[hinkley]

I’m not assuming the rim has no deflection. What makes you think that.

Anyway, this sums it up pretty well. Someone has a longer memory than I:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36891231

If you’re talking about twisted spokes unwinding, you don’t have to reach zero load for that to happen. You just need to reduce the load enough so the rotational force overcomes friction. Tension will also try to unwind a screw as well. But the thread pitch on spokes is very fine, which lessens that force. If you build spokes like wood screws we would have problems and that has nothing to do with reaching 0 newtons.

You can release a lot of those tensions by squeezing the spokes mid build. Just don’t wait until they’re too tight to do it. I had a pulse in my rear wheel that probably came from doing that wrong the first time. Unless it was a factory defect, I must have overtensioned and warped a brand new Mavic aero rim ever so slightly. Expensive lesson, but it could have been worse.