[pixelbreaker]

The Bicycle Wheel by Jobst Brandt is all I ever needed. I've built hundreds of wheels, I don't feel I need this tool. I guess if you're being really anal about it it's of value. I've used a spoke tensioner once ever, just a stand and a good feel for tension is fine. I've ridden over 60000km on my wheels, no problems.

[toss1]

Sure, I've built and raced my own wheels too, on my hand-built stand which just used thumbscrews for indicators.

So, and I also clicked through with a pretty skeptical attitude.

But it didn't take many seconds to say "oh, COOL!". Perhaps it is just that I now work in a field where tolerances in the thousandths of an inch are ordinary, but I would have thought this was way cool back then too.

Now, would I spend the USD$785 for it as a hobbyist? Not likely, unless I got really serious about racing again.

But if I built wheels on any more regular or professional basis, it's the first tool I'd get after the spoke wrench set and truing stand.

Of course, the first improvement I'd really want is a way to track the locations of warps on the circumference of the rim and visualize them (e.g., an angular sensor and a way to measure a starting point such as the air valve hole). I'd also want to be sure that this whole setup does not require an internet connection. Of course, I'd be happy to share data if it could create some general benefit of big data analysis and I could share in that benefit, but it'd have to be optional.

[StayTrue]

I appreciate your comment. This is a B2B product and I feel comfortable the ROI is there for the right customer. Keep in mind 50% of the price pays for premium digital indicators from Mitutoyo. On the Islandix blog I explain how to source cheaper Chinese indicators for customers wanting in at a lower pricepoint.

To answer your question in the last paragraph, Wheel Analytics does not require an Internet connection. There is no phone home, no telemetry, no checking for software updates, etc. There are no cloud components that can fail or be withdrawn/changed.

[toss1]

OH COOL!! I was just skimming and didn't realize that that INCLUDED the pair of Mitutoyo digital indicators -- THAT actually makes it quite a bargain! (Do you manage to get a substantially better price buying them in bulk?)

Also excellent news about the ability to work stand-alone / no connection!

thanks!

[jimnotgym]

Thumbscrews are plenty accurate enough imho. I an only interested in mountain bike wheels so... I would rather have a highly tensioned wheel than a very true wheel, and as wheels get to very high tensions they are harder to true, so it is a compromise. That's why lots of mechanics steer clear of high tensions, it its easier to go slacker.

[toss1]

Yes, one can get really finicky with a decent thumbscrew.

Good point on the tensioning - higher tension makes the trueing really finicky. I haven't done my Mtn Bike wheels, but my current thinking on tension is that I'd probably go with fairly tense on the rear wheel to minimize power losses, but on the slacker side in the front. High tension wheels are also much closer to catastrophic failure or folding, which I really don't want anywhere near a situation where my wheels are taking a big impact. I've also been surprised a few times how well my bike was riding after discovering that my spokes were quite slack - kind of like it creates a bit of suspension action. Just thoughts on things to try next...

[jimnotgym]

> High tension wheels are also much closer to catastrophic failure or folding,

Another way to look at it is that the higher tension gives more force holding the rim where it should be. Catastrophic failure or folding is a result of heavy impact, not tension. Unless you jump off buildings on your bike this should be very rare. Are you really seing these kind of failures with modern mtb rims from quality manufacturers. Even at downhill I would expect most wheels to be replaced due to denting or heavy buckling, not folding?!?

> I've also been surprised a few times how well my bike was riding after discovering that my spokes were quite slack - kind of like it creates a bit of suspension action

Interesting, I hate that feeling because loose front wheels deflect sideways in corners, which is kind of what you pay money for suspension not to do! Your money, your choice.

[toss1]

>>Another way to look at it is that the higher tension gives more force holding the rim where it should be.

Sort of. I'm pretty sure that the situation is basically a pre-load on a spring, and the spokes are tension springs. So, yes, you pre-load a spring and it will make the mechanism stiffer upon the initial force application. But, the spring is also that much closer to it's failure limit both in available travel and available force absorbtion capacity.

What I noticed was that I've been surprised on a good number of occasions to find little noticeable deflection even when I've checked my spokes on coming home and found them looser than I expected. They aren't sloppy loose or anything, but just loose enough that a good finger squeeze of two spokes would yield a few mm of motion, instead of twanging like a piano string. And I've been lazy enough to go out after noticing that a few times before re-tensioning them, with no ill effects. Hence my thought about really tight rear, and (slightly) loose front tuning. But yeah, something to test, not just go with ;-)

The other thing that I've noticed is that one can get a wheel so tight that it will fail catastrophically if one spoke/thread/seat fails - that gap in the tension structure can cause the pull from the other spokes to be so out of balance that it'll fold the rim. Seems to be on low-spoke-count lightweight wheels. So, I'm a bit skeptical of that approach.

[jacquesm]

> Unless you jump off buildings on your bike this should be very rare.

