While fitting new tires to my grocery chaser I noticed that a few
spokes were loose enough to rattle. At the time I didn't want to
tackle a wheel truing project, so I just tightened them enough to
stop the rattle and put the tires on. Finding the loose spokes was
a considerable surprise, since the wheels looked straight within a
millimeter or so.
Now the tires have proven very satisfactory and the clearance troubles
are as good as they're going to get, which is to say there's not a
gnat's wisker to spare, but they don't rub (hard enough to matter).
Meanwhile the wheels are still reasonably true, having never been
touched since the bike was purchased new in 2007. My suspicion is
that tightening the one or two rattly spokes to match the rest will drastically upset the truing, since it's pretty good now.
Is that a reasonable notion, or am I mistaken? IIRC the loose spokes
aren't adjacent. If it is reasonable I'll put off any further work
until there's ample time for it. I'd like to tighten spokes correctly
but don't want to untimely open a large can of worms.
Thanks for reading, and any guidance.
bob prohaska
On 2/10/2026 5:14 PM, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:
While fitting new tires to my grocery chaser I noticed that a few
spokes were loose enough to rattle. At the time I didn't want to
tackle a wheel truing project, so I just tightened them enough to
stop the rattle and put the tires on. Finding the loose spokes was
a considerable surprise, since the wheels looked straight within a
millimeter or so.
Now the tires have proven very satisfactory and the clearance troubles
are as good as they're going to get, which is to say there's not a
gnat's wisker to spare, but they don't rub (hard enough to matter).
Meanwhile the wheels are still reasonably true, having never been
touched since the bike was purchased new in 2007. My suspicion is
that tightening the one or two rattly spokes to match the rest will
drastically upset the truing, since it's pretty good now.
Is that a reasonable notion, or am I mistaken? IIRC the loose spokes
aren't adjacent. If it is reasonable I'll put off any further work
until there's ample time for it. I'd like to tighten spokes correctly
but don't want to untimely open a large can of worms.
Thanks for reading, and any guidance.
bob prohaska
A new wheel has even spoke tension all around with very
small variance while being both round and straight in one
plane as well as being centered in the frame.
After the normal vicissitudes of actually riding, small rim
deformations begin to degrade that structure. As Mr Brandt
pointed out frequently, spokes can loosen but spokes cannot
tighten from riding. That means a broken spoke (where load
had exceeded tensile strength) bore higher loads because
either other spokes were not or because rim deformation has
concentrated load at that spoke.
For your wheel, a tensiometer would be a big help. Failing
that, grasp pairs of spokes in your hand, flex, and compare
to a known good wheel for a rough approximation. It's likely
loose overall. Ensure the rim is round and then bring up
the tension a turn or even a half turn at a time all around.
The flopping spokes are not doing anything useful and a
higher more even tension will greatly improve the wheel's
overall strength and durability.
AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:
On 2/10/2026 5:14 PM, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:
While fitting new tires to my grocery chaser I noticed that a few
spokes were loose enough to rattle. At the time I didn't want to
tackle a wheel truing project, so I just tightened them enough to
stop the rattle and put the tires on. Finding the loose spokes was
a considerable surprise, since the wheels looked straight within a
millimeter or so.
Now the tires have proven very satisfactory and the clearance troubles
are as good as they're going to get, which is to say there's not a
gnat's wisker to spare, but they don't rub (hard enough to matter).
Meanwhile the wheels are still reasonably true, having never been
touched since the bike was purchased new in 2007. My suspicion is
that tightening the one or two rattly spokes to match the rest will
drastically upset the truing, since it's pretty good now.
Is that a reasonable notion, or am I mistaken? IIRC the loose spokes
aren't adjacent. If it is reasonable I'll put off any further work
until there's ample time for it. I'd like to tighten spokes correctly
but don't want to untimely open a large can of worms.
Thanks for reading, and any guidance.
bob prohaska
A new wheel has even spoke tension all around with very
small variance while being both round and straight in one
plane as well as being centered in the frame.
After the normal vicissitudes of actually riding, small rim
deformations begin to degrade that structure. As Mr Brandt
pointed out frequently, spokes can loosen but spokes cannot
tighten from riding. That means a broken spoke (where load
had exceeded tensile strength) bore higher loads because
either other spokes were not or because rim deformation has
concentrated load at that spoke.
For your wheel, a tensiometer would be a big help. Failing
that, grasp pairs of spokes in your hand, flex, and compare
to a known good wheel for a rough approximation. It's likely
loose overall. Ensure the rim is round and then bring up
the tension a turn or even a half turn at a time all around.
The flopping spokes are not doing anything useful and a
higher more even tension will greatly improve the wheel's
overall strength and durability.
It sounds like I'd better be prepared to do a truing stand
session with a dial indicator, not a quick eyeball-and-ear
adjustment in the frame....
Thanks for writing!
bob prohaska
There's no quality difference from redoing a wheel in the
bike and the same job in a truing fixture. Convenience and
clarity are important when you're doing this all day long
but for one wheel the setup isn't as critical as good
observation and patience.
AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:
There's no quality difference from redoing a wheel in the
bike and the same job in a truing fixture. Convenience and
clarity are important when you're doing this all day long
but for one wheel the setup isn't as critical as good
observation and patience.
But, there's a close correlation between quality of observation
and having the wheel in a comfortable position with a quantitative
deflection measurement. When I started using a dial indicator to
show deflection on a wheel mounted on the bench the adjustments
converged faster. It's hard to mount an indicator on a bike frame,
at least the indicator I have.
Being out of practice doesn't help, either. I true a wheel maybe
once every two or three years, at most. It's very easy to fall
into an oscillatory pattern of overcorrection. A dial indicator
helps greatly to detect that sort of error.
Thanks for writing!
bob prohaska
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