New wheelset, oddsandendos.com wheels. Had them for about 200 miles or so, yesterday while finishing a ride I hear this pffht,pffht noise while JRA. Didn't notice anything dragging or out of kilter. I ride the 1/4 mile home and my rear wheel is almost hitting the chain stay yet I had hit no bumps to speak of. The thing is waaaaaay out of L/R true. So i put the bike in the stand and begin diagnosing the problem. Mark off the section of rim that needs work and dead center of that section on the non drive side a spoke has fully loosened. When this happens, normally what is the cause? I have only had this happen once before on a friends bike and it is relatively easy to repair, but should i expect it will loosen again? If so I'm thinking that I will gravity feed some blue loctite into the nip and true it up. Advice?

The most common cause is insufficient and/or unequal tension. Just tightening one spoke may cause trouble in the long run. I suggest sending the wheel back or find someone locally who can properly diagnose the problem.

New wheelset, oddsandendos.com wheels. Had them for about 200 miles or so, yesterday while finishing a ride I hear this pffht,pffht noise while JRA. Didn't notice anything dragging or out of kilter. I ride the 1/4 mile home and my rear wheel is almost hitting the chain stay yet I had hit no bumps to speak of. The thing is waaaaaay out of L/R true. So i put the bike in the stand and begin diagnosing the problem. Mark off the section of rim that needs work and dead center of that section on the non drive side a spoke has fully loosened. When this happens, normally what is the cause? I have only had this happen once before on a friends bike and it is relatively easy to repair, but should i expect it will loosen again? If so I'm thinking that I will gravity feed some blue loctite into the nip and true it up. Advice?

Since it's an el-cheapo wheelset, I'd bet that the spoke was wound-up when tensioned by the wheel machine in whatever chinese sweatshop it was made in. After a few bumps, the surface tension of the nipple broke free, and the spoke wound back to where it was originally. This spoke is now trash, BTW...

A properly-built wheel would-ve been stress-relieved, and the windup in the spoke would've been fixed. Hell, a properly built wheel wouldn't have been wound up like this in the first place!

When you buy cheap prebuilt wheels, you need to do a thourough stress relieving of all spokes, followed by a simple tension test (plucking will suffice) Then, ride the wheel a few blocks. Every single "plink" means one more spoke out of tension. After 5 miles, you'll usually need to go back and rebuild the wheel.

Since it's an el-cheapo wheelset,

Ummm, Mike Garcia is very well regarded and usually named as a great wheel builder.

Ummm, Mike Garcia is very well regarded and usually named as a great wheel builder.

But if not then he really has a woody for Mike Garcia and his band of chinese sweat shop employees he has running the auto wheel build machines in Florida.

At the very least I'll call O&E's and see what they have to say. At the most, as the wheel is straight and true after retentioning the loose spoke, should it happen again I'll replace the spoke and nip with the spare that comes with the wheels.

Decafe Dave. They have this stuff called decaf......