Park Tool TM-1 Spoke Tension Meter

I recently went to a downhill mountain bike park. These parks, while fun are quite brutal on your bike. My recent experience left me with busted rear wheel. It was busted in the sense that while riding you could hear all sorts of pinging noises coming from the wheel. I tried to tighten up any loose spokes while I was at the park but ultimately it was time for another solution. I didn't have money for a new wheel and the last time I brought my wheel to a shop I was less than happy with the results. Chances are you may be in the same situation hence the reason you are reading this review. I purchased this item knowing that fixing my wheel would not be easy but I do have a somewhat mechanical background and access to the internet so I figured this was my most affordable solution. The tool arrived in a timely manner and was packaged appropriately (typical Amazon, keep up the good work). The device came with a simple, east to read set of instructions. The device was well built and felt durable, I was initially taken back as the size in person was much larger than what I had expected based off the pictures. I used the device to check the tension on each of my spokes and Park has a web page that will let you input the specs for each spoke and it will tell you where the wheel is weak basically. I think the hardest part for me was trying to figure out the specs for my particular spokes. That was very frustrating (not Parks fault though). After spending about an hour with the device I became quite comfortable using it and even got into a nice rhythm using it. I re-tensioned the wheel while it was on the bike because I did not have a wheel truing stand (I really don't think it is necessary unless you are building a wheel from scratch.). I found that setting the tension is much like tuning a guitar in the sense that when you tighten one spoke you loosen another. My advice is to adjust all of them a little bit at a time and continue going back over them until the tension is set vs. trying to get them all set on the first try. To summarize, I have a fancy new tool which was well worth the money and I have a nice tight and straight rear wheel and ready for the trails. If you are not afraid of a little challenge and some elbow grease I would highly recommend trying this out. I thought it was a bit pricey but it has already saved me a trip to the bike shop not to mention a new rear wheel. It will also help me keep my wheels in tune which will lengthen the lifespan of the wheels.

Let's hit the first question off the bat; Do you need this doo-dad to properly build a wheel or keep your wheels in good working order? The answer is it depends upon how close you wish to be to the bleeding edge. Mechanics have been building bike wheels for about 200 hundred years now (dating back to before the early velocipede designs), usually without the benefit of a spoke tension gauge. And for decades, racing wheels used in everything from the Tour de France to serious downhill competitions have been built without spoke tension meters as well. That is because mechanics overbuilt their wheels for the riding style and course, and their fatigue limit was sufficiently far from their elastic limit. (spokes that are tensioned too high are too close to their elastic limit, or that of the rim) Likewise, if you wish to build your own wheels and follow some basic safety factor limits when building a wheel, then a tension gauge is not important. That said, in today's world, there is always that rider out there who is 200 lbs (90.7 kg) and who wants a 24 spoke radially laced front wheel on a 330 gram rim. If bleeding edge riding is your style or you are trying to save 150 grams on your carbon fiber road or mountain bike or you want to push it right to the physical limits, then a spoke tension gauge becomes essential. This Park Tools TM-1 gauge works by using a spoke diameter gauge to measure the middle (or butted part, if your spokes are such) part of a spoke (or you could use precision calipers) and then applying the the tool so that the spoke runs between the two fixed posts and the moveable post. The arrow at the top will point to a number on the graduated scale and you then refer to the separate conversion table to see what kilograms of force (kgf) measurement this corresponds to. For most wheels, you want somewhere between 80 and 130 kgf. Although, this value can vary depending upon the exact riding application. I am not a professional or shop mechanic, but I do build wheels for myself and others that join our off road riding group. I have used this gauge for about twenty wheel builds over the last five years or so. I find it to work fairly well. My older mountain biking wheels (rim brake) are often set up with Mavic 32 hole X517 rims and are typically radially laced in the front and three cross drive/radial lace non-drive in the back. While my newer rims are often 32 hole DT Swiss, Mavic X317 disc or Stans racing rims. I can usually tune by hand and by sound my wheels so that no spoke is 20% above or below the spoke average of the entire wheel (this is a standard reference limit for bike wheels), but the TM-1 really helps me to keep my older wheels at right around 100 kgf and my newer disc rims at about 110 kgf. And these values are right in the happy middle between allowing for a long fatigue life while maintaining ample tension so that if one spoke breaks, the wheel does not taco and I can ride back to the trail head. Those tension levels also prevent fatigue at the rim eyelets and ensure long rim life. Are than any negatives about the TM-1? Not really, but I do find the spoke diameter gauge to be cheaply made. I much prefer to use my Neiko digital caliper when measuring spokes. I also wish that Park Tool would include a standard guide for major manufacturers in their conversion table. The values for a 1.5 mm butted generic spoke from China and one from DT or Sapim are not the same. (Although, you can find these exact values online) And because the gauge is a calibrated spring, I suggest any owner send it back to Park Tool every 25 wheel builds or so, so that exact calibration is maintained. However, those are relatively small quibbles. Thanks to the TM-1, I have never had a wheel taco so far or a spoke break. While this gauge is not essential to wheel building for most riders who are not bleeding edge weight weenies, it does allow the home builder to have some quantitative idea of how their wheels are doing. And for me, that means longer wheel life and no problems on the trail. Five stars in my book.

