In general it appears to be a good quality bike. Before the ride started it was discovered that one spoke was broken on the rear wheel and a repair was effected , and during the last day of the ride a second spoke broke.
Both spokes broke at the nipple. On examination of the wheel it could be seen that the large-diameter hub and the 2-cross pattern caused the spokes to approach the rim at an angle substantially off from 90 degrees, causing quite obvious bending of the spoke where it enters the nipple. The tendency to break at this point was likely further abetted by undersized, poor quality spokes.
I am guessing that the wheel will need to be relaced, though we will see what the bike shop and manufacturer say after my son gets back to California. It's vaguely possible that the rim was drilled for the off-angle nipples but the wheel was built wrong, with the odd nipples in the even holes or some such.
In any event, heavier gauge, better quality spokes are needed. Other than the spoke problem -- and an associated problem with the enclosed chain while servicing -- the bike performed admirably, handling some very substantial hills. I have a Giant road bike from the late nineties, which hung unused in the garage for ten years. When I started riding it again seriously a few years ago I snapped quite a few spokes, perhaps a spoke or two a month. The broken spokes were on the drive side of the rear wheel of course; the spokes on that side necessarily have higher tension because of the offset of the hub flanges.
The owner of the LBS said that my problem was "cheap Taiwanese spokes". He predicted that eventually I would have replaced all the drive-side spokes with replacement spokes from his shop naturally and then I would no longer have the problem, and that's exactly what happened. I wish I'd changed them all at once, instead of one at a time. So for those with similar problems, it's possible that the manufacturer built the wheels with inferior spokes to save a little bit of money, and that all you need to do is change the spokes.
Are the spokes breaking at the nipple? I had this problem, wheel was rebuilt with too short spokes. Maybe the old hoop was asymmetric and they swapped everything to a symmetric hoop. Ibis to WTB kom not sure. I keep replacing the spokes and they keep snapping right down the line the old, not new , one snapped just sitting there after I just finished.
Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Why am I breaking a ridiculous number of spokes? Ask Question. Asked 10 years, 4 months ago. Active 11 months ago. Viewed 67k times.
So, why are my spokes snapping like spaghetti? I guess: Because I was riding without truing the wheel Because I'm riding too hard i. Improve this question. Community Bot 1. James James 2 2 gold badges 8 8 silver badges 14 14 bronze badges. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Grigory Rechistov Good answer. The rim damage could also take the form of a possibly hidden crack. This kind of damage can be temporarily compensated for by adjusting spoke tension, but as the crack propagates, the wheel will become untrue again, probably more quickly than before.
If not then the newly replaced spokes with the older spokes will create uneven spoke tension. The older spokes will break soon after the replacements are put in. Mountain bike wheels and rims take a beating every time they ride over rough terrain. The constant impact of rocks, roots, drop offs, and jumps can over time eventually bend the rims.
As the shape of the rims change so does the spoke tension. Also the nipple, which connects the spoke to the rim can become less effective causing a break.
In order to keep your wheels perfectly straight and round mountain bikers should true the wheels every so often. If not and you keep riding with wheels that are not perfectly round or centered properly on the hub, then the spokes can loosen and eventually break.
Machine built wheels are usually not as good as hand built wheels. So if your spokes keep breaking at the bend then this usually indicates the wheel was poorly built. It was probably machine built. Machine built wheels have a wider spoke tension range, so it is not as precise as a hand built wheel. If your spokes keep breaking you may just be too heavy for your wheels. Riders who weigh more than pounds might be riding a bike which can not handle their weight. So no matter how many times you replace the spokes they will keep breaking.
It is probably time to get better wheels to handle your weight. Wheels with a larger number of spokes. If you ride over rocks and roots, and go over drop offs and jumps, then once or twice a week. Especially if your wheels are machine made.
Higher quality wheels need less attention. True the Wheel Every so often check to make sure the wheels and rims are round. Unless you have experience take your bike to your local bike shop. Have this done the right way. High Number of Spokes If you are a heavier rider, pounds or more, consider getting wheels with more spokes on them. Many heavy riders do better with 36 to 48 spokes on the wheels. This offers a lot more support and strength for handling heavier riders. If you are a lighter to medium weight rider but are aggressive on the trails then wheels with a higher number of spokes will give you added support and less spoke breakages.
Use Hand built Wheels Hand built wheels from beginning to end are built all by hand. We recently had this happening on my wifes mountain bike. It was a pretty cheap fix each time, just the cost of a single new spoke to match the others on the wheel, and a little bit of labor cost obviously.
So then we were set to hit the trail — until the next time it happened, yet again. That is, just one spoke breaking every so often, but more and more regularly it seemed lately — and without much riding at all, and certainly no aggressive riding! This can further be exacerbated by the wheel having been machine built rather than hand built, with uneven tension applied to all the spokes — allowing the wheel more opportunities to apply a higher amount of fatiguing force to specific spokes on the wheel, rather than more evenly distributing the force around the wheel.
However even a well built wheel can eventually reach this same point — metal fatigue on spokes happens to basically all spokes made of metal after all after enough use. Another important consideration is the quality and design of the spokes used to build your mountain bike wheel. J-bend, straight pull, butted spokes, straight gauge spokes — and many different spoke thicknesses, and even types of metal used in the spoke or spoke nipple — all these things play a part. It is normal for mass produced mountain bike brands to machine build the millions of wheels they require, and is quite common for the spoke quality to be on the lower side to keep their costs down — particularly on entry level or even mid-range mountain bikes.
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