Continuously breaking spokes

[944fan]

I have a 2004 MTB which has been un-used for a number of years. I have started riding it work (until my roadie arrives) and in the last two weeks I have had 3 spokes break.

2 Broke the other week so I replaced them and trued the wheel. Then this morning I heard a ping and the wheel is out of true again. I had a quick look when I got to work and couldn't see a broken spoke but it was the same thing that happened last time.

They have all sheared off where the connect to the hub.

In all my years I have never broken a spoke and now 3 in two weeks

I guess I need to get the wheel rebuilt? Or just buy a new wheel? It is off a Spesh Rockhopper Comp so nothing special.

[Jacobyte]

Usually if you break a spoke, it puts more strain on the others so they are also more likely to break. Best get it rebuilt.

[P-Jay]

As above, also they generally wear evenly if it's built right, so when one goes, his neighbours wont be far behind.

[Fluffsri]

They could be too tight as well as the previous replies

[Kell]

I must have broken about 20-30 with my current bike - despite never snapping a single one in the past 25 years of MTB-ing on and off road.

Think they were just badly built wheels.

Also, they were discs which apparently put more strain on the elbows of the spokes (where they bend to go into the hub. Certainly every single one of mine has snapped there.

My (commuting) bike is a Dahon Matrix and when I googled it, there were loads of people with the same problem.

I swapped my wheels out for the ones that came with another bike and it's much better - though I've still snapped a couple in the last two years.

[944fan]

Kell said:

My (commuting) bike is a Dahon Matrix and when I googled it, there were loads of people with the same problem.

Interesting. A quick google shows a similar story with the spesh.

[dave_s13]

I had a similar problem with a Spesh Rockhopper a few years ago

Blast from the past

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Bascially I was told I was too heavy for the bike. Had a new rear wheel built with heavier duty spokes and was fine for 5yrs plus - sold it a couple of months ago.

You not put on 10 stone since last riding it have you?

ps. I posted that when I though £750 was a lot for a bike. My latest is twice the price and I know now even that is a mid range thing and could pop spokes at any moment

Edited by dave_s13 on Tuesday 21st May 16:12

[Kermit power]

dave_s13 said:

I had a similar problem with a Spesh Rockhopper a few years ago

Blast from the past

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Bascially I was told I was too heavy for the bike. Had a new rear wheel built with heavier duty spokes and was fine for 5yrs plus - sold it a couple of months ago.

You not put on 10 stone since last riding it have you?

I suspect that's a lazy bike shop's default answer. I'm 18-and-a-bit stone, and I've only ever broken spokes on one bike, even carrying panniers. None of my bikes have ever had anything other than the standard spokes they came with, so you'd have to be pretty chunky to be breaking spokes when I'm not!

[944fan]

dave_s13 said:

You not put on 10 stone since last riding it have you?

Edited by dave_s13 on Tuesday 21st May 16:12

Maybe not 10 stone, but a few!

Losing it now though.

[Kell]

Looking back at the old thread, it is staggering how so many people said it was the rider rather than the equipment.

I had one of my spokes snap as I was carrying the bike up a set of stairs at the train station - so it certainly wasn't to do with how I was riding it.

My previous bike (a Rabbit.de (Dahon Clone) which I bought SH for £200) was of supposedly lesser quality, but I had no problems with it on exactly the same commute. The only real difference was that one was rim brakes and the current one is discs.

Part of the problem seems to be that at the cheaper end of the market (my Dahon was also about £750), the wheels aren't hand built. So there's no looking for potential areas of concern.

And cheap wheel builds with disc brakes seem to exaggerate the problem. As mentioned I swapped my supplied wheels for the ones that came with my old, old commuting bike - a circa 2000 Orange P7. This has got Hope hubs and better rims and, as mentioned, has almost eradicated the problem.

I'd recommend going for a wheel upgrade anyway as it's one of the best and cheapest mods you can make to a bike. Lighter, stronger wheels with good quality hubs. Failing that, take it to an LBS and get them to replace all your spokes in one hit.

I didn't do this and went back over a dozen times. At a tenner a pop to get them done each time, it would have worked out cheaper to buy new (fairly decent) wheels.

[dave_s13]

Kell said:

Looking back at the old thread, it is staggering how so many people said it was the rider rather than the equipment.
.

Lol...I remember posting that and being flabbergasted at the suggestion that it was essentially normal for it to break like that and I was just too heavy for it. I was about 105-110kg then, a bit lighter now.

[944fan]

Christ I hope it isn't the weight issue. I am currently 17 st 7 (was 19 a few months back). Although I rode lots when I was younger I probably was never that heavy.

I am just about the pick up my racer, a Trek 1.1. I would expect an MTB to be a bit more rugged that that and if I have been having trouble with the Rockhopper, is the Trek going to collapse as soon as I sit on it.