A Must Have if you want to Build Your Own Wheel Sets..

I received the Park Tool TM-1 Tension Meter and immediately read the directions and put it to use. I had a problem with a Mavic XC717 rim that I trued a couple of times but in approximately 3,000 miles the rim developed cracks near the base of the nipples. Thinking that I may have been over tensioning I asked questions and received informed suggestions from the other Amazon customers who have reviewed the Park tension meter, so I purchased it. After checking the tension on the Mavic rim that cracked I found it was tensioned too tight. Upon rebuilding a new Mavic XC717 I was very careful to make the spokes uniformly tensioned. The tension for these spokes was easily determined because the TM-1 came with a card that lists tensions for most spokes including bladed. I was surprised how easy it was using the TM-1. I'll update should the wheel develop any problems but at this point I would definitely recommend this tool for anyone who wants to work on building or tensioning wheels used or new. Update 11-8-14, I'm absolutely thrilled with the effectiveness of this tool. The Mavic XC717 that I built, with the aid of this tool, is holding up very well. I have been re-truing used wheels and this is the first tool I use in order to make all the spokes uniform. It's great starting point. The Park TM-1 is fun to use, accurate and very helpful. Update 4-13-20, I have been using the Park Tensiometer for a few years now and I find it useful. It has come to my attention that Park Tool has raised the price to an exhorbitant $80 plus dollars. I found several other spoke tensiometers on Amazon for much less, such as the one in the following link. I took a star off my rating for the price hike. Three of the tension meters are VGEBY1 @ $46, Jeffzhang @ $30 and Venzo @$39.

Must have fore spoke replacement! I have several Park tools and have never been disappointed. The support software works seamlessly with this spoke tension meter.

I've built a few wheels with and without this gauge. I know that I feel a LOT better knowing that my spokes are not too tight or too loose -and that the relative tension is even all the way around the wheel. There seems to be two schools of thought reading the other reviews. One says that this gauge is not necessary and a good wheelbuilder only needs to tell by "feel" if the wheel has correct and/or even tension. The other is that this is just more information that gives you more exact knowledge of where you are with spoke tension. The question is how does one get this "feel" if one has nothing to compare it to? The old canard about striking the spoke and listening for the correct musical note is a bit funny IMHO. Seriously? There are so many variables with regard to thickness and length of spokes that this seems to me to be just more mumbo-jumbo voodoo. A lot of wheel builders seem to be quite proud of their "mad skillz" and look down on this gauge it seems. Some say "take a wheelbuilding class for $100+ each session and "learn" this feel." I tend to go with the "get the right tool for the job" school of thought. With this gauge you will know exactly where the wheel tension is and it is one less variable that one has to guess about. Many of the reasons why some reviewers put down this tool or say that it is doing "more harm than good" in some circumstances seems to read to me as rationalizations why they or other people shouldn't spend the money on a tool such as this. Most bikes shops I visit have this very tool and wouldn't work on wheels without them. And they KNOW what they are doing. Sure, I think that a person may mislead themselves about how important this tool is with relation to other knowledge about building a wheel but if one is careful and does a lot of reading those other things can be figured out as well. Doing everything else right won't help if you have way too much tension on your wheel and start to damage the rim -or have too little and the spokes fatigue and wear quickly. Perhaps some of the VooDoo practitioners don't like the idea that just about anyone has access to the magic of spoke tension with this simple and inexpensive tool. I can't help but feel that they might be a little jealous/upset that just about anyone from the "outside" can jump ahead miles in their abilities without doing their time under the tutelage of a wheel-witch doctor such as themselves and learning the "black arts" like a proper acolyte. Raleighphile doesn't role that way! Knowledge and skills should be free to learn and all should have access if they only know where to look. One more thing: * the first meter I purchased was defective and was showing a much higher reading than what was actually present. This caused my first wheel build to tensioned WAY too loose. I thought at first that all the wheels I've ever built have been WAY too tight but I checked the gauge against one at the LBS and saw that my gauge was in fact defective. Amazon took it back and gave me another one free of charge with free shipping. It's something to be aware of. I don't know how common this is. I keep the gauge safe in the original box whenever I'm not using it an am very careful not to drop or bang it to get the calibration messed up. Having another gauge around or available to check against periodically might be a good idea. If you are friendly with your LBS I'm sure they will let you use one of their gauges to make sure they are reading the same.

