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A cracked rim in a Tucson parking lot taught me to read spoke tension by ear
Last month I was loading my bike into the truck outside a grocery store on Speedway and a guy parked next to me asked why I was plucking spokes like a guitar. I told him I was just messing around, but then he had me close my eyes and tap each one, and I could hear two that rang flat compared to the rest. He pulled a small tension gauge out of his bag and sure enough, both were around 80 kgf when the others sat near 120. I had been riding that wheel for 6 months with a wobble I kept blaming on the tire. Since then I tap every spoke on a wheel before it goes out the door, and a flat ping has caught three loose nipples I would have missed with a quick squeeze. It takes maybe 20 seconds and it has saved me from handing back a wheel that would come back angry. Does anybody else use sound as a first pass before grabbing the gauge, or am I late to this?
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