Cycling UK Forum

I have a new (several months old) front wheel, and it's started to develop a bit of a creak. Having a poke the spokes do feel a bit looser than the rear wheel. I've trued up wheels before, but for something like this, how do you judge a good tension by hand? Is there anything much better (without waiting for a new tool to arrive) than squeezing them and having a feel?

It's an old bike, v brakes, 26"x[mumble] double wall rim.

mister_ed wrote: ↑14 Sep 2024, 12:11pm I have a new (several months old) front wheel, and it's started to develop a bit of a creak. Having a poke the spokes do feel a bit looser than the rear wheel. I've trued up wheels before, but for something like this, how do you judge a good tension by hand? Is there anything much better (without waiting for a new tool to arrive) than squeezing them and having a feel?

It's an old bike, v brakes, 26"x[mumble] double wall rim.

Tune them to G for a 700c wheel. Having said that if you compared the spokes to the drive side rear wheel them=n they might feel looser.

it is probably easiest if you compare with a 'known good' wheel. If you increase the tension about 1/4 turn at a time, you should be able to control it.

Looks like someone edited my post.

SprokenBroke wrote: ↑14 Sep 2024, 10:53pm Looks like someone edited my post.

On my keyboard the "=" key is next to the delete key ....

Brucey wrote: ↑14 Sep 2024, 6:20pm it is probably easiest if you compare with a 'known good' wheel. If you increase the tension about 1/4 turn at a time, you should be able to control it.

Sounds like a plan! I'll give it a go today.

Brucey wrote: ↑14 Sep 2024, 6:20pm it is probably easiest if you compare with a 'known good' wheel. If you increase the tension about 1/4 turn at a time, you should be able to control it.

Thanks for the advice, it worked like a charm. I compared it to my SO's front wheel (pretty new bike), and quickly switched from 1/4 to 1/2 turn to ease the tedium. Gave a couple of creaks when I first got back on then stopped completely, even when really hauling on the front brake. I expect the last couple of creaks were the wheel settling.

Anyway job's a good-un back to commuting tomorrow morning!

Did you check the rim before you started, it wasn't fatigue fractures on the spoke holes making the spokes loose was it?

axel_knutt wrote: ↑15 Sep 2024, 2:01pm Did you check the rim before you started, it wasn't fatigue fractures on the spoke holes making the spokes loose was it?

I'll have another close look, but it's a pretty new rim, maybe 5 months old. No obvious signs of damage.

Nobody mentioned stressing the wheel so I wonder how long it will stay true for.

When I build or true a wheel part of the process is to place the wheel hub shell on a couple of wooden blocks and press down of the rim, rotate, repeat, turnover and repeat - in brief. That takes the wind-up out of the spokes and settles them in the hub and rim. Re-true the wheel.

Other and better advice (than mine) is available.

SprokenBroke wrote: ↑14 Sep 2024, 1:51pm Tune them to G for a 700c wheel. Having said that if you compared the spokes to the drive side rear wheel then they might feel looser.

My correction to the text.

I like and use the idea of if it doesn’t ring then it’s slack - works for me. On a dished rear wheel the spokes, on different sides, are at different tensions; the drive side should ring at a higher pitch than the non-drive side and spokes on the same side should ring at a similar pitch.

Carlton green wrote: ↑15 Sep 2024, 8:22pm Nobody mentioned stressing the wheel so I wonder how long it will stay true for.

When I build or true a wheel part of the process is to place the wheel hub shell on a couple of wooden blocks and press down of the rim, rotate, repeat, turnover and repeat - in brief. That takes the wind-up out of the spokes and settles them in the hub and rim. Re-true the wheel.

Other and better advice (than mine) is available.

SprokenBroke wrote: ↑14 Sep 2024, 1:51pm Tune them to G for a 700c wheel. Having said that if you compared the spokes to the drive side rear wheel then they might feel looser.

My correction to the text.

I like and use the idea of if it doesn’t ring then it’s slack - works for me. On a dished rear wheel the spokes, on different sides, are at different tensions; the drive side should ring at a higher pitch than the non-drive side and spokes on the same side should ring at a similar pitch.

I'm referring to this.

https://sheldonbrown.com/spoke-pitch.html

Even if you have a known good wheel to reference it seems like a good idea to me to use the pitch as a guide to tension rather than just using your fingers. That's assuming you don't have a spoke tension gauge.

John Allen’s article on the Sheldon Brown site is, I think, very educational. Well worth a read and re-read.
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/spoke-pitch.html - I’d advise others to note that the two links differ slightly and that (when I tried it) the other one resulted in a warning message.
I like what John has said. Though on-line tuners are doubtless (now) available i suspect that relatively few cyclists will have a (stand alone) musical pitch gauge, and that relatively few cyclists understand much about musical pitch. As a course guide, to get someone in the right ‘ball park’, if the spoke(s) don’t ring at all when plucked then they’re under tensioned.

I'm a musician so it's natural that I would like the idea of using pitch to gauge spoke tension. I use a guitar that I know is tuned to concert pitch. I think it's probably better to compare to an actual note. Maybe something like this online piano (switch the note names on)

https://www.onlinepianist.com/virtual-piano

If that's a bit difficult then maybe a digital tuner would work but I haven't tried it. It's definitely easier to hear a clear pitch if the spokes are plucked where they cross.

The simplest use case is checking for even spoke tension. It should be relatively easy to hear if the pitch goes up or down from one spoke to another.

mister_ed wrote: ↑14 Sep 2024, 12:11pm I have a new (several months old) front wheel, and it's started to develop a bit of a creak. Having a poke the spokes do feel a bit looser than the rear wheel. I've trued up wheels before, but for something like this, how do you judge a good tension by hand? Is there anything much better (without waiting for a new tool to arrive) than squeezing them and having a feel?

It's an old bike, v brakes, 26"x[mumble] double wall rim.

My sympathy. Giant are a superb manufacturer & with a surplus of funds from a redundancy several years back, had to buy a couple of bicycles asap, back in 2016. Bought a Giant (Nb. & Obviously a Spa Tourer), but a wheel creaked horrifically from new on the Giant, it's had literally no use as a result (Nb. Retailer were superb, supplying a FOC set of new forks, asap, based upon nothing more than a phone call from myself)

Do apologise, but have to admit that after a huge amount of time working on the wheel, I found it better to buy a new wheel, earlier this year. Have built wheels from scratch past 15 yr's, tensioned spokes, actually found that an inexpensive new wheel from a retailer was the best approach (Nb. Am literally, known as a tight ......., actually have no difficulty saving £'s when living on welfare (Nb. Now partially disabled, apparently can't work)), .never spend a penny, but spending £60+ quid, sorted the problem preventing me using the £450 bicycle, immediately, earlier this year)

Perhaps a discussion with the retailer, or buying a decent, cheap new wheel, would solve the issue?

what sort of a creak is this? intermittent? once per revolution type? continual noise?