If you work with your wheels at all with spoke tensioning, truing, building, etc., this is a must. As this product was arriving, I did a test and trued a 28 spoke road wheel with round spokes as best as I could. I'm not a bike mechanic, just an enthusiast. The wheel was spot on. When I got the Park Meter, I checked all the spokes. All where within tolerance, but two where 2/3 of what they should have been. It is also a great way to get a start on a good wheel true. Once you know the spokes are in the ballpark, you can start to true from there. Why bother if you don't have a baseline. I go thru and get them all close, not paying too much attention to true, then go back and get true, round, and dish spot on. Amazon is the absolute cheapest anywhere for this product. You can get very quick using this product after little use. In addition to the instrument you purchase, there are two more things in the box -- a reference chart, and a spoke gauge tool. The theory is that you look up what the tension should be for the type and thickness/diameter of spoke on the wheel, then cross reference the range of generic number that reads on the tool. The needle on the tool doesn't have units (because of diameter, blade thickness, and type), but when you look up what type and size spoke you are working with, the number on the meter just becomes a reference point. Don't just true your wheels on your bike using your brake pads, etc. If you don't start out with a real truing stand, get an old bike fork and drill a hole in a block of wood, mount the fork up-side-down, and use a spring clamp with a blade of plastic or aluminum strip/plate as the index. To work with a rear wheel, use the Q/R skewer to clamp it outside of the fork like you would on an inexpensive one-armed truing stand. Then save up for that $200 truing stand you want.

I had been using the "pluck the spoke" method along with a tuner app on my phone to try to equalize pitches and tensions. I got my wheels in pretty good tension with that method, but finally got this tool. Using this tool makes the process quicker, and more quantitative. I made my own Excel spreadsheet app that fits a cubic polynomial to the load vs. reading values from the supplied Park tables - they all come to a R^2 > 0.999. Then I enter my readings, set the tolerance I want (e.g., 10%, 15%, or 20% variation), and generate my own radial plots. This is a nice tool for the hobby cyclist who wants to step up their game in wheel building and maintenance.

Quality product from park tools. Good information supplied too.

Cumple al 100 % su función, ¿Qué decir? Es ParkTool, en mi opinión la referencia en herramientas para bicicletas

Even though I'm new to using this tool and the dark art of wheel truing this definitely helped me out a bit. I'm amazed how my wheel hadn't blown up it was that loose

Spokes that are evenly tensioned allow wheels to stay truer, longer. The TM-1 measures spoke tension and combined with the app on the Park Tool website, it becomes an incredibly powerful tool for Pro and Amateur bike mechanics alike. Would I recommend this tool for new bike mechanics? No, probably not. I got by for years truing my wheels using my brake pads as reference. But over time you may notice that even though you have trued your wheel, some spokes are low-tensioned and some are high-tensioned. This discrepancy between spokes will mean your wheel becomes untrue faster. As with most Park Tools, the quality is top-notch but you pay the price. And if you are like me and have interest in a tool like this but no idea how to begin using it, the Park Tool site provides an excellent guide and an excellent app.

とりあえず初心者でも表を読み間違えなければ100％破損回避できます 安心です テンション限界まで上げることができるので剛性確保もできます 触れ取り作業のストレスが減るのでおすすめです