Broken Brompton Spokes

Sam Salt said:

Had some broken rear wheel spokes fixed on the Brompton a few months ago.

Yesterday it happened again,so it's back to the LBS tomorrow for a
another repair.

It's not yet two years old and is not ridden hard or even every day.

Is this going to occur every few months ad infinitum ?

Yes, if it hasn't been properly tensioned. But without knowing any
other details, it's hard to say if that's the cause, although it's quite
likely. Shoving U-locks wuffly through wheels is alleged to lead to
their premature demise. Being a little on the lardy side with cheaper
wheels and a propensity for riding up/down kerbs, likewise.

R.

Richard richard at percival dot demon dot co dot tld for united kingdom

Quoted message said:

Sam Salt said:

Had some broken rear wheel spokes fixed on the Brompton a few months ago.

Yesterday it happened again,so it's back to the LBS tomorrow for a
another repair.

It's not yet two years old and is not ridden hard or even every day.

Is this going to occur every few months ad infinitum ?

Yes, if it hasn't been properly tensioned. But without knowing any
other details, it's hard to say if that's the cause, although it's quite
likely. Shoving U-locks wuffly through wheels is alleged to lead to
their premature demise. Being a little on the lardy side with cheaper
wheels and a propensity for riding up/down kerbs, likewise.

R.

No none of those apply.

Sam Salt

in message <[email hidden]>, Sam Salt

(') said:

Had some broken rear wheel spokes fixed on the Brompton a few months
ago.

Yesterday it happened again,so it's back to the LBS tomorrow for a
another repair.

It's not yet two years old and is not ridden hard or even every day.

Is this going to occur every few months ad infinitum ?

Can't say I am impressed.

Paging Guy.

As I remember it, Guy, who can be a bit reticent about mentioning his
Brompton, alleges that they come with badly stress-relieved machine
built wheels and that it's a good investment to have the wheels retrued
and stress-relieved by a competend wheelbuilder.

I trust he'll be along in a minute to confirm or deny this statement.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; L'etat c'est moi -- Louis XVI
;; I... we... the Government -- Tony Blair

Simon Brooke said:

in message <[email hidden]>, Sam Salt

(') said:

Had some broken rear wheel spokes fixed on the Brompton a few months
ago.

Yesterday it happened again,so it's back to the LBS tomorrow for a
another repair.

It's not yet two years old and is not ridden hard or even every day.

Is this going to occur every few months ad infinitum ?

Can't say I am impressed.

Paging Guy.

As I remember it, Guy, who can be a bit reticent about mentioning his
Brompton, alleges that they come with badly stress-relieved machine
built wheels and that it's a good investment to have the wheels retrued
and stress-relieved by a competend wheelbuilder.

Mine did too (DIMIHAB) but fortunately I like building wheels and
spotted it early. The spokes were sufficiently loose on the rear of mine
that stress relieving would not really be possible before first giving
them a good tightening and truing. Frankly, if the OP's repaired rear
wheel only lasted a few months, then the bike shop he took it too didn't
bother to service the wheel while they fixed the broken spokes. Some
bike shops won't do anything you don't ask them to do, but they should
at least advise this IMHO. I normally expect to break at least one more
spoke when repairing a wheel where metal fatigue has started causing
spokes to break (my record is four more broken fixing a wheel with one
broken spoke). I find the "just about to go" ones when I stress relieve
the wheel - they snap. If they don't, I know they're still there because
the wheel goes out of true on the next ride.

JimP

--
Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable, let's prepare to
grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after
all. - DNA

i artikel [email hidden], skrev Simon
Brooke på [email hidden] den 06-04-19 21.39:

Quoted message said:

As I remember it, Guy, who can be a bit reticent about mentioning his
Brompton, alleges that they come with badly stress-relieved machine
built wheels and that it's a good investment to have the wheels retrued
and stress-relieved by a competend wheelbuilder.

My Brompton rear wheel warped slightly after the first few months. My dealer
fixed it and it's been perfectly straight since, with more and unmild
riding.

He says he was going to send the bill to Brompton, even though I pointed to
the manual which says you should true the rear wheel after the first few
months.

So I concur with Guy. Brompton is selling bikes with warpy wheels and
causing people to think small wheels are bad.

--
Erik Sandblom
my site is EriksRailNews.com