Road Cycling - Broken spokes

I have a 2002 Specialized Allez 27 A1 sport. I have had it for almost 2 years and have had 4 broken spokes, 3 front and 1 rear. Two of these in the past couple of months. It's beginning to piss me off. I love the bike but read about this potential problem after I made my purchase. Should I upgrade my rims or just deal with the irritaion? It's not a terribly expensive problem to fix.

new wheels are always great! get new wheels ASAP. or if the hubs are still okay, you could just have a shop do a rim transfer. depending on the cause of the problem, that could help. it could be the rim, or it could be the spokes, or a combination of the two. until then, just deal with the spokes. it can be irritating (i used to break a lot of spokes on my BMX),

incidently, how are you breaking spokes? is it going over potholes? off curbs? crashes? are your loved ones cutting them while you sleep in an effort to keep you at home? i have a rear wheel that's been through three bikes in 3.5 years that i really beat the hell out of (it's a fixed gear wheel) potholes, curbs, hard skid-hops, leg-locking (which is a skid initiated by locking your knees and stopping the wheel from the hub...puts a lot of stress on the spokes), also one of my favorite things to do on that wheel is, as i'm cruising along ad a good clip, unweight the rear, and while the wheel's in the air reverse my pedaling, so when the wheel hits the ground again it's going backward (it makes a high pitched squeek sound that comes in handy for herding pedestrians out of your way on the bike path) and that wheel hasn't even gone out of true by more than 1mm in that time. do i just have a magic wheel? is it the high flange hub? is it my body-type (i'm pretty small)?

i'm not trying to pick on you, or anyone else who's broken a spoke before, but i'm just curious how it's happening, because it's never happened to me.

I've broken lots of spokes over the years. Oh yeah, I'm fat. :)

Just riding on a paved road, no major potholes or anything that would cause a problem. I am 190 lbs at 5'10". I could shed a few pounds but I am not overweight.

Just riding on a paved road, no major potholes or anything that would cause a problem. I am 190 lbs at 5'10". I could shed a few pounds but I am not overweight.

Here's my experience: Once you break the first spoke, many more will follow. Front, back, it doesn't matter. As I said, I'm a heavy rider weighing in at 215 lbs. I've been heavier, I've been lighter. I've always broken wheels. I've had numerous spoke heads come off at the hub. I've had Mavic Reflex and MA40 rims crack to the point that the eyelets are starting to come through (usually on ly on the rear wheel drive side).

What I'm getting at is that heavier riders stress their equipment much more than average riders. We have to develop more power to operate at the same speed as lighter riders. Get into the hills and those numbers increase dramatically. Add to that the natural stress of being "gravitationally challenged" (as I like to call it :) ) and that's certainly a good formula for broken spokes on the rear wheel.

My opinion: If the hubs are in good condition and are reusable, have a reputable shop build a set of wheels with new spokes and rims. They may have a wheel guru that can build you a very tough set. If they get it right, they'll last a long time.

Hope you get it solved soon as it's a frustrating problem to have :) Life's too short to worry about your spokes!!

Jamie

for the past few weeks, after I replaced my old frame w/ the Specialized S-works, I had broken 2 spokes, both rear one in the drive, the other opposite. These are DT swiss spokes! These are suppose to be strong.....

Anyway, I had broken a number of spokes in the past.

So if you have trouble with ordinary round spokes, try getting your wheel redone with double butted spokes. These spokes are stronger and lighter than the ordinary ones.
But are more expensive. :(

i'd bring it back to where you bought it (lbs i hope) and tell them about this and say you want them to back off ALL the spokes and re-tension them.

i had open pro's that did this to the same spoke over and over and after the 2nd time, they finally rebuilt it (at no cost to me, but thats because of my relationship with them) and it never happened again.

anyone who tells you to buy new rims, loves spending your money...

I agree with Ralph.

Assuming that your rim isn't actually bent, the key is to have adequate tension on each and every spoke and to have all of the spokes as evenly tensioned as possible.

Lots of times, when a cyclist brings in a wheel with a broken spoke, the shop just replaces the broken spoke and retrues the wheel. That returns the wheel to exactly what it was before - a wheel that is about to break a spoke. The fix is simple and only takes about 10 additional minutes. After replacing the broken spoke, check each and every spoke on the wheel to bring them all up to equal tension. After doing that, it will be necessary to retrue the wheel which must be done by tightening and loosening opposing pairs of spokes equally.

To tell if your rim is bent, look for an extra tight spoke. If the spoke opposite that one isn't extra tight also, the rim is bent. A good wheel can't be made with a bent rim. Eventually it will have to be replaced. Usually it's better to replace it while the wheel's in the shop rather than wait until it turns itself into a potato chip somewhere on the road ten miles away from where your car is parked.

I have a 2002 Specialized Allez 27 A1 sport. I have had it for almost 2 years and have had 4 broken spokes, 3 front and 1 rear. Two of these in the past couple of months. It's beginning to piss me off. I love the bike but read about this potential problem after I made my purchase. Should I upgrade my rims or just deal with the irritaion? It's not a terribly expensive problem to fix.


