Originally Posted by
MassiveD
I don't think that tensioning and detensioning make any real difference. What you need to do is bring the wheels to full tension then stress relieve the spokes, etc... If you buy a factory wheel there is theoretically no real harm to them so long as the spokes are brought up to tension and stress relieved. Where the problems cro up is when that is not done, or the components are of unknown source. Matched components that play well together can be critical to touring wheel longevity.
These two factors essentially build, and component mix, are 99% of wheel longevity, while butted or not butted are likely not even 1%. The main advantage to hand built wheels is ensuring the component mix and build quality. Down the road, though, large savings can be achieved if one can only replace the rims as they wear out, as the spokes and hub life can extend to hundreds of thou miles. Even big name builders like White will not recycle your spokes which is too bad as it makes for a more reliable wheel down the road.
Tensioning makes all the difference. There needs to be enough tension especially in the rear so that the NDS spokes don't go all popcorn on you and they need to be evenly tensioned since only then can you have all of the spokes at acceptable tensions and not just the majority or a few of them. I do agree on the stress relief but that takes under a minute and anyone can do that on a wheel.
Component mix on the other hand is of relatively little importance. If the wheel components are even somewhat compatible no issues should crop up. I don't even really understand what you mean by components that aren't well matched (I'm assuming you don't mean lacing radial with a hub that does not allow for it)
Spoking pattern on the other hand can have a quite a large impact since the spoke angle at the hub should be in the right area to prevent
1) hub failure (too radial a lacing pattern on a hub not designed for radial)
2) spoke failure (too many crosses and too acute an angle of spokes relative to the hub)
You can think what you like about butted spokes but the truth is that they are more durable and an excellent choice for especially heavy riders carrying heavy loads. I would say that for heavier guys the importance of spoke butting grows exponentially.
How does recycling spokes make the wheel more reliable? They do go through a lot of stress cycles during their lifetime in the wheel and it's likely spokes even go through fatigue cycles so one would imagine it's a good idea to replace a fatigued part when possible.