Originally Posted by geo8rge
Are spoke tensions on BMX wheels lower than other wheels? I bought a used wheel off eBay and the spokes are tensioned to 10 on my Park TM-1 tensionometer, 17 is 51 Kgf. I think regular wheels are in the 100s Kgf.
If I wanted to used the wheel for road riding should I go for a higher tension?
i have the same tensiometer and just recently built some nice bmx wheels. i used SUN Big city lites rims and asked SUN what they should be and they said, i believe, 100-120kgf. forgot the exact number, but i would have remembered if it were significantly lower. basically the tension was similar to my other wheel builds...mtb, road, etc...
now i don't know it you have eyeleted rims or not? also, are you sure you calculated the park tension meter number correctly? i am assuming you noticed that it matters what kind of spoke it is-- double butted vs straight and diameters...
without knowing your specifics, i would tentatively say you need to crank those up to around 20-25ish on your Park tool or so. if you want i can go measure mine again. i don't recall the exact tool reading. but i do know that they were a simple no-dish build so all the spokes were equal.
i don't think it matters much about road riding...it sounds like they are not tensioned enough. you can contact the rim manufacturer to ask them. i would imagine if you have eyelets than it would be about the same as mine.