broken rear spoke

I've been cycling to work for the past 10 months on a Ridgeback Genesis Day
01. Total mileage covered in this time is 4500mls. Yesterday a rear spoke broke , is it safe to
continue riding minus one spoke and if I do so will it cause any damage to the wheel? Should
spokes break after this sort of mileage ? I intend to replace the spoke tomorrow but I have to
make the 25ml round trip to work today, hope it's not going to cause any damage.

Many thanks

Tom McCabe

 

Tom McCabe wrote:
> I've been cycling to work for the past 10 months on a Ridgeback Genesis Day
> 01. Total mileage covered in this time is 4500mls. Yesterday a rear spoke broke , is it safe to
> continue riding minus one spoke and if I do so will it cause any damage to the wheel?

It will be reasonably safe to continue for a day or so but your wheel is likely to get worse if ride
it much longer: further broken spokes, wheel going out of true, etc.

> Should spokes break after this sort of mileage ?

Not if wheel built very well, but this failure is not uncommon.

> I intend to replace the spoke tomorrow but I have to make the 25ml round trip to work today, hope
> it's not going to cause any damage.

True the wheel a bit in the meantime if you can manage.

~PB

 

Tom McCabe <[email protected]> wrote:
> I've been cycling to work for the past 10 months on a Ridgeback Genesis Day
> 01. Total mileage covered in this time is 4500mls. Yesterday a rear spoke broke , is it safe to
> continue riding minus one spoke and if I do so will it cause any damage to the wheel? Should
> spokes break after this sort of mileage ? I intend to replace the spoke tomorrow but I have to
> make the 25ml round trip to work today, hope it's not going to cause any damage.
>

It shouldn't break at all but seeing as its most probably a machine built wheel its actually done
quite well. Providing the rim is not rubbing on the brake pads (open the brakes out if necessary)
you should be OK riding it today but get it replaced over the weekend. Its not that difficult to do
yourself - follow the instructions on Sheldon Brown's website and use the upturned bike and brake
pads as a make shift truing jig. Once you've finished replacing and tensioning it put on some thick
gloves and go round squeezing adjacent pairs of spokes together as hard as you can. This stress
relieves them and reduces the probability of a breakage.

Tony

--
http://www.raven-family.com

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to
adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George
Bernard Shaw

 

In message <[email protected]>, Tom McCabe <[email protected]> writes
>I've been cycling to work for the past 10 months on a Ridgeback Genesis Day
>01. Total mileage covered in this time is 4500mls. Yesterday a rear spoke broke , is it safe to
> continue riding minus one spoke and if I do so will it cause any damage to the wheel? Should
> spokes break after this sort of mileage ? I intend to replace the spoke tomorrow but I have to
> make the 25ml round trip to work today, hope it's not going to cause any damage.
>
>Many thanks
>
>Tom McCabe
>
>

You haven't said how many spokes the wheel has. Looking at a picture it appears to have 20. Is this
the case on yours? There's probably a big difference between losing a spoke on a 20 spoke wheel and
a 36 spoke wheel.
--
Michael MacClancy

 

"Tom McCabe" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I've been cycling to work for the past 10 months on a Ridgeback Genesis
Day
> 01. Total mileage covered in this time is 4500mls. Yesterday a rear spoke broke , is it safe to
> continue riding minus one spoke and if I do so will
it
> cause any damage to the wheel? Should spokes break after this sort of mileage ? I intend to
> replace the spoke tomorrow but I have to make the 25ml round trip to work today, hope it's not
> going to cause any damage.

It can over stress remaining spokes, and once one goes others can follow rather quickly. This
may not be the case if there are "plenty" of spokes, but doesn't that bike have rather a low
spoke count.

You may be left in a situation where the spokes have started to fatigue, and may never be reliable,
whatever you do.

 

Tony Raven wrote:
> Once you've finished replacing and tensioning it put on some thick gloves and go round squeezing
> adjacent pairs of spokes together as hard as you can. This stress relieves them and reduces the
> probability of a breakage.

Sheldons tip of an old LH crank makes quite a good tool for beinding the spokes round each
other, too.

