jimmie65

If I were you, I wouldn't skip over the issue of your LBS telling you a 32 spoke wheel was fine.

I'm "only" 240 and I was popping spokes on a 32 spoke wheel on my Escape. LBS got tired of fixing the spokes, so they ordered me a 36 spoke wheel. Nowhere near the cost of a hand-built wheel and I haven't broken a spoke since; I usually do 300-400 miles a month and weekend rides can be over some rough terrain for a hybrid.

You might also consider a wider tire. I run Schwalbe Mondial 42mm tires.

ClydeTim

This would be a prime example of a bike shop wheel guy not knowing how to properly adjust a wheel. 32 spokes for a 240 is plenty. If he worked on it more than once, it's his fault more than one broke. I was 240 and put 13 000 on a 28 spoke 23m tire no problems. Especially on your hybrid, 32 is more than plenty with wide tires. People use 36 spoke wheels when they can't adjust a 32 or fewer. I put anywhere from 5,000-7000 miles per year on my bike. Trust me, you neef a real wheel mechanic. Not being sarcastic, but a 32 is fine for a 240 pound hybrid cyclist. Just because someone works in a bike shop does not mean they are good with wheels. I've had shops tell me I was too big at 230 for 28 spoke 23 m tires. They couldn't keep the wheel straight. I tore it down and rebuilt it and that is the set I put 13,000 on before I gave them to a buddy. Most wheel guys I have met at bike shops are lacking in wheel skills. If that 32 didn't work for you on a hybrid, it wasn't the wheel.

MRT2

OP weighs 315.

corwin1968

I told Rich my weight and how I would be riding the bike and he used some non-labeled touring hubs from one of the big hub makers in Taiwan, 700c Velocity Dyad rims and 40 DTSwiss spokes in each wheel. My only regret is that the wheels don't have wider rims. The Dyads were appropriate for the riding and tires I was using at the time but my preferences have changed over the years. My next set will be disk brake/9-10-11 speed compatible hubs with Cliffhangers or Blunt 35's for the rims. I like my tires FAT. All of this is assuming I don't run across a used Pugsley at a price I can't resist. In that case I would convert it to a 1x drivetrain and put some 3.8" Surly Black Floyd tires on it. Something like this:

[IMG][/IMG]

corwin1968

Many, many years ago, I worked with a guy who dreamed of owning his own airplane but could never afford to do it. Someone mentioned kit planes as being a less expensive alternative and I'll never forget his response: "No way would I fly in something that I built!". I feel the same way about wheels! I'm about as mechanically inept as it's possible to be. I don't care for working with my hands and I have zero patience with building or fixing things. I can't even adjust indexed shifting, for peets sake! I'll stick to letting experts build my wheels!

ClydeTim

I didn't reply to the OP.

ClydeTim

It's not for everyone ha ha!

andr0id

Yes, I think a modern 36 hole rear rim with 3x 14/15/14s will do the job if built well. Something like a Velocity Dyad would be up to the job.

ColonelSanders

Gorgeous

work4bike

It's nice not to need a master wheel builder just to keep from popping spokes and all for under $100.

This is what my cheap wheel (cheap in price, not quality) was able to withstand (copied below), because of the beefy 12-gauge spokes. I wonder how a $300 custom wheel would have performed under the same conditions.

This is my experience, copied from another thread: https://www.bikeforums.net/clydesdale...34-wheels.html

I ride around with panniers on my rear rack, the current ones are very old and had developed a hole in the bottom, which I didn't noticed. As I was starting off from a red light, I got to about 15 mph when all of a sudden my rear wheel came to a sudden stop; I thought I had a catastrophic blowout, but I was extremely surprised to find one of my wrenches sucked into the spokes of my rear wheel.

I was expecting to see at least three spokes broken, but not a single spoke broke, only one spoke was severely bent and heavily marred by the metal-to-metal contact. I was able to make a quick on-road repair and ride the bike home. I ordered a new spoke (and a couple spares) and I replace one spoke. I did a 30-mile test ride yesterday and all is fine.

jimmie65

YOur response was just as meaningless to the person you replied to.

NoGears

If the mechanic couldn't make a 32H wheel set work for a 240 person...the wheels where made from wet cardboard or the mechanic sucked or just didn't want to do his job correctly. I'm 255 and riding a bike that has 24 spoke wheels. I was as high 275 on this bike. No problems.

jimmie65

I'll make sure to let my LBS that two random forum posters - who know nothing about my riding style, quality of the wheel, etc. - think they suck.

---

To the OP: It sounds like the consensus is that instead of spending less than $100 on a 36h wheel or one with 12 gauge spokes, you need to either learn to build your own wheels or shell out more than your Escape 2 cost for hand-built wheels.


work4bike, I never thought about a thicker gauge spoke. Going to look into this when/if I need to replace the wheel on my MTB.

NoGears

That's good. He needs to know. If this is true and you can't get 32h wheels to hold up under 240 pounds...your either smashing every rock, pothole, and street curb you can hit, the wheels are complete rubbish quality, or your mechanic sucks. I've ridden 32h wheels on nasty trails with load of rocks and logs and everything else as heavy as 320 pounds and never busted a wheel. So someone is doing something wrong. I'm 255 now and one of my bikes only has 24h wheels and I bash it pretty hard and not a single busted spoke or other problem to speak of.

cyccommute 

-Advertising
-People not seeing the forest for the tree (i.e. people look at a bicycle wheel and see a rim but not the spokes)
-People not understanding of how a wheel is built on the part of the consumer
-People not understanding of how the spokes interact with the rim

There's any number of reasons for manufacturers to offer different widths of rims but, I suspect, that most of them are driven by the consumer not knowing anything about spoked wheels or how spoked wheels work. If you build a wheel and really pay attention to how the spokes/hub/rim interact, there are a lot of things that become quite clear quite quickly.

