Bike shop owners, wheel gurus: truing questions

"Pat Lamb" wrote in message
...
wrote:
Pat Lamb writes:

Or do all wheels need to be touched up periodically?
(Assuming the
wheels aren't wrecked or violently twisted in wheel-eating
ruts.)
Are machine-built wheels so different from hand-built wheels
that
one requires constant maintenance while the other is
trouble-free?


Machine built wheels, until now, have had a tension problem
in that
tight spokes adjusted with the typical 1/4 turn of the nipple
no
longer move in the threads but only only twist. Therefore
final
truing is stopped before that (proper tension) is reached. I
am
curious to see at InterBike if the wheel building
manufacturers have
instituted the simple design change I have badgered them
about these
past years to fix that.

Reading between the lines, can I infer machine built wheels
need to be
touched up before riding?

Yes, if you are talking about conventional wire spoked wheels,
the spokes should be brought up to tension and stress relieved.
IMO, some botique wheels are incapable of being brought up to
sufficient tension without rim cracking or spoke head failure and
require some sort of thread lock. This may be a minority
opinoin, though. -- Jay Beattie.

Dans le message de news:42f24443.0@entanet,
Zog The Undeniable a réfléchi, et puis a déclaré :
Pat Lamb wrote:

I've seen a few posts here from people saying they never touch their
well-built, hand-trued, wheels. Is this a reasonable expectation? Or do
all wheels need to be touched up periodically?

No, good hand built wheels do not need any attention until the rims
wear out or you twist them in a storm drain. The key is to have high
spoke tension and to get all the stretching and bending done during
the wheelbuild, not on the road.

I'm not so sure all this is fair to good "in-box" wheels. Lacing is not an
art, but more of a science, and automated machinery is not evil. Some
companies, like Campy, finish wheels up entirely by hand. The
generalization of hand-built wheels being better may not be valid, save is
special shops, with talented people. But if you have a trained, attentive
worker truing laced wheels, it doesn't make much of a difference in the long
run.

Frankly, if Peter Chisholm builds a pair of wheels and send them to you,
they are then "out-of-the-box", right ? Good deeds don't go unpunished.
--
Bonne route !

Sandy
Verneuil-sur-Seine FR

Pat Lamb wrote:

Finally, he wrote, "A high-mileage rider [2200 miles per year] ... can
expect to need her wheels trued once or twice a year. ... I ride mostly
on machine-built wheels ... and touch them up with a spoke wrench from
time to time."


Gee whiz. I would be a high mileage rider by that criteria.

On Thu, 04 Aug 2005 18:18:41 -0500, catzz66 wrote:

Pat Lamb wrote:

Finally, he wrote, "A high-mileage rider [2200 miles per year] ... can
expect to need her wheels trued once or twice a year. ... I ride mostly
on machine-built wheels ... and touch them up with a spoke wrench from
time to time."


Gee whiz. I would be a high mileage rider by that criteria.

Me too. Hurray.

Guess now I need to try for ultramileage.

Ron

Reading between the lines, can I infer machine built wheels need to be
touched up before riding?

Pat

In my experience this is true for cheap wheels at least. They come
pretty true, but they aren't stress-relieved and the rear is
particularly under-tensioned. As Jobst stated, it's difficult for the
machine to get the tension high enough on the drive side (turning the
nipple twists the spoke), so they just stop at that point. It isn't
very easy for humans, either... at least not me.

On my last set of wheels, I loosened all the non-drive spokes the same
amount (couple turns) then tightened all the drive side spokes, then
retightened the non-drive side until the dish was right. That way I
could get the drive side spokes good and tight without rounding the
nipples. Because of the dish, the tension in the non drive side is much
lower, so it is easy to do the final tensioning on them.

I only have 2,000 miles on them, but I haven't had to touch them yet.
On the machine built (and untouched) wheels I started getting loose
spokes after a few hundred miles (always on the non drive side), and
was breaking one every 1-2 hundred miles until I realized what was
wrong and increased the overall tension.

-Ron

Pat Lamb wrote:


So you do check the wheels? Confirms what I thought -- your shop has to
be 3 (or more) sigmas above the mean.

Of course we do, even on the lifetime tunes we offer on all our new
bikes(that we build, BTW, alomg with the wheels, we sell no bicycles or
wheels built by anybody else).

