[WTGPhoben]

so our fellow monkey Bald Eagle was kind enough to sell me a rediculously sweet road bike recently... the relevant point being that it has mavic Helium wheels...

I went to true the back wheel and The spoke nipples were so frozen I Had to hold the spokes with a pair of pliers to turn the nipples. After spending forever and a day trying to true the thing I finally gave up and replaced all the nipples using a touch of grease and nothing else (this method always works well for me, but I retension my wheels rather regularly), but I'm still curious (as the title may have belied) WTF does mavic use as threadlocker? (if anything) The old nipples weren't corroded, and there was very little residue on the spokes, but I've never had spokes so locked up. Do the french know magic?

 

[Nanda]

Strange - I have had completely the opposite problem with my Mavic road wheels --> I have a set of Mavic Cosmics and since I bought them, I have been unable to keep the spokes tight! (especially the rear wheel) I have tried re-preping and re-tensioned the wheel from scratch, but it doesn't seem to help. I have even resorted to using Loctite in the nipples, and I still end up stopping all-to-frequently mid-ride to tighten up a loose rattling spoke...it is driving me nuts!

 

[Rustmouse]

depends on the wheel and spoke, but if you have 2 different metals in contact with each other, and a little bit of moisture, you can literally weld the 2 together (dissimilar metals tend to create a small electrical current and can literally electroplate themselves together given enough time)

(That's why everyone likes to use either grease, teflon, or threadlocker at all the joints, it forms a physical barrier between the two keeping them from welding themselves)