Bought a cheap $80 cable tension gauge online and it was off by 15% on every test.

4 comments

4 Comments

Honestly my buddy had the same exact problem last year. He bought one of those no-name gauges to set up his bike. Tbh it read way low compared to the shop's tool. He ended up over tightening a bunch of spokes before he figured it out. Ngl it was a pretty annoying waste of time and money. Makes you wonder if just saving for a known brand is worth it.

phoenixw111mo ago

Wait wait wait. "Read way low compared to the shop's tool"? That's insane to me. Like, how are you supposed to know that before you mess up your whole wheel? That's the kind of thing that makes you want to throw the tool across the room. I bet your buddy felt like such a fool after he realized he'd been cranking on spokes for hours with a useless gauge. Honestly, that's exactly why I side-eye any tool that costs less than a decent lunch. You're paying to learn a painful lesson, not to get a good reading.

parker_palmer441mo ago

Yeah that's a good point from spencer_owens58, but I see it a little different. The thing about those cheap gauges isn't always that they read low. Sometimes they're just not consistent, so you get a different number every time you check the same spoke. A known brand is usually about getting a tool that gives you the same reading over and over, even if it's a little off. You can work with a tool that's consistently wrong because you can learn the offset. The real waste is fighting a tool that lies to you in a new way each time you pick it up.

stellaperry1mo ago

Totally feel that frustration! Inconsistent tools are the worst.