I had a real quick question about my spokes after truing my wheel.
Some background: Have had the uni (29) for a few months now, had a few spokes starting to get a bit loose. I decided to take it to my LBS and have them true it up for me, as I have not yet learned the skill (though I will be shortly).
I got my wheel back today, and threw it in my frame. On the first couple of pedal strokes I could hear my spokes making a kind of soft pinging sound. I got off and went around the whole wheel squeezing all the pairs of spokes and figured it’s coming from where the spokes cross. When the spokes move against each other, some would make that sound.
So I got on and rode a bit more, and the sound has slowly started going away, getting less and less frequent, now almost gone.
My question is, is this normal? My wheel is definitely tighter than it was before, and could it be that it’s just kind of settling in to it’s new shape?
Pretty sure thats normal.
I’ve had a few unis pop like that from time to time on the first couple of rides but it goes away.
Truing a wheel just gets it straight but there are no opposing forces to the spoke being stretched.
Things are just settling.
This means during truing they did not relieve the spoke tension. So with those first few turns, uneven stress stored in the wheel was distributed across the rim and spokes. that caused the creaking and pinging. It’s possible that the wheel has relaxed to be less true than delivered.
A properly built wheel should make no noise while ridden, even for the first ride. Your wheel builder may have skipped the steps of pre-stressing, then stress-relieving the spokes.
Once the noises stopped there is not much point in stress relieving the spokes since all that popping and pinging was your spokes relieving their own stresses.
If the wheel is still strait (it probably is unless your wheel was really bad) then I would just leave it as is and enjoy your ride.
That is pretty common actually. Truing a rim is only needed if your rim is not true as pointed out by Eric. Routine tightening of your spokes is really all you need to do and every time you tighten loose spokes you will most likely hear that pinging noise on your first ride out.
There a few methods to tightening spokes. I learned from my mechanic when I raced motocross. Not really that difficult to do, but may be slightly off topic. If anyone is interested I would be happy to share.
It’s actually slightly worse than others are suggesting. The noise isn’t the spokes stress relieving themselves - they don’t do that of their own accord - though it’s almost certainly a step the LBS missed, so you will still have the potential issue of premature fatigue failure due to stress concentrations in the spokes. The sound is actually the spokes untwisting, as the builder at your LBS wasn’t even good enough to avoid wind-up. This will result in the wheel going slightly out of true - it’s the reason why traditionally you get advised to bring a wheel back in for a tweak after a bedding in period (a well built wheel shouldn’t change after riding - I’ve never had to touch any of the wheels I’ve built after putting them on a bike or a uni).
Whether it’s worth doing anything is another matter - if you’re not using rim brakes then the amount it’s likely to have gone out of true is trivial enough for you not to notice in normal riding. Stress relieving would help with durability of the spokes, but in my experience wheels do always need a bit of retruing after doing this so you’d end up having to take it back into the shop unless you get the skills yourself (highly recommended). Also if the spokes were stress relieved when the wheel was originally built, they won’t have a huge amount of stress concentrations due to retensioning them - I’d suspect that a wheel where spokes are losing tension is also badly enough built not to have ever been stress relieved, but in that case you’re no worse off than you were originally.
Wheel building and truing really isn’t that difficult or complicated - just involves a number of important details which a lot of people who work on wheels are unaware of or don’t bother with.
I’m not an expert wheel builder, but I think that sometimes the pinging is just the spokes popping back into place. With painted spokes, the spokes can easily get stuck to each other, so when you start riding, they spring free to find their correct location. Sometimes you can make the wheel ping just by squeezing the spokes together when you are checking tension, and then riding.
My spokes aren’t painted, but what Unihopper is saying sounds exactly like what I’m experiencing. If I take two spokes where they cross and squeeze them, they’ll make that ping sound and then pop back into place when I let go. Like they’ve formed around each other.
So, I’ve decided I’ll leave it alone as the wheel still seems straight to my untrained eye. (I did use the ziptie trick on the frame.)
However, I’m definitely going to learn how to do this myself so I can make sure it’s done a 100% right next time.
No. A properly built wheel will only need adjustment if it is knocked out of true. If your spokes are coming loose, they’re not tight enough to begin with, or your threads are worn beyond their usefulness.
I’ve had the privilege of riding on a Ken Adelman built wheel (36" Aerofoil rim). Over 2000 km later, both on and off road, including two international trips, and it is as true as the day it left his shop. Edit: without a touch from a spoke wrench.
The case might be different in motocross… I’ve no knowledge of that sport.
Spoked wheels are designed to be dynamic so that they don’t break when stressed.
As the wheel flexes, spokes are detensioned and tensioned, which can cause spokes to loosen (detension) or break (tensioned).
There is no such thing as a perfectly build wheel, all wheels need some work over time unless they don’t get much use, ie not stressed. A road wheel is not stressed much in contrast to a muni wheel, so you should expect more or less truing depending on how you use your wheel.
You can use thread lock when building a wheel, this will make detensioning less likely, but even threads with thread lock can move over time. I build my own wheels, I use thread prep, but not thread lock. I true my wheels every six months or so unless I do something dumb and mess up the wheel
When a wheel is built or re-trued, the spokes can twist vs tightening in the nipple, so when you ride the wheel you can hear the spoke detwist when it “pings”. Generally, the twisted spokes are relieved by the builder/truer while they work, but sometimes they forget a step or they miss one.
When the spokes detension while riding, this generally means your wheel is going to come out of true, but it may not be enough to make a difference. Spin the wheel and see if it’s true.
This might be a good point at which to learn how to true your own wheels.
I got white PCed spokes on my trials and the first ride i went on it pinged for a hour or so and every time i tenton it or true it the wheel will do it a few times.
(thanks for the link Maestro!)
