The comment:
While standing on Alpine Rd near Portola Valley waiting for The Wife to pick me up because post-rain debris broke my spoke, I would guess 5 out of 6 riders asked if I needed anything. It’s routine for me to do so, but it was cool knowing that others will have your back when you’re down on your luck.
The question:
This is the second spoke I’ve broken on my rear wheel. After how many miles do you replace all of them and get the wheel rebuilt? I’m at about 3,000 on this one.
The question:
This is the second spoke I’ve broken on my rear wheel. After how many miles do you replace all of them and get the wheel rebuilt? I’m at about 3,000 on this one.
two spokes in 3000mi suggests a badly built wheel that could do with a rebuild.
The question:
This is the second spoke I’ve broken on my rear wheel. After how many miles do you replace all of them and get the wheel rebuilt? I’m at about 3,000 on this one.
two spokes in 3000mi suggests a badly built wheel that could do with a rebuild.
^^^^This.
Some of the spokes may have been overtensioned or not seated well. Road quality in Woodside/Portola is pretty good; I’ve had spokes need retensioning and minor wheel truing, but never broke a spoke around there in 15 years (7 on my current hoops, and rest on some Mavics that are now my backup wheels).
mate it all depends on many variables. How many spokes in the wheel, How heavy you are just to name the two obvious ones.
Also how it has been built. Are they factory wheels or custom builds?
You can choose how the hubs are laced in IE radially, two / three cross.
I have wheels with thousands of miles on them and never replaced a spoke… wore out the brake track instead.
a properly built and stress-relieved wheel won’t break spokes, excepting of course lightweight low-spoke count wheels under heavyweight riders…
as cyclenutz says, two in 3k suggests this wheel was not built well, probably best to rebuild now.
or you could just replace this spoke, do the stress relief yourself, and see if that helps… I did this a few thousand miles ago on a cheap wheel of erratic design that broke 2 spokes, haven’t busted one since then.
From Jobst Brandt’s book The Bicycle Wheel,
"Spokes are best stress relieved by grasping each of the most nearly parallel spoke
pairs at midspan on the left and right sides of the wheel and forcefully squeezing
them together successively around the wheel. "
Wear gloves and squeeze as hard as you can. if the spoke breaks then it was faulty anyway, replace and redo.
I replace all the spokes after I break the first spoke.
Hear me now believe me later.
A properly built wheel should wear out the rim long before a spoke breaks from fatigue. If you broke these because of an object getting stuck in there, it isn’t a wheel building issue.
My local route too and we do have some friendly locals - why didn’t one of them stop and rebuild your wheel?
I bought a wheel set from the Classifieds and broke a spoke on a ride. Broke a second and took the wheel in to get rebuilt. Turns out the previous owner had driven the chain into the wheel and chewed up all the drive side spokes. I had all the DS spokes replaced and have been good ever since.
A properly built wheel should wear out the rim long before a spoke breaks from fatigue.
Hmm…
One of the spokes was an object, the other, I don’t know. I’ve dropped the wheel off for repair, if another one happens, I’m getting the whole thing rebuilt.
Ti spokes?
Maurice