Just realized a guy at my shop in Tucson taught me the 5 minute spoke tension trick using a soda can tab | Bicycle Mechanics - The Design Community Hub
Just realized a guy at my shop in Tucson taught me the 5 minute spoke tension trick using a soda can tab
Last week a retired wheel builder named Gus came into the shop in Tucson to pick up his old Trek and saw me fighting with a rear wheel that kept going out of true. He grabbed an empty soda can, popped the tab off, and slid it under my tension meter's arm to shim it because the arm was worn and reading low on the drive side. He said "your tool is lying to you, not the wheel" and we re-tensioned all 32 spokes in about 5 minutes after I spent 40 minutes chasing it the wrong way. I checked my meter against a known good one later and it was reading about 15% low the whole time, which explains the three wheels I rebuilt last month that came back loose. Now I keep a spare tab in my box and check my meter every Monday morning. Has anyone else had a tension tool drift on them like that, or am I the last guy to notice?