Originally Posted by
Carbonfiberboy
But even if he's running 130 DOS, I think you'd be wrong in your original assertion about tension: if he tensions his DS the same as his front, his NDS will be too low.
Depends on the wheel spec, and in most cases it's a small difference. For example, Mavics have the same spec for both wheels. Even with the Velocities, there is only 5 kgf difference between the two ranges. On the other hand, with a 135 mm wheel, NDS will be about 70% of DS. Use your "NDS >= front" and one of those wheels will be off by 30+ kgf. That's a recipe for disaster.
On a 130 rear DOS bike, the front tension should be between the DS and NDS tension.
This is a (mostly) correct statement, but it's irrelevant. There is a spec for DS tension and front tension, and often it's the same or about the same. NDS is whatever it needs to be to make the rear wheel true and dished. The relationship between NDS tension and front tension doesn't matter.
That's all he has to do: bring the rear tension up until his spokes are all tight, the wheel is round, and the wheel is dished correctly, i.e. rim same distance from the brake pads when inserted normally and 180° from normally. Then plink the rear spokes and the front, and adjust all rear spokes by the same amount, a little at a time, until the front plink is between the rear plinks in tone. Then readjust the dish, which will now be a bit out.
Waste of time. If the wheel is already in ok shape, just bring up the DS to where it should be (same as or slightly higher pitch than front), and then adjust the NDS, and maybe the DS if the rim is borked, to fix the dish or true. You don't need to check the NDS tension as you go
because it is entirely determined by the DS tension and the geometry of the wheel. That's why it's crazy to make any statement about what NDS "should" be.
Spoke tensions are a little like tire pressures. We try to get them to come out to spec, but there's going to be some variation, which I attempted to indicate by the "~" symbol, and there is a good bit of leeway in the exact tensions.
What gauge spokes did you use? Looking at the Park table, for just about any gauge, one of your wheels is off 10-20 kgf. I'm not saying that your wheel will fail because of it, but the only reason your NDS spokes are tighter than your front spokes is because you built one of the wheels out of spec.