Bicycle Mechanics - newb question: Bent spokes are still good?

Hey guys,

I was riding home from classes yesterday and a longboarder hit me, and his skateboard bent a few of my spokes putting my wheel horrible out of true.

The wheel was hitting the brake pad, and I fiddled around with a spoke wrench and got it so the rim no longer hits the brake.

But a couple of the spokes are slightly bent... they're still good right?

the life of the spokes has been reduced by quite a bit

they may last they may not. be sure, and get them replaced. also the spoke nipple

Replace the spokes and nipples that were tweaked, true the wheel up, and then check the tension on the spokes. If you're wheel was badly damaged you may have to really tighten those spokes to true the wheel, in which case you may need a new rim.

Mike

Bent spokes shouldn't be a problem if they can be straightened and they're not "kinked".

replace. spokes and nips are cheap, you will know that they are right, and learn about wheel maintence and practices as well. even though bent spokes may work, they are never quite the same. but in the endm its up to you.

It's totally fine to use spokes that have been bent, as long as it wasn't a severe bend. In some situations it's actually required to bend spokes a bit to lace them.

The real issue is not that the spokes themselves are bent, but that they're bent while laced to the wheel in what should otherwise be a proper configuration. Normally, if you lace a wheel with bent spokes, the tension they're under forces them to straighten out. If you have a built wheel with visibly bent spokes, this means that either the overall spoke tension in the wheel is significantly below what it should be, or the rim has been deformed so the bent/loose spokes are attached to a bent/flatspotted area of the rim.

Unless the spokes have been scraped/gouged, they will be fine. It's a lot more likely that it's the rim that's messed up.

It should be fine if it is just for commuting.