I would get them relaced with new spokes and nipples, the rims are probably fine. I have a Specialized MTB, and in a year have broken 5 spokes on the rear tire. They backed off and retensioned all the spokes two of the times I took it in. Finally, they called Specialized about it and were told that they had never heard of a problem and wouldn't do anything about it. I didn't think they would, but it never hurts to try. Anyway, after $100 in spoke replacements, the shop relaced it with better spokes. I'm 175 and the bike is an '03 Stumpy FSR Comp. It shouldn't be breaking spokes on a fire road.......

Dean

Try giving the spokes a light tap with a screw driver. If any of them go "pang" instead of "ping" it's not tensioned enough and therefore probably isn't carrying weight, casuing the spokes around it to carry extra.
And like the others said, take it into a shop, they should have a couple of devices to check if the wheel's true, round, and that the spokes are properly tensioned.

It is odd that you break the front spokes, I break more of my rear spokes. Do the break at the hub or at the rim? Do you rock the bike when you accellerate? Do you de-wieght when you see a bump coming up?

I have a 2002 Specialized Allez 27 A1 sport. I have had it for almost 2 years and have had 4 broken spokes, 3 front and 1 rear. Two of these in the past couple of months. It's beginning to piss me off. I love the bike but read about this potential problem after I made my purchase. Should I upgrade my rims or just deal with the irritaion? It's not a terribly expensive problem to fix.

I bent the rim on the original tires on my Navigator 300 and replaced it with a similar, 32 spoke wheel. It lasted about 12 months and spokes started to pop. First one, then another, then six at one time. I became pretty adept at replacing spokes and truing the wheel.

I researched this problem to within an inch of its life and found that no amount of re-tensioning - I borrowed the shops gauge - and retensioned the wheel four times to no avail. The problem was the wheel was not strong enough and, over time, it fatigued thousands of miles ahead of schedule. The only solution is stronger wheels.

Mavic CXP33's or Open Pros, 36 hole, triple laced both front and back is the only way to go for heavy riders. I was at my lightest of 235 lbs when the spokes started to go. The weight will go down, but some of us are almost skinny at 190, which is where I am headed.

If the Bontrager Race wheelset on my Zurich are not as strong as the manufacturer says they are, then I am going the Open Pro route.

I have a 2002 Specialized Allez 27 A1 sport. I have had it for almost 2 years and have had 4 broken spokes, 3 front and 1 rear. Two of these in the past couple of months. It's beginning to piss me off. I love the bike but read about this potential problem after I made my purchase. Should I upgrade my rims or just deal with the irritaion? It's not a terribly expensive problem to fix.A rebuild with 14/15 gauge DT butted spokes might be just the ticket. DTs have a long fatigue life compared to typical OEM-quality spokes, and the double-butting can't hurt either.

I did find the specs on the bike here: http://www.epinions.com/bicycles_2002_Specialized_Allez_A1_Sport/display_~full_specs If you had the money for it, I can see a few reasons that you might want to buy a complete pair of hand-built wheels. You would be able to opt for genuine Shimano hubs, genuine DT 14/15ga. spokes, some stiffer rims, and optionally a 36-spoke rear wheel (or both). Think it over...

My shop showed me a pair of Mavic wheels he sugested might be in my future. Not sure which ones, but they cost $160.00 each. Not there yet but am fast approaching the point where I have to do something. I will take all the suggestions to the shop and she what happens. Thanks.

I have broken a few spokes in my day (185 lbs), all in the rear, and I have found the only way to get a strong wheel again is to re-spoke the wheel. I have tried to simply replace a spoke, but no matter how I have tried, I could not get the spoke tight enough without stripping the head. I have done the re-spoking now twice, with both rear wheels of my two bikes. I will vouch for double butted DT spokes, three cross pattern wheels.

If you are feeling adventurous, you can do this yourself. The website of Sheldon Brown (www.sheldonbrown.com) has very good instructions for wheel building. This way, the only cost, besides the equipment, is about $25 - $30, the cost of the spokes. It is a great skill to have and will avoid the high cost of having someone do it for you. I would highly recommend getting a cheap wheel stand and a good quality spoke wrench for the job (about $40-$50 for the stand and wrench - cheaper than labor of wheel building.)

Once the wheels are rebuilt and the spokes are all equally tight, then the problem of spokes popping will be over. A well build wheel should never be breaking spokes.

Recieved a call from the lbs yesterday. They wanted to give me an update on my bike. I decided to have the spoke replaced and have all the others re-tensioned,etc.,etc. Well he tells me that the bike is ready, the wheel true and that the rear tire needed to be replaced. He said tere was a sidewall tear. B.S.! When I brought that bike in there was no flat at all. The only problem was the wheel was out of round and the broken spoke. The owner is on vacation and I like the shop and the people, but I have the feeling something happened while the bike was in their custody. Any suggestions?

The side wall can have a small cut without getting a flat, but the tire should be replaced because it wont be long till you get a blowout with the cut. Ask to see the old tire. Also ask if they stress relieved the spokes, to take out any wind-up that happened during tensioning.