Fulcrum Racing 5 Trued at Shop.

CRAIGO5000

Just had a brand new rear Fulcrum Racing 5 loose full tension on a rear spoke on the NDS to the point it looked like it would fall out. The wheel also went slightly out of true and since they had about 100 miles in them and have oversized spoke nipples that I couldn't adjust, I dropped it off at MCE in Urmston for a true.

They seem a friendly bunch of guys in there and after explaining what they'd do to sort it i.e. not just nip up the loose spoke (as that wouldn't re-true the wheel) but release most of the wheel tension and start over. They said cost would be between £6-12 depending on how much they have to fettle - which is fine.

I'm just going over the wheel now which cost me £10 to sort out and it's absolutely bang on in terms of terms of truing - not a single bit of movement at the pads and looking at the side profile. It's perfect when rotating too so they've done a good job in that respect.
I'm just concerned about the bladed spokes, as around 80% of them are slightly twisted towards the rim end. These aren't J-bend, they look straight-pull to me but I'm no expert on this subject. The worst is probably a 45 deg twisting of the spoke toward the rim and the rest of the adjusted spokes are around 10-20deg twisted. towards the rim edge at the spoke nipple.

I know bladed spokes are a pain to keep "flat" as you adjust them as they naturally rotate but is this acceptable to ride on? Obviously, with round spokes, you'd never know if there was any twisting present...?

I'm in two minds whether to just ride it and see how it pans out or take it back. As mentioned, the wheel is absolutely true.

Thanks

desweller

If the spokes are visibly twisted there's residual torsion there. The spokes will untwist as you ride the wheel and the spokes go through a few load/unload cycles. You'll probably hear it as a pinging noise from the wheel.

The problem that can arise with this is that, as the spokes untwist, the nipple does not necessarily rotate with the spoke, so the tension in the spoke can change and the wheel goes out of true.

The solution when building is just to adjust the nipple position a bit as you're truing the wheel so that the spoke orientation is always correct. It's usually easier with bladed spokes as you can easily see the twist; with round spokes the only way is to unload them by laterally loading the rim so they can untwist. I don't know why your shop hasn't done it.

DKay

Sounds to me that the bike shop doesn't even seem to understand spoke wind-up and that to avoid it (without having to resort to a spoke holding tool), you need back-off each adjustment with a slight turn in the opposite direction. This is basic stuff. I'd take the wheel back to them, show them the problem, get your money back and take the wheel to somebody who actually knows what they're doing. As already said, the wind-up will eventually unwind and untension the spokes in a random pattern, depending on how much each spoke is wound up. I'm no wheel-building guru, but even I know this.

Finally, just because the wheel is true, doesn't mean that the spokes are tensioned to the correct value or within a consistant range.