I am car-free. I use my bike for everything, including trips to Costco. Over last two years I have been using trailer for that, and the combined load (trailer + Arkel panniers) took a toll on my rear wheel. Got a replacement, but a few weeks ago, I broke it as well. So, I was looking to buy an inexpensive, good, sturdy wheelset and recently I have purchased a prebuilt Mavic A719 rims, laced to Shimano LX touring hubs (36 h, 3 cross, dt swiss 2.0mm SS straight spokes) off ebay.

I have just got the wheelset and did some quick quality check. It seems to be well built, but one thing worries me a lot. The average tension on the rear wheel driveside spokes is about 150 kgf. I found a few threads on here, that suggest 70-90 kgf (as per Mavic). Moreover, the consensus seems to be that one minimum necessary tension have been achieved, increasing tension just puts the stress on wheel components.
https://www.tech-mavic.com/tech-mavic...ucts/2_119.pdf
https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-me...on-values.html
https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-me...e-tension.html

I contacted the seller about that, asking what tension values they aimed for when they built the wheelset and they said they don't have such info (???). So, what should I do? Do I live with wheelset with tension nearly twice as high as Mavic recommends? Return the wheels and look somewhere else? Try to lower the tension myself? All I want is to have good strong wheelset that I can take grocery shopping in Costco Thanks a lot!

150kgf is a bit high IMO for Mavic rims that I've worked with (including the A719). Drive side tensions of around 110-120 are more like what I would aim for. BUT ultimate tension is more a feel then a number for me.

Given your use I would expect that you'll be having rim/wheel issues with just about any combo in time enough. What tire size do you run? Andy

Thanks, Andrew, but what exactly do you mean: " In my defense, the wheels that I had on the bike were 28h lightweight Ritchey Aero Pro, which are known to have rim fail at the nipple even without joys of Costco. Unfortunately, it has been only recently that I learned about the importance wheel strength

I think that 36h Mavic A719 should do the job for me. I have been reading about clydes doing heavy loaded tour on them (and I am just an average skinny guy). The argument is that as long as wheel is well built, they will last. That is what I am concerned about high average tension.

EDIT: at the back tire is Schwalbe Marthon Plus 30, might switch it to 32.

If tension is even around the wheel at 150, It's probably safe, even though I would never take it near that high when building. How did you take the reading? Has your meter been accurately calibrated to the spoke size used?

What I mean is that for many decades wheel builders never talked about spoke tension other then perhaps pluck tone*. I don't know of any builders outside of wheel building manufacturers (maybe) who had tension meters. We all did pretty much the same thing WRT how high to tension spokes. We felt the various aspects and watched the resultant changes. Nipple turning stiffness, wrench/nipple fit, spoke wind up, localized rim deformation, hub flange hole deformation, musical tone of plucked spokes, wheel deflection (stiffness) WRT components at play and likely other factors that become almost unconscious but done just the same. Some builders were better then others at this and they usually had better reps for their wheels being reliable, consistent, stiff and all those factors that make a nice wheel a good wheel.

An example of this is when I was early in my shop life my bosses never bought pre made wheels. We offered a "core credit" for their old hub if it was in good enough condition. During the off season we rebuild these hubs and added new hubs as we saw fit then built up next year's supply of our replacement wheels. When you lace and tension/true 4-6 wheels a day, 3-4 days a week over a few months then get the feedback later when you install and offer a 30 day retrue check you get pretty good at judging many of these factors (that make a nice wheel a good wheel). (You also go home with tingling finger tips and sore necks from the lacing truing of hundreds of spokes each day).

Things are now different of course. The advent of low cost tension meters, repair grade wheels being cheaper to buy pre built and what I call component wheels (all name brand "fancy" wheels) mean that today's wheel builds are few and far between for most shop mechanics. The way of feed back is more related to a number on a scale and not some intangible combination of wheel aspects. Imagine a language that is only written and not spoken. The fluency gets lost yet people will discuss the exact meaning of the written words, without the aspect of vocal inflections, cadence, facial expressions. Some meaning is lost, other meaning is shifted a bit.

So when I say that I build wheels more by feel I mean that I sense the wheel as a dynamic system with the ability to talk to me as I change the system. I do pluck spokes along the way and do a final tension meter check or two as I get to what I think is a done wheel. Every so often I'll add tension and check again. But that's not the usual. If the tension meter wasn't available I'd still be comfy with my finished wheels now, as I was years ago too.

One aspect not often talked about is what I think of as the wheel's future ability to be serviced. If spoke tensions are very close to or at their "max" (whatever that means) then as the wheel goes around it's life and gets the inevitable bumps and bruises the ability to true it is less then if the wheel started out a bit less tensioned. IMO the more range between enough spoke tension and the max tension the greater this real life serviceability will be. Brass nipples and butted spokes aid this range and as such is why I prefer using them as often as I can. Andy.

