I finally stopped trusting factory spoke tension on a new wheel build

Back in March I got a set of wheels from a big online retailer, figured they'd be fine out of the box. Took them out for my first real ride near downtown Austin and felt a weird wobble on every downhill. Got back to my stand and grabbed my Park Tool TM-1 tension meter, started checking spokes. Every single one was way low, like 80 kgf on the drive side where it should be closer to 110. The non-drive side was all over the place too, some at 60, some at 40. I ended up loosening every nipple, retruing the whole wheel from scratch, took me about 2 hours on the stand. Has anyone else gotten a brand new wheel that was basically half-built from the factory?

2 comments

2 Comments

reed.eva1mo ago

Hang on, 40 kgf on a brand new wheel? That's scary.

jessicaw111mo agoMost Upvoted

40 kgf on a fresh wheel isn't that crazy if you're building them right. I'm running 45 on my rear wheel that's a year old and it's still perfectly true after 2000 miles. The key is making sure the wheel was properly stress-relieved during the build, not just cranked down tight. If a wheel can't handle 40kgf out of the gate, that's more of a build quality problem than a spoke tension problem.