Finally, he wrote, "A high-mileage rider [2200 miles per year] ... can
expect to need her wheels trued once or twice a year. ... I ride mostly
on machine-built wheels ... and touch them up with a spoke wrench from
time to time."

What's a factor of two among friends? Still, for an organization that
promotes long rides, like their flagship 4,247.5 mile transamerica ride,
calling 2200 annual miles "high-mileage" seems a bit, err, off.


tee-heee....oh well, i like to say here in Boulder that i was educated
by the University of Colorado, so I can't read or count...

Just so I'm clear on things, though, are wheels straight out of the
machine typically trued, rounded, dished, tensioned, and stress relieved
properly, or does the LBS or new owner need to double-check?

Wheels outta the machine are generally none of those things. Kinda
straight, mostly undertensioned, never very round, Never stress
relieved..


Pat

Qui si parla Campagnolo wrote:



tee-heee....oh well, i like to say here in Boulder that i was educated
by the University of Colorado, so I can't read or count...



So you can't do rudamentary math, but you can probably drive the Land
Rover daddy bought you, while talking on the cell phone and sipping some
over priced coffee drink on your way to that car wash on 28th because
you hit a mud puddle near Chautauqua Park

I know that all the students at CU are not spoiled kids from CA or TX,
but they generally don't work so hard to be seen either.

You must be located on E. Pearl, just east of the Mt. Sun?

--
Craig Brossman, Durango Colorado

"Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation."
Edward R. Murrow

Ron Ruff writes:

Reading between the lines, can I infer machine built wheels need to
be touched up before riding?

In my experience this is true for cheap wheels at least. They come
pretty true, but they aren't stress-relieved and the rear is
particularly under-tensioned. As Jobst stated, it's difficult for
the machine to get the tension high enough on the drive side
(turning the nipple twists the spoke), so they just stop at that
point. It isn't very easy for humans, either... at least not me.

There are many well built wheels in use and those were mainly hand
finished because an experienced hand can feel wind-up and the break
loose point when turning a spoke nipple. The little bit of over-shoot
becomes a natural motion as the wheel gets tight.

On my last set of wheels, I loosened all the non-drive spokes the
same amount (couple turns) then tightened all the drive side spokes,
then re-tightened the non-drive side until the dish was right. That
way I could get the drive side spokes good and tight without
rounding the nipples. Because of the dish, the tension in the non
drive side is much lower, so it is easy to do the final tensioning
on them.

I use a parallel (slot) jaw spoke wrench with which I can twist off
spokes if I get them too tight. This does not round brass nipples.
Spoke nipples are rounded by lack of lubrication between rim and spoke
nipple, not spoke thread torque. If you consider spoke thread root
diameter and spoke nipple diameter, it should be obvious that the
spoke nipple is about eight times as strong. On the other hand, the
contact diameter of the spoke nipple on the rim is twice as large as
the wrench flats and with friction it welds around its circumference
to the rim in the absence of lubrication. Friction welding is often
used in industry to weld dissimilar metals.

I only have 2,000 miles on them, but I haven't had to touch them
yet. On the machine built (and untouched) wheels I started getting
loose spokes after a few hundred miles (always on the non drive
side), and was breaking one every 1-2 hundred miles until I realized
what was wrong and increased the overall tension.

Just touch up those machine built wheels next time. I think they are a good
bargain if they are made of good components.

Jobst Brandt

Hi Peter,

2200 / 12 = 183 (not less than 100) a month which is about 45 a
week if you ride year round. Though I believe the rest of your
comments still apply. One thing to consider is the poster may not being
riding year round.

Lincoln

SNIP

2200 mikes isn't particularly high milage..less than 100 miles per
month, less than 25 miles per week. Not trying to blow me horn, but I
ride more than that per day, 12 months of the year(5 days per week),
BUT well built wheels need very little attention. Even 'machine built'
wheels, if trued, rounded, dished, tensioned and stress relieved when
new will work just fine. It is most often the build that makes for
lousey wheels, not the components.
SNIP

wrote:
Spoke nipples are rounded by lack of lubrication between rim and spoke
nipple, not spoke thread torque.

Noted.

I discovered (too late for one nipple) that I needed to get the spokes
pretty loose first before oil would flow into that interface. They are
CXP21 rims without eyelets, and they didn't seem to be lubricated when
I got them.