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Post by longtravel on Jun 10, 2022 9:26:09 GMT 10
You guys with new bikes it’s good to get across the required spoke tension. When my bike was two weeks old, I had done about 1,700km and checked the spokes. They tensions were all over the place. I figured that they hadn’t been tensioned evenly on assembly but in hindsight it could well be they were settling in. I had been over 80 kilometres of dirt with bad corrugations to get to the 50th Alpine Rally with a heavy load on.
I now check them at about 2,500km intervals. There are usually some spokes need a nip up, with it mainly being the back wheel. They need less adjusting as they have settled in. Some people seem to never need to tighten their spokes. Maybe they get more tension on them. In the past there has been some discussion that overtight spokes can result in cracked rims.
I broke two spokes on corrugations in Kakadu and swapped to the spare wheel. I had new spokes fitted in Alice Springs. The guy that fitted them was a factory sponsored desert racer. He said he ran his bikes with slightly less spoke tension to lessen the chance of spokes breaking in a race. After fitting the new spokes, again there seems to have been a settling in period.
Enjoy playing musical tunes, ping tapping your spokes to check the tension.
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Post by haitch on Jun 10, 2022 19:26:19 GMT 10
You guys with new bikes it’s good to get across the required spoke tension. When my bike was two weeks old, I had done about 1,700km and checked the spokes. They tensions were all over the place. I figured that they hadn’t been tensioned evenly on assembly but in hindsight it could well be they were settling in. I had been over 80 kilometres of dirt with bad corrugations to get to the 50th Alpine Rally with a heavy load on.
I now check them at about 2,500km intervals. There are usually some spokes need a nip up, with it mainly being the back wheel. They need less adjusting as they have settled in. Some people seem to never need to tighten their spokes. Maybe they get more tension on them. In the past there has been some discussion that overtight spokes can result in cracked rims.
I broke two spokes on corrugations in Kakadu and swapped to the spare wheel. I had new spokes fitted in Alice Springs. The guy that fitted them was a factory sponsored desert racer. He said he ran his bikes with slightly less spoke tension to lessen the chance of spokes breaking in a race. After fitting the new spokes, again there seems to have been a settling in period.
Enjoy playing musical tunes, ping tapping your spokes to check the tension.
Thanks for your post. As a new owner I have been pinging/tuning spokes on my 2022. Early days yet. How did you check the torque on your spokes? 5Nm as far as I know.
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Post by taz on Jun 10, 2022 19:39:05 GMT 10
In a previous life I owned a bicycle shop for 10 years. In those days re-lacing a wheel still made money...
We would always dip the end of the spokes in linseed oil before fitting the nipple. This works as a lubricant for assembly. As the linseed oil dries out it acts a threadlocker, reducing the chance of spokes coming loose.
I have no idea if modern wheel builders use any kind of threadlocker, but I would imagine that linseed oil would work on Ural wheels as well.
And yes spokes on offroad bikes should not be quite as tight as on road bikes. Spokes that are not too tight act a bit like a spring reducing shock loads.
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Post by longtravel on Jun 11, 2022 15:45:03 GMT 10
Haitch, I considered getting a spoke torque wrench but instead got an A grade superbike rider to show me what he reckoned the correct tension was. So I use a combination of feel and listening to the tone of the ping. I make the spoke tight, without heaving on it, then test the sound. The sound can be different depending on which spoke it is in the four spoke pattern. I tighten spoke one all the way around, then go to spoke 2 all the way around etc. Then I go back around checking again if any of the spokes were loose.
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Post by longtravel on Jun 11, 2022 15:47:49 GMT 10
Taz, I have heard of lubricating spokes but never about linseed oil acting as a thread locker. That's a good tip. The spokes on my criterium race bike never loosened so maybe they had been assembled that way.
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