Thanks for the vote of confidence human_amp. One of these days, I’ll borrow a pro tensiometer (which does fit in there, etc, etc.) measure the tension and have at least one “reference spoke” to go by. But geeking out here, I believe that if you have a taut string and pluck it (e.g. like a guitar string) it makes a sound. Halve the size, and it goes up an octave. Well, my Strida spokes are well under 1/2 the size of my road bikes or my mtn bikes, and just by a simple plucking, they weren’t nearly as high in pitch, let alone an octave higher. In fact, some of them just went “thud”.
So, lets assume many of you have a well built road bike or mountain bike, or have a friend with one. Pluck the spokes. Your Strida should have a tone at least as high in pitch or higher. If not, time to tension them.
BTW, (ok, I do love to build wheels), “stress relieving” has to do with over-stressing the spokes so that they stretch in a predictable manner. Turns out metals have a crystalline structure, and when stressed usually stretch predictably, until one of the crystals give out (well, at least this is my understanding from Jobst’s book). At that point, they give and don’t return to their original state. Stress relieving has to do w. putting the spoke under more stress than it is ever likely to see, making sure that the spoke will always respond in a predictable, elastic fashion. After you have trued and tensioned your wheel, grab a pair of spokes and squeeze. Hard. Work your way around the wheel to make sure each is done. When you overstress a spoke, you will know it. You’ll hear a “tink”. Then go back, and retrue the wheel. Do this, at the correct spoke tension, and you will have a reliable wheel.
Surprisingly, a lot of bike store “mechanics” do not know this about a wheel. Sigh. Well, now you know.
Cheers!
bobw (a not so light, 185 lb hard-thrashing mtn biker)