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Old 02-22-10, 10:11 AM
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dabac
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Originally Posted by BayBruin
1) I know you are supposed to tighten in small increments .. but what if the spoke is REALLY loose?
In a perfect world, that shouldn't happen. IRL you get that either b/c the rim has taken lasting damage while being ridden, or b/c some manufacturing defect. If it's close by the joint its usually the latter.

Originally Posted by BayBruin
Is it still just a matter of tightening the loose spoke a half turn then loosening the surrounding spokes to ease it back in?
w/o a tensiometer this is a hopeless question. Language alone just won't cut it when trying to describe how loose the loose one is, and how tight the other ones are. When you have a rim that's been marked by reality in one way or another you pretty much always end up with a compromise between trueness and balanced spoke tension. I'd give priority to tension, as long as ride characteristics, frame clearance and braking isn't affected.

Originally Posted by BayBruin
2) I've ben told on rear wheels that the chain side needs somewhat more or less tension. Is that true and if so how much and why?
True, rears need more tension on the drive side. How much depends on the specific components used, AEO gave some ballpark values. Why? because rear hubs with external gears aren't symmetrical. Drive side flange is closer to axle middle than NDS.
Originally Posted by BayBruin
3) When do you decide to completely re-tension your wheels ...
When there's no other way to straigthen out the mess of varying spoke tensions, maybe a bit of radial hop as well, and when you have a wheel that just seems to go more out of true the harder you try.

Originally Posted by BayBruin
3) .. and how best do you do that?
Slacken each spoke in maybe 1 turn increments until all spokes go loose, preferably this would also coincide with having equal amounts of threads showing for each side of the wheel. If you haven't, that's your first equalizing task right there.

Originally Posted by BayBruin
4) When and how do you use a tension meter?
a) whenever you want to discuss your wheels with a better degree of accuracy than "kinda tight/ sort of loose"
b) I use mine a lot. Without it I find it very hard to determine if a spoke is 5 or 20% off its neighbor in tension.

Originally Posted by BayBruin
5) I carry my laptop on the chain side pannier. Is that the right call or does that even matter as far as where the load gets placed?
As long as the bike is upright when ridden it doesn't matter which side you hang your pannier. If you only use one pannier, haing it opposite the side where you usually walk/mount the bike.

Originally Posted by BayBruin
6) It appears from the videos that you loosen spokes by turning clockwise, and tighten counter clockwise...this has kind of thrown me off a little since I always thought "righty tighty, lefty loosey."
AEO covered that. I "always" work facing the rim strip, which handles that issue.
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