--

-Alex

----------------------------------
[email protected]

http://alexpg.ath.cx:3353/cycling.php http://www.westerleycycling.org.uk
----------------------------------

 

"W K" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> "Tom McCabe" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > I've been cycling to work for the past 10 months on a Ridgeback Genesis
> Day
> > 01. Total mileage covered in this time is 4500mls. Yesterday a rear spoke broke , is it safe to
> > continue riding minus one spoke and if I do so will
> it
> > cause any damage to the wheel? Should spokes break after this sort of mileage ? I intend to
> > replace the spoke tomorrow but I have to make the 25ml round trip to work today, hope it's not
> > going to cause any damage.
>
> It can over stress remaining spokes, and once one goes others can follow rather quickly. This
> may not be the case if there are "plenty" of spokes, but doesn't that bike have rather a low
> spoke count.

I'd be happy to ride 25 miles with 35 or 31 good spokes in my wheel. A low spoke count wheel is
a different proposition, however. With one missing it is likely to go sufficiently out of true
to become unrideable very quickly. I would also worry about the possibility of the wheel
collapsing under me.

--
Dave...

 

"Dave Kahn" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "W K"

> > It can over stress remaining spokes, and once one goes others can follow rather quickly. This
> > may not be the case if there are "plenty" of spokes, but doesn't
that
> > bike have rather a low spoke count.
>
> I'd be happy to ride 25 miles with 35 or 31 good spokes in my wheel. A low spoke count wheel is a
> different proposition, however. With one missing it is likely to go sufficiently out of true to
> become unrideable very quickly. I would also worry about the possibility of the wheel collapsing
> under me.

As its already "today" we'll see how he gets on.

With 160Kg on a moderately well built wheel, 35 spokes can easily go down to 32 ! At which point, I
decided it was time to give up.

 

"W K" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...

> It can over stress remaining spokes, and once one goes others can follow rather quickly.

Yes and no; it can't 'over stress' the remainder. One spoke is gone: the rim is under lower overall
compression (caused by fewer spokes) but the remainder can easily handle any slight increase in
tension this results in - I'm talking about when the bike isn't being ridden here. They are well
below the tension at which they break.

When you sit on the bike, the 4 or 5 spokes in 'contact' with the ground actually have their tension
reduced, not increased in any way. Where the spoke is missing, there are fewer spokes to support
your body weight: if their tension is low enough, the wheel could collapse into an unretrievable
'buckle' if they become slack. So, avoid bumping down potholes until the spoke is replaced.

The phenomenon of more spokes breaking soon after is more dues to them also being near the end of
life because of fatigue, a consequence of poor build technique as others have said.

My experience is that one broken drive-side spoke in a 32-spoke 700C wheel causes enough sideways
'wobble' to make the bike unridable due to tyre rubbing on chainstays. Goodness knows what fewer
spokes are like.

> You may be left in a situation where the spokes have started to fatigue, and may never be
> reliable, whatever you do.

Actually, the spokes start to fatigue the moment the bike was first ridden! The reason is that they
were probably not stress-relieved at all.

David Green

 

"Dave Kahn" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "W K" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
> > "Tom McCabe" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > news:[email protected]...
> I'd be happy to ride 25 miles with 35 or 31 good spokes in my wheel. A low spoke count wheel is a
> different proposition, however. With one missing it is likely to go sufficiently out of true to
> become unrideable very quickly. I would also worry about the possibility of the wheel collapsing
> under me.
>
> --

I think it depends on weight - rider and any luggage. My rear should have had 26 spokes and I must
have done at least one 25 mile ride on it before I noticed it had dropped to 25, and then did
another 25 mile ride on it because I had to, before taking it out for repair. In the distance, it
hasn't gone significantly out of true, it hardly affected ride or handling and whether it was
significantly in danger of collapse is hard to say - although if the other of its pair went as well
I wouldn't be very optimistic about the prospects for the structural integrity of the wheel. But, I
don't weigh a lot either.

