Is it worth it to do?

I was talking to a pretty respected mechanic and he was telling me it's an old school method for increasing stiffness in the rim and therefore power transfer while accelerating.

Any cons to this?

Previous discussions of this had given me the impression that it doesn't do anything for the wheel. I can't say I've actually ever tried it, but I dig the look of it.

It was also old school to take a drill to just about any bike component---- and to nail the soles of your shoes directly into the pedals.

Why do you really want to do it? If you are having trouble with your wheel builds, you might want to start there. I personally find it very easy to build a wheel that is so stiff that it is uncomfortable these days.

It doesn't do much for lateral stiffness, but it makes the wheel feel faster. It effectively gives the wheel a larger hub flange (though no increase in bracing angle) which means less spoke in between flange and rim to transfer power which makes it feel like it is transferring more power to the road. On the wheels that I've done it to, it hasn't made them more uncomfortable, it has made them slightly heavier and gives me a psychological advantage as they feel faster.

"Lightweight" wheels still tie their spokes.

An added benefit is a broken spoke at the spoke head barely makes a difference because the spoke is still held halfway along its length.

i have a tied and soldered rear. it does make the wheel stiffer,
but i'm afraid that, in street situations, if i'm really hard on it,
e.g. curb hopping, then it will break something.

i just untied a mavic gl330. no real noticeable difference, except for maybe the psychological advantage mentioned above. however, now i'm afraid it'll go out of true easier. i'm riding it on the street so maybe leaving it tied would have made a so-called stronger wheel. i just thought it looked ugly and too track

Jobst brandt did a test with two identical wheels, one tied/soldered, the other not. He measured the deflection of the wheel when a fixed weight was hung tangentially, and found no difference.

https://yarchive.net/bike/tying-and-soldering.html has some information on this, but I think the full details are in his book.

oh yeah--cons=can't change broken spokes w/o soldering gear.

My '74 PX10 came from the factory with tied and soldered spokes. It's not true that you can't change a broken spoke without untieing and resoldering. Spokes are flexible. I don't think it does much to stiffen the wheel, but I like the look.

jobst brandt is like dutret if he got really serious about being cynical

I don't care about that Jobst Brandt test. The wheels feel better. Especially lower spoke count wheels.

so have you test ridden 2 identical wheel sets - tires, tubes, pressure, rims, spokes, nipples, rest of the bike all equal? if not, then your feeling is nothing but anecdotal. if you have blindly tested 2 identical wheel sets, and could tell us which was tied (and according to you felt better), then i would take your opinion as more than just a grain of salt.

yes, matter of fact I did. About 2 hours after riding a brand new set of Neuvations R28, I went out again with tied and soldered R28. They felt less spongy, which was a good thing. I don't care if the advantage is non-existent, they feel different. Ask a lot of wheelbuilders and they will tell you that wheels do in fact feel better.

doesn't sound like it was a blind test. you checked the tire pressure as well?

yeah.

What you need to do is grab a wheel that feels a little soft under power, tie and solder it, and you will feel a difference.

But if you want to trust lab results thats fine too.

Brand new (machine-built), low-end wheels always ship properly tensioned.

That is hardly a fair comparison....

anyone have a photo of tied-and-soldered spokes?

it's worth it if you are a die hard track rat. If you're a serious racer, then do it, but otherwise it's a waste of money. My track wheels are tied and soldered. It was free of charge, otherwise i wouldn't have paid for it

Meh I trust Uncle Jobst on this one.

Yeah. I do a lot of road racing where I take it to a sprint. You notice the difference there, but otherwise not really.

And for reference, I check the tension on all wheels I buy then tension them up depending on what they came tensioned to.

Also, from limited experience, the effect reduces as the spoke number and number of crosses increase.

I've posted before about the Jobst test - they only checked two of the three ways the wheel can deflect.

Plus, it would seem obvious that spokes that flex less will be stiffer, at least in one direction.

Jobst also says "Even a radially spoked rear wheel yields no perceptible compliance."

So tied 3x, untied 3x, radial rear - no perceptible difference between them says Jobst. And yet, if I was going to ride (the old) Ghent velodrome I know which one I'd opt for.

you may know which one you would choose, but if you were given a bike where you didn't know how the wheel was laced (hypothetical) - would you know which one you were on?

Andre, I think you definitely need that extra .06% performance increase for riding about Portland on a track bike with risers.

Radial tied and soldered spokes makes for the world's stiffest wheel.