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Had a customer roast my spoke tension last month and I'm still thinking about it
This guy comes in with a mountain bike he built himself and asks me to true his rear wheel. I check it and tell him it's fine, maybe a tiny wobble. He grabs my spoke wrench and shows me how every other spoke is way different tension by just squeezing them. I'd been building wheels for 3 years doing it by feel and ear. He had me check with a tensiometer and I was off by like 20% on half the spokes. Now I use the meter every time, feels slower but the wheels come out way better. Has anyone else had someone call them out on a basic thing they thought they had nailed?
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mila_jones392d ago
Man, getting called out like that stings but it's the best thing that could've happened to your wheel building. I had a similar wakeup call with bearing preload a few years back, kept doing it by feel until a shop owner showed me how much I was off by. The tensiometer feels like a crutch at first but your wheels will last way longer and stay true better.
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evan512d ago
Lol yeah @mila_jones39 it's like going from guessing to actually knowing what you're doing. I had a moment with spoke tension where I thought I was a pro just by feel, then a buddy put a tensiometer on one of my wheels and the reading was all over the place. Felt like a total idiot but now I use it every time and my wheels don't go out of true after a few rides. The learning curve is humbling but worth it.
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angela_wilson782d ago
The tensiometer thing is so real. It reminds me of when I first started messing with hydraulic brakes. I was all proud of myself for getting a decent bleed by feel, then a buddy brought over this pressure gauge setup he built. My system was way off, like the lever felt fine but the actual pressure was garbage. That moment of "oh I have no idea what I'm doing" is brutal but it forces you to learn the right way. Now I swear by those little tools that take the guesswork out. You ever try that trick with using a penny to check spoke tension? I heard some old timers swear by it but I haven't had the guts to try.
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