Are you a shrink or did you sleep at a holiday Inn Express. Low spoke count wheels are a marketing gadget. When were 48 spoked wheels common? 36 is the magic number.

48 spoke wheels used to be the standard for tandems. Today it's probably 36 or even 32 spokes and the exotics use a lot less. The big difference that makes that possible - deep section rims vs. box section rims. 36 spokes isn't the magic number for bike shop quality single bikes anymore either and for the same reason - they'd be overkill with modern rims.

I'm a non-repentant retro grouch but even I realize that you shouldn't fluff off every change as "marketing gadgets". Some of them really are improvements.

As I was looking at my Nisi Laser rims after posting earlier I couldn't help but think that this would have been a good idea with 24 holes. With the standard 36 holes it still felt like a tank wheel. The rear still has a Clement Criterium on it. The front some more modern replacement, but probably still over 20 years old.

No, things have changed. 36 holes is no longer standard, it is no magic number. Even my brand new XM317 cheapo mtb rims are better made and stronger. I wouldn't want to go back.

I saw a tandem at the community workshop yesterday that had 120 spokes per wheel, laced radially. I wonder how long those wheels take to build!

Everyone has different capabilities, different sense of touch, different hearing and sense of tone. Are you suggesting that most people won't build better wheels with a tensiometer than without? That it is all a gimmick to trick customers out of their cash. Because that is just plain wrong. Granted not everyone will do it better with the tensiometer, just most.

Define 'better'

whats a good wheel one that just stays perfect by itself?


No good wheels were made before they began selling them spoke tension things?

the sales do better when people buy them ..

My most useful tool the spoke crank -screwdriver ,

so I can count turns of the nip as I go Around the wheel .. to keep them equal .

I can't imagine those wheels being very strong with that many holes removing material from the rim. I've never seen one but I've heard of 95 spoke tandem wheels - they had to skip a spoke at the valve stem.

In my experience better retention of true, spoke life, and resistance to collapsing, potato chipping, etc. all come from high, even spoke tension within the strength limits of the rim, hub and spokes. So the better wheel is the one that has the most evenly distributed spoke tension (within a side on the rear) at a level right for the system. This is both the better wheel theoretically and practically. In other words it is supposed to work and it does. You can make fun with all that cutesy palaver ("them spoke tension things"), but that isn't helping the normal guy to build a wheel. As for the spoke crank screwdriver, give me a break! Neither the spokes, nipples, rims or hubs are precise enough to allow tension adjustment that way. And what if you get distracted and lose count or just make a turn or two mistake. How good are your wheels then? I grant there are some exceptional folks who can hear or feel their way to a nearly perfect wheel. I'm not one, and I don't think many others are either. The tensiometer is a useful, economical tool for the majority of wheel builders to improve their product. You don't need it? All well and good. But making fun of it or discounting its value by suggesting it is just being sold to enrich the supply side of the industry isn't helping folks build wheels.