* Years ago my cousin, John Allen, wrote an article for Bike World which related the plucked tone (musical note) of a spoke to the tension of that spoke. he provided a mathematical formula accounting for (among other factors) spoke gage, length, material. This was the first example of defining spoke tension with a number that I can remember. IIRC this was a few years before Jobst Brandt's book, The Bicycle Wheel, was published.

rims from before the deep section aero wheel were built with strong enough rim holes, and were floppy enough that they'd taco before reaching the limits of the spoke. So tensioning them as tight as they could be worked fine. Modern deep section wheels are much stronger, and the spoke will break, the rim will crack at the hole, or the hub flange will break before they deform. So measuring tension is much more important than in days of yore.

Why don't you go around the wheel and loosen each nipple a quarter of a turn and take a new reading. Do this until you acheive the desired 110 - 120 kg reading on the driveside. Or take it to your LBS. I have purchased good quality machine built wheels. After checking tension and true, etc. I have had no problems whatsoever.

150 kgf is crazy high. Are you sure you're using the right column for the spoke size? It might be worth checking the spoke, if you've still got the gauge that came with the tensiometer (assuming it's a Park).

If you do it this way on a dished wheel, the non drive side will move the rim at least 2 to 1 compared to the drive side resulting in an un centered rim. You can't just go willy nilly adjusting all the nipples without monitoring how it affects the dish.

definite Con is having the spoke pull a hole in the Rim . cracking It ..

Wow, thanks once again Andrew R Steward! That is quite amazing description of the art of wheelbuilding. The seller sells dozens of wheelsets on eBay a month. I don't know if they build it in-house or contracted out. Although I am quite certain that given the prices the sell their wheels for, those must be machine built. They have 100% feedback on thousands of items sold. So, I would guess that they know what they were doing. I obviously don't, so I relied on tension meter

As to how I measured. I have just bought Park Tool TM-1, it is brand new and I hope it is calibrated properly. I measured spoke diameter with caliper and it matches the description in eBay listing. I know it is SS, because it is magnetic. Finally, I used PT web applet to get average spoke tension. So, assuming my TM-1 is properly calibrated, I think I did that part right. Now, I do realize that it is a big if and I will take the wheel to LBS and ask them to recheck the tension and see what values do they get. But for instance the front wheel is tensioned at around 85 kgf, which quite in line with Mavic specifications.

I will the seller e-mail asking about that once again, but how difficult it is to reduce the tension on rear wheel while maintaining dish and then re-true? Once again, thanks everybody for help and inputs so far.

EDIT: Actually, just realized that John Allen's article on "music" tensioning, is linked from Sheldon Brown page on wheelbuilding!

I don't disagree that current wheels have a narrower range of best spoke tension and that most people playing with wheels need a tension meter to gage the tension in a way that "works". I was saying that I don't build with just final tension as the primary goal. I also don't do many deep dish rims so my experience with this type is less then some. I am of the belief that some of the increased tension need is because of the fewer spokes. (Of course this isn't what the OP has, both rim and spoke count). I do admit to experiencing very few (actually can't remember any but I am reluctant to say none) spokes which broke during building. Many rounded off nipples, a few broken off nipple heads, the usual. Now after the wheel sees use and cycles of stress are building up fatigue will at some time take over, as we all know. And with higher tensions and more spoke stretch as the beginning fatigue/cycle curve is steeper. Andy.

Mavic goes for 110kg for their rims. On 36 spokes you are high, but the wheel will be OK. Just to be sure stress relieve the wheel by squeezing parallel spoke pairs on each side of the wheel. If the wheel goes out of true loosen the spokes by 1/2 turn and retrue and ride the wheel.

Thanks. Should I try to ask seller to reduce the tension, or it is too much of a hassle which won't be worth it now that the wheel is built that way? If I do, should ask to tension drive side to 110 and non-drive will be whatever it needs to be to maintain dish? (I am reading that usually the ratio is 2:1, so drive side most likely would be 55. that is not too low?)

The NDS to DS ratio is closer to 1 to 0.7 on 135mm OLD hubs with 8/9/10 speed freehubs. 130mm OLD hubs will be a bit higher like 1 to 0.6..

As [MENTION=153503]davidad[/MENTION] mentions above, do stress relieve the wheel. See Sheldon's site for instructions/options. I squeeze parallel spokes with my bare hands, there are other methods. If the wheel does not move, then it was stress relieved previously.

If you install a tire, and inflate it, the spoke tension will drop - dramatically.

Just ride it.

When it comes time to rebuild, use double butted spokes.

Thanks once again everybody for help! BF is an amazing place indeed. So, the overall consensus seems to be "use it". I have done stress relieving already, some spokes were giving noises and wheel went out of true a bit, maybe 1-2 mm laterally and up 1 mm radially. So, I am guess it was not properly stress relieved before. Also, I heard from the seller, who explained to me that the wheelset is tensioned so high because it was sold as "touring" one. So, higher tension was necessary for the extra weight it will be carrying. Happy New Year everyone!

I was not advocating anything willy nilly. If you loosen or tighten nipples by the same amount on both the drive as well as non-drive the dish should not be affected. Of course, you may still want to monitor dish.

If the wheel was symmetrically spoke angled (like a front wheel often is) then this would be correct. But with differing spoke angles this isn't correct. Maybe close but not exact. It's basic trigonometry at play. Andy.