both laterally and radially. Spoke stiffness is also determined by the angle at which the spokes enter the rim.
Are stiffer wheels faster?
Spoke for spoke, a deep rim will be inherently stiffer and more stable than an otherwise similar but shallower rim. The same rim built with thicker spokes will be more stiff and stable than if it is built with thinner spokes.
What is the theory behind the spoke nipples being attached to the hub rather than the rim in Shimano wheels?
Shimano isn’t the only wheelmaker to use this “innovation”: placing the nipples at the hub rather than the rim. Shimano is the most poplar one out there, though. The usual excuse for this is that removing the nipples from the rim reduces rotational inertia of the wheel.
How true should a bike wheel be?
The wheel does not have to be perfectly round or true; slight runouts are acceptable (a few millimeters). As long as there are no loose spokes and the wheel is reasonably straight (the rim and tire mustn’t rub on the brake pads), it will ride nicely and hold up fine.
Is there a difference between the tension in the spokes?
Although stated differently these two bullet points clearly represent the same thing. On average, tension in right side spokes would be 1.82 greater than the tension in the left side for the wheel to be dished properly. If we were builing drive side of our rear wheel with around 130kgF, our non-drive side spokes would only be tensioned at 70kgF.
What happens if you don’t tighten spokes enough?
If your wheel works then great. If you didn’t get your spokes tight enough then one or two spokes will lose tension and the wheel will lose its lateral trueness, solution: increase the tension. You’ll soon know what is good and what is bad. Can very tight spokes damage the rim?
How do you use high tension on a spoke hole?
When you use high tension, the key is to turn the nipple at high tension as little as possible. Each turn rounds out the spoke hole in the rim, weakening it (another major reason for the dual internal washers – which prevent the hole from rounding out).
How much wheel tension is right for your bike?
Today a huge number of rims, spokes, and hubs are designed to support 100kgf of tension in each spoke with very high reliability. It would be a generalization to say 100kgf is “right” but if you go higher, know why and how much.