Originally Posted by
SweetLou
A properly built wheel does not need threadlocking. The nipples won't rattle loose if properly tensioned. Your nipples won't spin and cause your wheel to be out of true.
"Properly" is subjective and if you asked every single wheel-builder to quantify all the variables they will ALL be different. So no one can actually agree on what "properly" refers to.
The thing is, you cannot and will never ever be able to anticipate all the riding-styles and obstacles a wheel will encountre during its lifespan. Bunny-hopping kerbs and speed-bumps will
ALWAYS untension the bottom spokes due to the loads imposed. Heck, just riding over a speed-bump without rising out of the saddle will subject the wheels to 1000lbs of loading and end up untensioning the bottom spokes.
Now the only "properly" I may agree on is a "properly" ridden wheel that never ever hits a pothole, never goes off a kerb, never goes over rocks or speed-bumps and never bumps into a parked-car. In those cases, then yes, lubed/unlocked nipples will perform just as well as thread-locked ones.
Of the hundreds of wheelsets I've built, the ones with SpokePrep, Loctite or linseed-oil on the nipples have stay true the longest. Heck, I had a set that was 20-years old and over 50k-miles that I rebuilt recently due to spoke-fatigue. Although my weight-gain from 180 to 245lbs probably helped its demise.
