nightrider
New Member
- Local time
- 8:12 AM
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2008
- Messages
- 19
I see your point, but I think they shorten the range of sliding, sure did make it feel more solid.I think I'll glue the X zip-ties also, I'm good with a soldering gun but don't like the permanence of solder on the spokes, in case of road repairs.
Virtually nobody ties and solders spokes anymore anyway. It's an archaic practice used by racers decades ago. World class road and off-road racers do just fine without it. As for the permanence if you need to do repairs, I would worry about the glued-on drive ring.
On just regular bikes in my youth every spoke problem I ever had was the spoke pulling out of the nipple. None were expensive bikes back then. Seems nipples are made of silver, brass, alloys, steel. Brass is a very soft metal. I thought some were stainless but didn't see any on niagras site. Use your own judgement OP, its your risk.
The "regular bikes of your youth" probably had badly built wheels with poor initial tension, and were probably never trued after the bikes were bought, much like today's Walmart specials. All bikes today have brass nipples, except for some expensive racing bikes which use aluminum alloy nipples for some insignificant weight savings, or some riders who like the anodized colors that brass nipples can't have. Any expert wheelbuilder recommends against aluminum nipples. Silver nipples don't exist because they would be too soft and ridiculously expensive. There have never been steel nipples on bicycle wheels. Some motorcycles use stainless ones because of the much higher mass and speed of motorcycles, but they also have much thicker spokes.