Remember when you had to guess the right spoke length?

I was at a big bike swap in Portland maybe ten years back, trying to build a wheel for a weird old hub. I spent an hour with a spoke calculator and a ruler, still got it wrong. Then a guy at the Park Tool booth showed me their new digital gauge, the TM-1. He said, 'Just measure one old spoke, it does the math for you.' I bought one that day for about $80. It cut my wheel building time in half and saved so many wasted spokes. Now I see them in every shop. Anyone else have a tool that seemed like a luxury but became a must have?

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4 Comments

maxl935mo ago

My first one died in a coffee spill.

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ryanc715mo ago

Was it a full cup or just a splash?

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lewis.gray5mo ago

Coffee spills are the worst kind of tech disaster. My laptop still has a sticky key from my own clumsy moment. Guess we're all just one cup away from tragedy.

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erickelly3mo ago

@ryanc71 you make a good point, is a full mug worse than a half one? I've always felt like a full cup just floods everything faster. @maxl93 man, losing a first laptop to coffee is rough, I've been there too. It's like the tech gods are testing us. My buddy's kid spilled a whole thermos into his keyboard last year and it never turned on again. Guess we're all just paying tribute to the sticky key gods.

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