Mavic Monthlery Route spoke tension

[Glug]

Hiya folks,
I'm fixing up a 1982 Holdsworth Avanti which is original except for the wheels - Mavic Monthlery Route instead of Super Champion 58.
It was apparently in somebodys shed for about 15 years until recently.

I've done the bearings, replaced the cables, and unstuck the stem and seat post.
Now I'm checking the wheels and they're true to within about 0.5mm, but the spoke tension seems really low.
Using a cheap tension meter I'm getting:

Front wheel left avg 52.6 (min 40.9, max 63.3)
Front wheel right avg 52.8 (min 44.3, max 63.3)
Rear wheel DS avg 61.3 (min 52.6, max 66.5)
Rear wheel NDS avg 37.1 (min 32.8, max 44.3)
DS/NDS ratio 1.65
(2mm round steel spokes)

Looking on the web suggests Mavic say 70-90kgf for their rims (not certain that applies to 1980s though).
And one quote was 95 on the front and 110/60 on the rear.

Apparently using them with low tension will probably result in damage.
So my theory is I should increase the tension evenly to around 90 on the front and 100/60 on the back.
I should also take the tension meter to a LBS and check it against theirs, or try the spoke frequency method.

Does anybody think that makes sense ?

 

[pigman]

To be honest, I'm not sure anyone hand building wheels is even au fait with those numbers. Most builders have that knack of knowing when a wheel is right. The numbers are probably more relevant for machine built wheels

 

[jim haseltine]

No idea - I've always built wheels by feel. From what I remember, the Route was a middling strength sprint rim which could take more tension than a special like an OR10 but less than a SSC but in all cases there's no black & white standard 'set' tension, each wheel is slightly different. If the spoke heads are properly seated, the wheels are true, the spokes aren't loose and have tensions which are reasonably similar around the wheel then I wouldn't be bothered.

 

[Glug]

Cheers,
The spokes don't feel very tight and I was concerned about damaging the rims.
But I'm not certain any of them qualify as too loose either.
I haven't adjusted a complete wheel before so I wanted the numbers to know if I'm in the right ballpark.

Given the wheels are pretty true does it seem reasonable that the tension was originally higher and the (steel) spokes just 'relaxed' over 15 years ?

From what I've found on the web the rims should be fairly strong:

Mavic Monthlery Route rims were 21.5mm wide with a 1.1mm wall thickness and have double eyelets for spokes. They're relatively heavy rims at 420g
and were supplied OEM (Original Equipment Manufactures) on a lot of new bikes. They were recommended for training, cyclocross and heavier riders.​

 

[FiveAlpha]

Slightly off-topic, but why did they change the name from Montlhery, a place in Northern France, to Monthlery, which doesn't mean anything?

There seem to be various spellings, but I can't imagine a British firm changing a product from Edinburgh to Edinboro, or Leicester to Lester, just because foreigners can't pronounce it!

 

[Glug]

In my research I did find this:

By the way, there was an older Mavic rim with a similar name, but was not part of the same lineup. Some readers may recall a model called the Montlery (note the lack of the "h" in the spelling) Championnat du Monde which was a pretty common OEM rim in the early '70s. Several sources state that they were original equipment on early '70s Schwinn Paramounts, for example. These were a single-eyelet rim that had knurled sidewalls (remember those?) that were supposed to improve braking, but generally just made the rims howl like banshees when stopping

From https://bikeretrogrouch.blogspot.com/2016/12/old-is-good-mavic-monthlery-rims.html

 

[Glug]

I also asked my question over in https://www.bikeforums.net/.

The experts there said spoke tension was generally lower in the early 80s, and the idea of measuring tension and setting it fairly high came in in the mid 80s. They said it wasn't a good idea to increase the tension on old 2mm nonbutted spokes and I should just try it as it is and watch for any loose spoke problems (and that wouldn't damage the rims).

So that's what I'm going to do, time to buy some tyres.

 

[FiveAlpha]

In my research I did find this:

By the way, there was an older Mavic rim with a similar name, but was not part of the same lineup. Some readers may recall a model called the Montlery (note the lack of the "h" in the spelling) Championnat du Monde which was a pretty common OEM rim in the early '70s. Several sources state that they were original equipment on early '70s Schwinn Paramounts, for example. These were a single-eyelet rim that had knurled sidewalls (remember those?) that were supposed to improve braking, but generally just made the rims howl like banshees when stopping

From https://bikeretrogrouch.blogspot.com/2016/12/old-is-good-mavic-monthlery-rims.html

So it seems that there have been three different spellings, but that still doesn't explain why they changed from the name of a place, to two completely meaningless and made-up words? Curious.