Finally stopped fighting with loose spokes after 8 years of wheel truing

Used to just crank the nipple two turns at a time and chase the wobble around the rim until 10 pm, but last week I started backing off the opposite spoke first and suddenly a 3 mm hop took me under 15 minutes, anyone else wish they'd learned tension balance that way sooner?

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pat_carter14d ago

Backing off the opposite spoke first works great when the wheel's already close, but if you start doing that on a rim with uneven tension all over the place you'll just walk the hop down the wheel and end up with a noodle. I've had wheels where every spoke was a different note when you plucked them, and loosening the far side just made the low spot move somewhere else. Get the whole wheel to a baseline tension before you chase the hop, then yeah, the half turn here and quarter turn there plan gets you done fast. You got lucky on that 3 mm one because it was probably one tight spot fighting everything else, not a real balance problem.

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