meagreresource

had a wheel built about a week ago - old normandy hub laced onto a mavic open pro rim - noticed last night on my way home from work a funny click noise coming,

after looking the bike over i discovered one of spoke on the new wheel was so loose it had practically unscrewed itself from the nipple,

we`re not just talking a bit of slack this was full oin about to drop off the rim.

probably put about 100-150 miles in since fitting new wheel, its usually a bit of a bumpy ride for my slightly decrepit `73 Falcon Balck Diamond (12.5mile each way daily commute)

is this the fault of the wheel builder (LBS) not putting enough tension into the spoke or the bicycle maintenace operative (i.e. me) not checking it?

anyway all spokes tight and as true as i can get them with my meagre skill but should i expect for something similar to happen again?

mark9950

A year ago I had bought double wall wheels that did that too.You must strain relief those spokes and tweak the tension by slightly tightening the spokes.I dont think the wheelbuilder did not know what he was doing,but sheldon brown knows.scrool down to seating and stress relieving spokes.

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html

After reading his material on the web,. he can save you hundreds of dollars in labor for bike repairs.

meagreresource

the whole of the non drive side was a bit slack.

i ended up `tuning` each spoke to a note then tweak a wee bit to get the wheel back to true.

after a quick read of sheldons article i wonder if the LBS have read sections

`Spoke Torsion` and `Seating and Stress Relieving the Spokes`?

mparker326

That is normal.

powitte

Certainly I am no expert (see my thread "first wheel build--problem?"), but I just wanted to point out that there isn't uniform agreement that Sheldon's method is the best, or even a very good method for stress relieving. I recently came upon a clash of the titans: debate between Jobst Brandt and Sheldon on how to properly stress relieve. You can check it out here.

meagreresource

so i shouldnt have tightened the whole non drive side (not by much just a 1/4 turn in most cases)?

sivat

Since the angle from the hub flange to the rim is different for the drive and non-drive side spoke, the non drive side is always more slack than the drive side. As long as the wheel is still centered in the frame, you want the NDS spokes to be as tight as possible without overstressing the drive side. Considering your loose spoke, the guy who built it definitely did not do a very thorough job.

Diggidy_Dylan

Why would you lace a Normandy hub to an OP?

When I think of Normandy hubs I think of lower end French bikes. Entry level Motobecanes, Peugeot, etc.
Did Normandy make a higher end hub? If so please correct me and I appoligize for contradicting your choice of wheelbuild.

My two cents on the loose spoke. I had a buddy that had a wheel built and totally hashed it. Abused it beyond belief. He was sorta lucky it was a downhill wheel and it didn't taco itself. Moral of the story was, he sent it through several harsh bumps over a short period of time and the spokes did loosen themself. He got it tensioned and had no more tension problems. Later he pitted the hub but that was his own negligence.

BCRider

All the spokes should be tight enough to produce a musical note when you tap them with a plastic screwdriver handle or similar. The non drive spokes will be a few notes down from the drive side because of the dish but they should still be musical rather than "thud". If they were loose enough that they just went "thud" rather than a low almost base guitar like midrange "pong" then they were too loose.

Pretty scientific explanation, huh?

meagreresource

Bike is a 1973 falcon blackdiamond. - as i understand it pretty much entry level at the time but its my first road bike since the raleigh winner i had at 15 so i dont have a lot to compare it to.

the hubs probably aint all that amazing but they are authentic, wide flange numbers that look kinda nice plus they are the right OLD for a bike designed to take a 5-speed freewheel.

to be honest i would have rather stuck with the 27" steel rims that i got the bike with but the tire would slip at any decent kind of pressure and blow the tube out.

i`ll take any critisism going about the choice of components but i needed to get to work and i needed my bike back on the road asap so i went with what i could get hold of.

this can of course be a false economy. bike cost £29.99 from Ebay about 10 weeks ago,

spend to date - £250


the £20 i spent having the old steel rims trued probably my biggest waste of money (sun came out the next day, the heat blew both tubes when my bike was outside work)

Retro Grouch 

If you brought that wheel to me, I would check every spoke with my tensiometer for even and adequate tension. Then I'd "stress relieve" (not sure that's an accurate term) the spokes and retrue the wheel. That'll fix it.

meagreresource

i`ve got decent pitch from tuning guitars and electric pianos so i can get every spoke to an even tension (which i`ve just finished doing... again)

would riding and regular checking do the job on the stress relief side of things?

whatever its sure teaching me a the required patience required for wheel truing

San Rensho 

Definitely the fault of the wheel builder. The problem is not enough tension in the wheel, which is really inexcusable for an old Normandy hub build, since those hubs have much less dish than modern 8/9/10 spd cassette hubs and the tension differential between the drive and non drive side is much less.

Take it back, make 'em fix, don't get a wheel from them again.