[Iridemtb]

Alright guys. So quite a while back I bent my front wheel so bad it rubbed the frame a little. I trued it up on a stand, and now it is straight, no big deal.

But I began to think about it. A wheel relies on flexing and have even tension.

Now I am talking purely on strength of the wheel here:

Is it better to have even tension (I.E. use a spoke tension reader tool) and have a wobbly wheel?

Or is it better to have a straight wheel, with almost no wobble, but the spokes aren't all even in tension?

I know a super wobbly wheel will have bad effects in just riding in generall, but I am talking about just a slight wobble.

 

[mattmatt86]

In my experience building wheels if you can't get equal spoke tension and a straight wheel it's because the spokes (either one side or both) aren't the exact length required. i.e instead of using 286 on the drive side and 284 for the nondrive side, 285 was used for both sides.

 

[Bicyclist]

In my experience building wheels if you can't get equal spoke tension and a straight wheel it's because the spokes (either one side or both) aren't the exact length required. i.e instead of using 286 on the drive side and 284 for the nondrive side, 285 was used for both sides.

This can be caused by a bent rim too (which can be carefully remedied, but it's not an exact science).

 

[EVRAC]

Even with brand new, perfectly straight rims, and with the perfect spoke lengths, there will always be a balance between truing for straightness and truing for balanced tension. Check out the wheel building video at eastonbike.com They not only true normally, but also use an audio setup to listen to the tone of each spoke and try to equalize them that way as well.

So to answer your question: "Which is stronger: a wheel with balanced tension or one that is true?" - The answer lies somewhere in between.

 

[Iridemtb]

Thanks guys for the info. Mattmatt86. The wheel needed different tension on both sides because I actually bent the rim. I ran into a wall of dirt on the side of a downhill corse, and completely bottomed out my fox 40. Spokes then snapped, and my rim appeared to be bent.

But maybe that was just from the spokes that broke, causing uneven tension in the wheel, causing the rim to be pulled to one side.

 

[mattmatt86]

I was dealing with this same scenario earlier this week when I built a wheelset for my 29er. I had brand new rims, spokes and Hubs but I still couldn't get even spoke tension on both sides without having the wheel out of dish. And unfortunately I was running into problems with too much tension on one side because Stan's rims have a limit. The weird thing was that the side that was too far from center was also the side with too little tension (if that makes sense...)

 

[Brian HCM#1]

A good Wheel builder should be able to build and/or true a wheel without spoke tension tool..... Period.

 

[w00dy]

A good Wheel builder should be able to build and/or true a wheel without spoke tension tool..... Period.

A great wheel builder knows how to use a tension gauge. Don't tell him to abandon that out of bravado.

As said above, go for a middle ground. Perfectly straight wheels with unbalanced tension will not stay perfectly straight for long. I usually loosen the spokes around the bend and try to bend the rim back a bit before re-truing. It's never perfect, but that's what disc brakes are for.

 

[Iridemtb]

Well, I don't use a tension meter/measuring tool. I usually go by hand. It is a pretty simple task, and my wheels usually make it through a whole season without anything going wrong.

I know why my spokes snapped before, I just made them too tight. Also, my stuff does not break often either because I am all 138 lbs, but on the other hand I am running dt swiss revolution spokes.

 

[stoney]

matt, if you are having issues, your spokes might bee too long on one side...

 

[HAB]

In my experience building wheels if you can't get equal spoke tension and a straight wheel it's because the spokes (either one side or both) aren't the exact length required. i.e instead of using 286 on the drive side and 284 for the nondrive side, 285 was used for both sides.

You should be able to get even tension regardless. The shorter spokes are going to have to be threaded on a little less, and vice versa for the longer ones, but a competant wheel builder should have no trouble using spoke lengths that aren't quite ideal.

I'd take even tension over perfectly true (to a point). If you can't get one right on without the other being pretty darn close, that's a good sign your rim is knackered (or you need to improve you wheel building/ truing skills.)

 

[davep]

Well, I don't use a tension meter/measuring tool. I usually go by hand. It is a pretty simple task, and my wheels usually make it through a whole season without anything going wrong.

I know why my spokes snapped before, I just made them too tight. Also, my stuff does not break often either because I am all 138 lbs, but on the other hand I am running dt swiss revolution spokes.

Your spokes will actually fail faster with lower tension not higher. Low tension leads to cyclic fatigue failures in spokes. It is VERY unlikely that you had too much tension for a quality stanless spoke. Tension limits are by rim and hub mfg, not spoke mfg (baring some exotic or hair thin spoke). 'To high' spoke tension will have several pretty obvious signs....like wheels suddenly going out of true while bringing up tension evenly....rims stress cracking around the eyelets...stripping nipples...cracked flanges.

For some VERY rough numbers, max rim tensions are on the order of 100Kgf. This is roughly 1000 Newtons. Yield strength of a typical 14/15 DB spoke will be around 3000 N. Bring all yoru spokes to 3000N, and you will simply collapse or tear apart your wheel.

 

[Junkie]

By the sounds of things you nailed your rim pretty hard, I had a similar thing a while back and after 1 ride and the wheel folding under me I saw the error of my ways, I would seriously consider a new rim thats just my $0.02

 

[Brian HCM#1]

A great wheel builder knows how to use a tension gauge. Don't tell him to abandon that out of bravado.

As said above, go for a middle ground. Perfectly straight wheels with unbalanced tension will not stay perfectly straight for long. I usually loosen the spokes around the bend and try to bend the rim back a bit before re-truing. It's never perfect, but that's what disc brakes are for.

By picking at the spokes with your fingers you can hear if they are tensioned correctly. If you build enough wheels, you'll know.

 

[mattmatt86]

matt, if you are having issues, your spokes might bee too long on one side...

They are, I rounded to avoid having to buy 2 different length spokes ...and I need to improve my wheel building/truing skills.

 

[stoney]

I did that on my current rear wheel and it was stupid. I'm re-lacing it with the right length spokes this weekend... *stupid me.

 

[mattmatt86]

I did that on my current rear wheel and it was stupid. I'm re-lacing it with the right length spokes this weekend... *stupid me.

My fronts needed 292 and 293, the rear needed 291 and 293. I went with 292s all the way around.