Rich

 

"Richard Goodman" wrote:
> I think it depends on weight - rider and any luggage. My rear should have had 26 spokes and I must
> have done at least one 25 mile ride on it before
I
> noticed it had dropped to 25,

I just did a recount - it's actually a 24 spoke wheel reduced to 23! Rich

 

"W K" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
>
> With 160Kg on a moderately well built wheel, 35 spokes can easily go down
to
> 32 ! At which point, I decided it was time to give up.
>

Well I guess we don't have to ask who ate all the pies.

 

[email protected] (David Green) wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...

> When you sit on the bike, the 4 or 5 spokes in 'contact' with the ground actually have their
> tension reduced, not increased in any way. Where the spoke is missing, there are fewer spokes to
> support your body weight: if their tension is low enough, the wheel could collapse into an
> unretrievable 'buckle' if they become slack. So, avoid bumping down potholes until the spoke is
> replaced.
>
> The phenomenon of more spokes breaking soon after is more dues to them also being near the end of
> life because of fatigue, a consequence of poor build technique as others have said.

The fatigue is caused by the repeated slackening and sudden re-tensioning of the spokes. If there is
a spoke missing, the spokes around the gap have more of the load to support and will experience an
increased amount of this. You may even hear them twanging as they snap back into tension. This
accelerates the fatigue so that spokes that spokes that were perfectly sound before the break will
quickly become worn out if the wheel is ridden too much.

--
Dave...

 

"Richard Goodman" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
> "Richard Goodman" wrote:
> > I think it depends on weight - rider and any luggage. My rear should have had 26 spokes and I
> > must have done at least one 25 mile ride on it before
> I
> > noticed it had dropped to 25,
>
> I just did a recount - it's actually a 24 spoke wheel reduced to 23! Rich

I was about to ask what sort of wheel it was as it would have been a very strange (wire spoked)
wheel whose full complement of spokes was not a multiple of 4. Even Sheldon's POWer Wheels have 36
spokes.

--
Dave...

 

In message <[email protected]>, Tom McCabe <[email protected]> writes
>I've been cycling to work for the past 10 months on a Ridgeback Genesis Day
>01. Total mileage covered in this time is 4500mls. Yesterday a rear spoke broke , is it safe to
> continue riding minus one spoke and if I do so will it cause any damage to the wheel? Should
> spokes break after this sort of mileage ? I intend to replace the spoke tomorrow but I have to
> make the 25ml round trip to work today, hope it's not going to cause any damage.
>
>Many thanks
>
>Tom McCabe
>
>

Did you make it or are you still pushing?
--
Michael MacClancy

 

"Tom McCabe" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I've been cycling to work for the past 10 months on a Ridgeback Genesis
Day
> 01. Total mileage covered in this time is 4500mls. Yesterday a rear spoke broke , is it safe to
> continue riding minus one spoke and if I do so will
it
> cause any damage to the wheel? Should spokes break after this sort of mileage ? I intend to
> replace the spoke tomorrow but I have to make the 25ml round trip to work today, hope it's not
> going to cause any damage.
>
> Many thanks
>
> Tom McCabe
>

Thanks for all the helpful advice. Made it to work the following day and replaced the spoke at work.
But I did manage to put a slight bend in the new spoke, think I'll replace it again without the bend
this time.

Many thanks

Tom McCabe

 

I got 16 spokes replaced in one of my wheels[1], the cost was estimated at about £20 but because the
wheel builder could not get the rim as true as he'd like & because he built the wheels originally he
charged only £15. With Shimano105 hubs and MA3 rim a new wheel would have cost more (a new hub would
be wider also requiring my frame to be cold set too).

It depends on the quality of the rim and hub as to whether a new would be a better investment than a
repair. If you fancy some new wheels to transform the bike then you now have a great excuse.

[1]Two spokes broke and were replaced in France, before this all spokes had been damaged with
the chain running off the block so once spokes had started failing I elected to get the whole
side replaced.

--
The Reply & From email addresses are checked rarely.

 

"rlmarr" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...

> Initially the rear wheel I am speaking of was a 50 machine build setup.

I usually have my machine-built wheels retensioned by hand. My bike mechanic charges very
little for this.

--
Guy
===

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