That's true, but kerb impacts are pretty common when cycling a lot in traffic, especially the rear (though, intuitively I would assume that that detensions the spokes rather than that it tensions them). For the front not so much, you can usually pull up the front in time. But on a bike heavy with shopping you may not always have that luxury.

I think I understand where you are coming from: competition MTB is a pretty interesting niche and it allows you to really max out on the bike for those conditions. But it makes me wonder how long such a very tight setup would last in everyday use over 10K km / year or so. Because that's my application, I've never done any MTB / offroading and at a guess stuff breaks and gets replaced far more frequently in that setting.

[idontknowifican]

we both know that there are many types of cyclists. you’re clearly one of the 95% rider 5% equipment camp, but i don’t fully agree with you wrt racing. in racing (cat 6 all the way to cat 1) these sorts if things can provide the .5% boost needed.

i guess this is more of a comment on the sort of people who would take the time to let us know how little they need help because they are so talented, when all it does is show how little they can understand others needs

[analog31]

I build my own wheels too. There's another reason for these kinds of comments, which is that a lot of cyclists have been persuaded that wheelbuilding (and other kinds of bike work) is a deep philosophical mystery requiring decades of experience and a shop full of specialized tooling. Yet people have maintained their own bikes satisfactorily with basic tools for more than a century.

This happens in any technical discipline -- two people will disagree diametrically on the amount of gear and technique needed, yet achieve identical results. And nobody knows why.

So my own reaction is that equipment like this could benefit someone who is supporting competitive cyclists (including themselves), such a person knows who they are, and has already built a few wheels. But "the rest of us" sometimes just need a reassurance that much more modest tooling will get you to a satisfactory wheel that will last a long time. Likewise for routine periodic maintenance such as tensioning and truing. My goal is decent truth, zero spoke breakage, minimal re-truing later on.

[pixelbreaker]

Yeah, for Pro mechanics who are paid to build the absolute best, yes perhaps it's useful. But for the rest of us, nah.

[jacquesm]

Even then I doubt it. The best wheelbuilders are the tradional ones.

Here is a fantastic, compact and very much to the point guide on how to spoke wheels (in dutch, google translate is your friend):

http://www.m-gineering.nl/techdex.htm

[analog31]

Likewise violin makers.

I wonder if the common thread is that these activities require a high level of skill but don't pay very well and are tiny markets, so there's no way to do the R&D needed to automate production.

[jacquesm]

There exist automatic wheel spoking machines, typically used for mass produced bikes. If I buy a new bike the first thing I do is check the spoke tension because for sure it will be a huge mess. The next is to check the fork bearings because those will usually be too tight (you can feel the individual balls) or too loose (a clicking sound when you hold the front brake and rock the bike back and forth). The joke here is that when you buy a bike it's more work than building one yourself because you first have to take it apart again. That's obviously not true but I've seen some pretty bad stuff come out of factories (brand names too...).

One recent weird thing on a brand new bike was a set of spokes that had the inside and the outside exchanged leading to all of the spokes rubbing gaps in each other. I still wonder what the story was about that one, it makes absolutely no sense at all that an error like that would be made in a mass produced bike and no sane bike mechanic would spoke a wheel like that.

[pixelbreaker]

I raced my hand built wheels on tour divide. They didn't explode, unlike a lot of people with overpriced wheels from "specialists". Granted, tour divide is the extreme end of endurance though.

[jacquesm]

I've seen more than one overtensioned bikewheel completely lose it, especially wheels with reduced numbers of spokes should be tensioned 'just so', too tight and you're waiting for a wheel failure, which if it is your front wheel at speed could very well land you in the hospital or even kill you.

[wiredfool]

Given that Jobst Brandt was ... opinionated about tensiometers, I'd disagree. (well, he was opinionated about most everything)

I think he'd like this system, as it provides a faster way to properly build up a wheel with well balanced, proper tension. The recording options would be welcomed as documentation of the wheel build.

[StayTrue]

I like to think Brandt would approve. But he would probably have some thoughts and not spare my feelings haha.

Thanks for your contributions about wheels elsewhere in this thread (I've restricted my comments to the tooling). You demonstrate knowledge that is uncommon even among people paid to work on wheels.

[wiredfool]

Thanks, I appreciate the recognition. When I was doing my masters in Civil/Structural (with a big side of FEA), I was somewhat obsessed with understanding bike wheels, as far as I could. Even spent a couple weeks while procrastinating on my project doing basically nothing but looking at old books (Theory of Elastic Stability, Timeshenko and Gere) and writing FEA model generators for wheels. Between that, a basic understanding from rec.bicycles.tech (including Brandt), his book, and wheel builds, I think I got there.

[wiredfool]

And now I've found the _archive_ of Jobst and r.b.t. https://yarchive.net/bike/index.html

And I'm sure that's only a portion of what he posted.