Bloody Spokes!!

spoiltdouglas

Im really loving my roadbike but im starting to get really disheartened at the moment. Ive had it about 4 months and the first 3 were bliss, getting some good distance covered and feeling as fit as i ever have (including during my time as a rower!)

However in the last month i keep snapping spokes. Ive done 3 now in quick succesion with less than 20 miles covered inbetween hearing that horrible PING sound. Is this just a normal part of roadcycling or is it something to do with me or my riding style?

The wheels i have are maddux r3.0 which came with the bike and all the 3 breaks have been on the rear wheel on the side with the cassette. The latest one went as a changed gear, is this just coincidence or could this be linked?

Im not overly heavy but i am aggressive and like to apply a lot of power through my legs. could this be behind the breaks? or is it just a case of rubbish wheels that need replacing?

Any words of wisdom or advice would be much appreciated. cheers!

amaferanga

You need to get the wheel rebuilt. You don't necessarily need new spokes all round, but at the very least you need to get a good wheel builder to de-tension and then re-tension all the spokes.

CiB

And course once one's gone, the load on its neighbours increases so the chance of another breaking is higher, esp if the broken one isn't replaced & tensioned properly.

Wheel rebuild, like amaferanga says.

rhext

CiB wrote:

And course once one's gone, the load on its neighbours increases so the chance of another breaking is higher, esp if the broken one isn't replaced & tensioned properly.

Wheel rebuild, like amaferanga says.

+1 - wheels should last a long, long time. Possible it wasn't set up right to begin with!

spoiltdouglas

I should add that the previous 2 times (the 3rd i have done this afternoon, sods law as the weather is beautiful...) i have taken the wheel into my LBS who fitted new spokes for me. perhaps this hasnt been done properly?

rhext

Not necessarily, but if they're fitting new spokes to a badly constructed wheel, unless they go round and at the very least retension all the old ones, they're not fixing the root cause of the problem. And if you've been cycling for a while on a set of badly tensioned spokes, they're probably all reaching the end of their life.

I must confess, this has happened to me on both my road and mountain bikes (both Specialized, in fact.....hmmmm). I ended up buying new wheels for both and haven't had a single problem since - despite getting on for 10,000 miles on the road bike!

antfly

Don't bother, just get some better wheels.

upperoilcan

rhext wrote:

I must confess, this has happened to me on both my road and mountain bikes (both Specialized, in fact.....hmmmm). I ended up buying new wheels for both and haven't had a single problem since - despite getting on for 10,000 miles on the road bike!

I also had a rear wheel go on me a couple of times (Speicalized Enduro 2008) was told by the maufacturer that it was a result of a machine not building the wheel properly,luckily for me the bike was still in warranty when it happened so my LBS rebuilt the wheel and specialized covered it under warranty.....

Berk Bonebonce

Some wheels are just not well suited the the roads we have in the UK, and repeated stress can lead to the slight loosening of spokes, making them more vulnerable to breakage.

I'm a light guy, use deep profile aluminium rims, and run 36 at rear and 32 at front. Also, I never run tyres at maximum pressure.

If you're a heavy guy, run tyres at their max pressure, and bag over poor road surfaces most of the time ... get some stronger wheels and/or fatter tyres. Or re-locate to northern Italy or Switzerland and where roads are top notch.

vorsprung

spoiltdouglas wrote:

Im really loving my roadbike but im starting to get really disheartened at the moment. Ive had it about 4 months and the first 3 were bliss, getting some good distance covered and feeling as fit as i ever have (including during my time as a rower!)

However in the last month i keep snapping spokes. Ive done 3 now in quick succesion with less than 20 miles covered inbetween hearing that horrible PING sound. Is this just a normal part of roadcycling or is it something to do with me or my riding style?

The wheels i have are maddux r3.0 which came with the bike and all the 3 breaks have been on the rear wheel on the side with the cassette. The latest one went as a changed gear, is this just coincidence or could this be linked?

Im not overly heavy but i am aggressive and like to apply a lot of power through my legs. could this be behind the breaks? or is it just a case of rubbish wheels that need replacing?

Any words of wisdom or advice would be much appreciated. cheers!

I had a quick google for your wheels

It seems they are the stock wheels that come with a cannondale caad8 and have 28 spokes

I weigh 85kg ( 12.5 stone) and when I used a cheap rear wheel with 28 spokes and hit a pothole or other road nastiness, it broke. This happened a few times.

There's two reasons the wheels might be breaking, and it is difficult to tell which it might be

First, you might have a dud wheel. it might have been made on a friday afternoon and have not enough tension in the spokes
Second, it might be that the way you ride, where you ride and your weight are too much for the wheels

desweller

CiB wrote:

And course once one's gone, the load on its neighbours increases so the chance of another breaking is higher, esp if the broken one isn't replaced & tensioned properly.

What he said.

A well-built wheel with a low spoke count should be fine - I am 95 kg and run Shimano R500s, which I think is 20 spokes at the front and 24 at the back. I've never had a problem with them, and I'm not exactly easy on machinery, so they must have been fairly well built.

