Spoke advice please!

Harveytile

I bought a lovely set of Ambrosio Evo wheels from my LBS. All was well and good up until about three weeks ago. Then the fun with the rear wheel started...

Riding home I heard a "plunking" sound and when I got home I discovered a broken drive side spoke. I duely phoned the LBS who were good enough to replace the spoke (and provide two spares) for a reduced fee.

Last week I heard an ominous "plunk" and got home to discover another broken spoke on the non-drive side. I dived into the spare spokes, replaced the broken spoke, retrued, and tensioned the wheel. Now I don't have a workshop quality wheel building stand or tools but in true "bodge-it" style I used a few cable ties to check the vertical and horizontal trueness of the rim and squeezed the other non-drive side spokes to gauge the tension. Finally I went around the whole wheel squeezing the neighbouring spokes to try and release any excessive and eneven tension.

Last night I heard a now familiar sound... THE PLUNK! Low and behold another broken non-drive side spoke! Bugger.

The wheel is due to go to the LBS for the second time in three weeks and I'm losing faith rapidly.

Some details:
Daily commute: 20 miles each way. Croydon to Stratford using the wonderfully potholed and square edge speed bump infested roads that I happily pay my road tax for :roll: .
Personal and bike: Weight 98kg, Kona Jake, Ambrosio Evo wheel set, 32mm Bonty Hardcase tyres @ 100psi, Topeak rack, Pannier with approx 5kg load.

Comments on a postcard or preferably on this forum

Cheers,

RJHazell

Tension - Check your tension.... I've never had this problem - but have you thought about the gauge of the spokes - perhaps going for something a bit more heavy duty because you're putting in a lot of miles on bad roads with rock solid tyres.

nicklouse

TBH sounds like a poor build.

either have all the spokes replaced or get a different wheel as you will otherwise just be chasing broken spokes all the time.

you dont say how old the wheel is.

Harveytile

Wheels were bought in January 2010! I've clocked up about 1200 miles on them, strictly commuting.

The spokes are butted but they are breaking at the elbow where the spoke meets the hub flange so gauge shouldn't be an issue. besides, there is no space to fit a larger gauge spoke in the hub holes.

Maybe this fatboy should have bought the 36 hole option. :oops:

The thing that really bits it the "cheap" originals never missed a beat until the cup and cones failed. :roll:

supersonic

As nick says - the wheel has been built poorly, and the spokes fatigued. They need replacing. I doubt is a guage problem.

nicklouse

Harveytile wrote:

Wheels were bought in January 2010! I've clocked up about 1200 miles on them, strictly commuting.

The spokes are butted but they are breaking at the elbow where the spoke meets the hub flange so gauge shouldn't be an issue. besides, there is no space to fit a larger gauge spoke in the hub holes.

Maybe this fatboy should have bought the 36 hole option. :oops:

The thing that really bits it the "cheap" originals never missed a beat until the cup and cones failed. :roll:

as sonic says Poor build.

have a read, sorry MTB related but relevant.

http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12536562

desweller

To elaborate on the advice of the Forum Elders, when you break a spoke it causes the stress in the spokes around it to increase (as the load is now distributed amongst fewer spokes). So once one spoke fails, chances are that other spokes will break due to having exceeded their elastic limit.

Harveytile

The pesky wheel has now been stripped, respoked (unfortunately not with new but hey lets be positive)with the spokes properly seated at the hub.

The spokes were noticably not flat to the hub when the wheel was new so hopefully this will have sorted it.

I’ll keep an eye on it and if any more spokes start breaking I may just have to insist of a total rebuild with new spokes all around.

Thanks for the tips.