A guy named Ray at the shop in Tucson told me my wheel builds were too loose, and he was right

Xena Martinez · 2026-10-10T10:45:04.04008+00:00

Ray has been building wheels for 30 years and he checked one of mine back in March. He grabbed the rim and squeezed two spokes together, said "if you can feel them move, they're gonna come back." I was tensioning to what felt tight instead of using a tensiometer, so every wheel I sent out was on the edge of going soft. I picked up a Park Tool TM-1 the next week and started writing down the readings for every build. First 6 wheels after that all held true past 500 miles, which never happened before. Anybody else here rely on feel for years before a tensiometer humbled them?

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A guy named Ray at the shop in Tucson told me my wheel builds were too loose, and he was right | Bicycle Mechanics - Guest Forum