Too many broken spokes on a 20" wheeled bike

[marc_9]

I got another broken spoke (third to date) on my brand new 2004
(Folding bike)Dahon Helios P8 today. For those of you unfamiliar with
this variety of bikes, they have 20inch wheels which are supposed to
be stronger than normal sized wheels.
This is really annoying. Already had the wheel trued by my LBS.
When the LBS first saw my first broken spoke about a 6 weeks ago, they
told me the spokes were 'cheap'. Now I am inclined to believe them.
This is my third broken spoke in about 2 months!
Any comments?

 

[kingsley]

On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 11:41:36 -0800, marc_9 wrote:

> I got another broken spoke (third to date) on my brand new 2004 (Folding
> bike)Dahon Helios P8 today. For those of you unfamiliar with this variety
> of bikes, they have 20inch wheels which are supposed to be stronger than
> normal sized wheels. This is really annoying. Already had the wheel trued
> by my LBS. When the LBS first saw my first broken spoke about a 6 weeks
> ago, they told me the spokes were 'cheap'. Now I am inclined to believe
> them. This is my third broken spoke in about 2 months! Any comments?

I've never broken any spokes on my boardwalk.
Broke a few on my 700C avanti before getting new wheels.

Have the wheel rebuilt with decent spokes.

-kt

 

[ritcho]

I got another broken spoke (third to date) on my brand new 2004
(Folding bike)Dahon Helios P8 today. For those of you unfamiliar with
this variety of bikes, they have 20inch wheels which are supposed to
be stronger than normal sized wheels.
This is really annoying. Already had the wheel trued by my LBS.
When the LBS first saw my first broken spoke about a 6 weeks ago, they
told me the spokes were 'cheap'. Now I am inclined to believe them.
This is my third broken spoke in about 2 months!
Any comments?

You could try "stress relieving" the wheels.

http://draco.acs.uci.edu/rbfaq/FAQ/8c.1.html

It's easy: get some gardening gloves and squeeze pairs of spokes (on the same side of the wheel) together as hard as you can - I mean, really hard!

Squeeze all of them in this way and see if it helps.

No this is not a joke.

Good luck,
Ritch