Cycling UK Forum

iandusud wrote: ↑30 Jun 2023, 6:08am My experience building lots of 17" Moulton wheels taught me that you need to give them A LOT of tension as the spokes are a) short (particularly when radial) and b) plain 14 gauge. Both of these factors mean that they are not very elastic compared to a much longer DB spoke.

You are no-doubt correct regarding tightness. What I don't know is how they became loose, when I built it tight.

It won't be Saturday (tomorrow) for a test ride, but it could possibly be Sunday .......... fingers crossed.

Mick F wrote: ↑30 Jun 2023, 3:57pm

iandusud wrote: ↑30 Jun 2023, 6:08am My experience building lots of 17" Moulton wheels taught me that you need to give them A LOT of tension as the spokes are a) short (particularly when radial) and b) plain 14 gauge. Both of these factors mean that they are not very elastic compared to a much longer DB spoke.

You are no-doubt correct regarding tightness. What I don't know is how they became loose, when I built it tight.

It won't be Saturday (tomorrow) for a test ride, but it could possibly be Sunday .......... fingers crossed.

I think the answer is that all spokes stretch when tensioned but after a while relax a bit and loose some of that tension. This is also the case with big wheels with much longer spokes. It therefore has to be taken into account when building any wheel but is clearly more of an issue on small wheels. When I was building a lot Moulton wheels I once got a phone call from Monty Young of Condors asking me how on earth to get enough tension in the rear wheel spokes whilst maintaining the huge amount of dish required. I explained the technique I'd developed which was to leave the NDS spokes loose, get lots of tension on the DS spokes and then tighten the NDS spokes to pull the rim back to the centre. Re the front radially spoked wheel, just go mad with the spoke key!

Chuff-chuff has gone!

Test ride complete, and I have a silent front wheel. Thinking about it, I reckon it's been like that for a couple of months. I put it down to something in the front mudguard or possible the SP-8.

It was the spokes all along!
SP-8 dynohub is off the hook thank goodness.

The question remains, on how can the spokes loosen when they were tight and stress-relieved. Never had this problem before.
Separate thread on here needs raising methinks.