However, I have had cheaper wheels with higher spoke counts suffer from chronic spoke breakage syndrome due to one spoke not being correct, so if you are breaking lots of spokes now, chances are you're best off replacing them all.

blackhands

I'm 90+kg and have never had any problems with my Campagnolo Shamale which have 12 spokes front and16 reaI tarin on Pro-Lite Comos which are under £90 a pair but are well built with a low spoke count. Unfortunately the weakest link in almost all low end bikes are the wheels.

the flying smith

the soluition is too buy wheels with a straight pull spoke these are normally 20 front and 24 rear,on reading your post the exact thing happened too me when i first started cycling,

andy_wrx

blackhands wrote:

Unfortunately the weakest link in almost all low end bikes are the wheels.

Agreed. It's the way that the bike manufacturers get the cost-per-bike down
- people notice if the groupset is Sora/Tiagra/105/Ultegra and see it as a poorly-spec'd bike or well-spec'd bike
- but look at the wheels and they're often Alex rims on Formula or Joytech hubs with no-name spokes, and people don't notice this
- and even if you spend £1500-2000 on a bike it'll have Ultegra with something like Fulcrum R7 or Aksium which you can buy retail for £100-andabit

The stock wheels on my 2004 Allez were fine for a couple of years and then started breaking spokes as you describe, replace one and another would go next time out.
Fortunately I'm capable of replacing spokes and retruing, so it wasn't a LBS-job every time, but it went on for a while until I'd replaced probably half the drive-side spokes and then it settled down again. I now use the wheels as bad-weather wheels I'm not bothered about ruining in salt&grit, and use better wheels the rest of the time.

By contrast, I've run lots of miles on rather better aftermarket-purchase Shimano WHR550's, Fulcrum 5's, Ksyriums & Cosmics and not had any spoke problems.

Schobiedoo

As others have said, it's a badly built wheel. The cassette side spokes are under higher tension than the other side, so that's probably the reason why they are going over the other ones. I guess the change in gear causes an instantaneous change to the spoke tension which is causing the failure.

I had a similar experience and my LBS tried it on saying that my wheel was damaged beyond repair and I should get better quality wheels, which, surprise surprise, they were quite willing to sell me. I went elsewhere, bought a complete set of new spokes and spent some time rebuilding it. 2000 miles later, they are still running true and have given me zero problems.

spoiltdouglas

Firstly thanks everyone for taking time to reply, its good to know that im not alone!!!

Im going to go and have a word in my LBS tomorrow and see what they say, ive not had the bike long (its the 2010 caad8 model) so if its a matter of a faulty wheel than the warranty may cover this.

If not then what would you advise for me to do. Pay out to have a full set of new spokes put in, or go and buy a new set of wheels?

If im going to go down the new wheels route, does anybody have any advice on good makes etc? im not exactly flush at the moment so good wheels that arent too expensive (although i am aware that you get what you pay for) would be more preferable.

Cheers to everyone, and i hope this weather isnt disrupting your cycling too much!!

rake

i had the same problem. once one goes the rest seem to become unreliable. i rebuilt it myself with new dt comp spokes no jig, no dishing tool, no tension meter and its been fine for longer than the original was, About 3k on the rebuild, about £15 for the spokes. mine were all cassette side they go there because of the higher tension because of the uneven dish angle and also doing the driving. think mine were poor quality spokes and a lot are on original wheels if they didnt cost a packet. the front has always been fine thank god. if you let the tension go too low counter intuitively that can cause them to break. that can happen with mileage as they bed in.

lankyjim

I had the same problem. I replaced the rear wheel with a Mavic Open Pro.

I think maybe it's a rowing thing... I used to row as well and I am 96kg and like you enjoy stamping away at the lights.

2Phat4Rapha

Most likely cause is either too low tension or too uneven tension per side. Ave tensions DS and NDS can be vastly different due to the dishing necessary to accommodate the cassette & freehub. That's not too much of an issue but widely varying tensions from spoke to spoke can be even in a wheel that is true. If you can still inspect the breaks, you will probably find they look very clean and you could match the two faces of the break almost exactly. This indicates a break due to fatigue as opposed to something that has been stretched beyond its elastic limit where significant 'necking' deformation will be seen.

If it looks like a fatigue break: tension too low, uneven or the spoke elbow does not fit the spoke hole in the flange well enough and washers should be used. You are almost certainly not able to torque the wheels enough to break your spokes no matter how big your quads. Out of the saddle you could of course put a lot of sideways stress - imagine someone stamping on your wheel when it's leant at 45 degrees, but this would not cause a fatigue break.

If you don't get anywhere with the warrantee, £25 or so for labour plus new spokes with local wheel builder.

Saganator

Hi,

I had these on my Cannondale, complained to them and they are sending me Shimano replacements. I'm guessing they know that there are problems with these wheels.

I was on a Sportive the other day speaking to people who have the same issue.

The wheels are just rubbish I'm afraid.

To be honest I'm amazed they are changing them, I can't fault Cannondale.

Regards,

hulla the hulla

the flying smith wrote:

the soluition is too buy wheels with a straight pull spoke

wrong

to quote Roger Musson, who apparently knows a thing or two about building wheels...
"...The straight pull spoke is becoming popular on factory built wheels where claims for additional strength are often made. However all you will be hearing is sales and marketing speak because they offer no advantage over standard spokes. The straight pull design is not a cure for spoke breakages either since they are just as susceptible to fatigue as convetional spokes."