Can't bloody win. Try running, to heavy for that and cause tendon issues, try cycling, to fat for the bloody bike. Swimming seems ok, although some old bird was moaning the other day that it was a bit choppy after I had done a few lengths. That's my demon speed though and not my weight

[donfisher]

This is a timely thread for me. I’m the same size as Dave is/was and I’m having trouble with factory R500s.

I was thinking that I might need to upgrade to something with more spokes on the back as I felt that I was a bit heavy for the wheels and the roads I’m on the majority of the time are just a bit too much for the wheels. I’m still in two minds about it now as by the sounds of it, it’s not necessarily the spec of the wheels that the issue. Perhaps it’s the way they’ve been put together rather than me being too fat for them.

[donfisher]

WeirdNeville said:

Set of mavic open pro rims - 32 hole, eyeletted.
32 spokes - specify DT double butted.
Decent quality Hubs of your choice - small or medium flange at most, not large flange.

Get the local bike shop to build them. That's your unbreakable set of daily use rims right there.

Eactly what I was thinking.

[Kermit power]

The whole "it's the rider's weight" thing is complete rubbish. I've ridden around 4,300 miles since I got back into cycling, with a weight of between 116 and 120kgs, on 4 different bikes of varying quality and price.

The only spokes I've broken were the result of an annoying incident of the chain unloading itself between the cassette and the rear wheel whilst I was in the middle of crossing a dual-carriageway.

[dave_s13]

Kermit power said:

The whole "it's the rider's weight" thing is complete rubbish. ....

Don't tell mk1fan..
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/profile.asp?mem...

He'll have you!!

[Kermit power]

dave_s13 said:

Kermit power said:

The whole "it's the rider's weight" thing is complete rubbish. ....

Don't tell mk1fan..
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/profile.asp?mem...

He'll have you!!

Hmm... Never seen anyone get quite that aggressive about bike choice before!

I doubt my Spesh FSR XC Pro is specced for riders any heavier than a Rockhopper would be. Strange that I've not managed to break any spokes whilst chucking that around trails. Maybe I should be trying harder?

[Kermit power]

WeirdNeville said:

IS that a full suspension bike? If so that makes a MASSIVE difference to the stress the back wheel is under, Vs a hard tail.

It is, but then I'm a fair bit heavier than the OP on that other thread, plus they're from the same manufacturer at a similar point in the price scale, so I doubt they'd over engineer one if they didn't need to? I've also never managed to break any spokes on my road bikes either, and if weight was such an important factor, I'd be pinging them on a daily basis, especially on commuting days with 10kg or more in pannier bags as well.

[Mr Will]

I subscribe to the "one goes, the rest will follow" theory, especially with low spoke count wheels. Even a single failure puts significant extra stress on all the others which means the process just keeps repeating.

There are also some people who ride heavy and some who ride light, regardless of body weight. Just look at pinch flats - some people need 100+ psi to avoid them, others are fine on half that. Not sure what use this observation is but it's an interesting point to note.

[Kell]

WeirdNeville said:

The only spokes I've broken have been on cheap (and I do mean cheap) machine built wheels. Apart from that one time when I put an Ice axe through my own front wheel at about 25Mph.... oh, and the time my front wheel went down a longways drain cover and bent it in half....

Wheels should not break spokes, that much is obvious. However, if you're heavier, then they are under much more stress, likewise on a rear wheel the dishing to accomodate the cassette and latterly disc mounts also makes them under more stress. They fail at the "neck" of the spoke, more often than not, as this is the weakest point.

Cheap back wheel + heavy rider = more broken spoke chance than cheap back wheel + racing whippet rider, is all I'm getting at.

All true in my humble opinion. I'm now 40 and can't shed weight like I used to - consequently I'm heavier than I've ever been at about 16 1/2 stone. That, combined with cheap wheels, disc brakes and a commute that involves lots of heavy braking has probably done it for me. Most of my spokes have gone on the front wheel - which does the lion's share of the braking.

Just Googled to see if my assumption about disc brakes is correct and found numerous sites saying 'yes' including this:



Frame/fork weight:

A disc brake stops the wheel at the hub. This causes a lot more stress on the spokes, rim and frame at the points where the wheel attaches. When a frame/fork is built for disc brakes, it's built with heavier fork blades, chain stays and seat stays. Sometimes an extra brace is installed between the chain and seat stays. We've found that the bikes that don't have this extra weight have a tendency to fail at the brake braze-ons. The bike winds up heavier, but only slightly.

Wheel weight:

For a bike using disc brakes, we build the wheel with a little heavier rim and more spokes. At Rodriguez, we offer a 3 year warranty against broken spokes and rims, so we build wheels to hold up. We've found that if we build the wheel at the same weight as we build for cantilever bikes, the spokes break at a much faster rate, or the rim sill start to crack around the nipple area.

Edited by Kell on Friday 24th May 09:52