Stopped by a bike co-op in Portland and saw them truing wheels with a spoke tension app

Quinn Allen · 2026-09-24T22:40:03.950215+00:00

I was in Portland, Oregon visiting family and popped into a volunteer run bike co-op off N. Williams Ave just to kill an hour. Three guys were truing wheels using their phones as tension gauges, tapping spokes and reading the pitch through an app, and I honestly could not tell if the wheels were coming out better or worse than my Park Tool TM-1. They swore it was within 5% on their test wheel but I have never trusted my ear that much. Has anyone here tried tension by sound, and did it hold up on customer wheels or did you go back to a real gauge?

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Stopped by a bike co-op in Portland and saw them truing wheels with a spoke tension app | Bicycle Mechanics - Thought Shares