For example, most people don't understand that the spoke floats on the rim. They are used to working with and using a bolt and nut so they assume that a spoke works the same way with the rim but it doesn't. There is nothing holding the rim in place on a spoke. You can slide a spoke up and down the spoke from the nipple to the bend without anything to prevent that.

Another example is the one at hand. If spokes break, the first reaction is "I need a stronger wheel so I need a stronger rim." Instead of fixing the problem...i.e. broken spokes that aren't strong enough for the job...everyone reaches for a solution that has little to do with the underlying problem. So rim manufacturers sell you stronger rims because they are in the business of selling rims.

Some people...perhaps most...can get away with going that route but, as can be found here on the Bike Forums, broken spokes are a very common problem and most people insist on finding the wrong solution.

knapplc

Thanks for the great advice, everyone. I'm not mechanically inclined enough to know how to build my own wheels, but apparently this is something I'd better teach myself. That'll be a summer project.

I started the warranty process with my LBS two weeks ago, and they're telling me it'll be another two weeks or more for the replacement wheel to get here. In two more weeks I'm sure I'll pop another spoke - I can hear it groaning & grinding as I ride right now.

I bought the Vuelta Corsa HD Road Wheels that Jarrett2 recommended. Hopefully these get me through this year's rides and I can learn how to build my own if I need to in the future.

cyccommute 

While I agree that spokes should be stronger, 12 gauge (2.6mm) spokes probably aren't that good an option. Not because they wouldn't be strong but because there just aren't that many choices for the parts to build with them. The first consideration is the hub. Standard hubs are drilled to 2.5mm so that the threads of a 2.0mm spoke which have a 2.3mm diameter can pass through them. Assuming the same 0.3mm thread diameter increase on a 2.6mm spoke, that means that the spoke hole diameter would need to be 3.0mm for the spoke to pass through. You might be able to drill out a hub for those spokes but that would be time consuming and might compromise the hub.

If you didn't want to drill out a hub, finding a modern hub with 3.0mm spoke holes is probably next to impossible. I doubt you could find too many with freehubs on them.

There is also the problem of the rim. A 2.6mm spoke requires a 5.0mm rim hole. Most rims have 4.4mm holes so you either have to find rims with 5.0mm spoke holes which I suspect are quite rare or you'd have to drill them out yourself. Again that is time consuming and fraught with possible problems.

There is also the problem of finding 12ga spokes in the proper length. They are rare and difficult to find.

On the other hand, a 2.2 to 2.3mm (depends on the manufacturer) spoke is readily available... although rarer than double butted or single butted spokes...and they work in many existing hubs and rims. Granted they aren't as strong as the 2.6mm spokes but they are stronger than 2.0mm spokes by about 30 to 40% which is a good improvement without all the hassles.

ClydeTim

Your comprehension is lacking. Read the other comments here. If a mechanic can not get a 32 spoke to work for a 240 rider, then find another wheel man.

ClydeTim

Yes! After several trips to the shop and he can't get it right.......find another wheel man. I rode 28 and 24 at 240 for thousands of miles no problem. Inthin road wheels. Wider hybrid should be a breeze.

ClydeTim

Do that! Tell him to sign on and argue his point as to why others can adjust the hybrid wheels on a 1994 hybrid and keep them running well for years and he can't adjust a wheel well enough to keep it from constantly breaking spokes. I also have a 32 mtb bike with 28 spokes that I know for a fact have taken a beating since 2005 that are still rock solid. As mentionef before, not all shop guys are good with wheels. Watch one at the free tuneup, I bet he trued the wheels and didn't adjust the tension. If you are constantly breaking spokes on a 32 hybrid wheel, that is exactly what he did. Sub par skills or laziness.

Jarrett2

MRT2

You are probably right, but it is hard to really know for sure. The thing is, you won't know for sure if it was the stock machine made wheels, or shop error. If you can get past the initial break in stage and get things properly adjusted, then it is likely a stock wheel will work fine for years. (but not always. I had a back wheel fail after two years) But if there is a problem, a 240 lb rider (or a 315 lb rider in the case of the OP) will run into problems more quickly than will a 170 lb rider. And once you start breaking spokes, you really need to consider either rebuilding or replacing the wheel.

20 years ago I ran into this problem with a Bianchi Advantage hybrid. Broke 3 spokes in a couple of weeks. Bike was brand new. The bike shop said they would rebuild the wheel. The owner pretty much guaranteed that would fix the problem, and it did.

ColonelSanders

Your words on this issue have helped me more appreciate the value of spokes in the wheel building process, not that I thought they were irrelevant before, but I'll give you a direct example from a quality manufacturer and the reason why I am doing so, is that I have given consideration going with what is meant to be their strongest rim, so that I can have my "bomb-proof" wheels, but I want to see if after looking at these 3 rims, you still think it is largely marketing and I would only be burdening myself with extra weight, for no good reason.


Hope make 3 rims in 27.5"(all for the same price) that have the following characteristics :


Hope Tech XC Rim - 27.5" - 32 Hole - 19.5mm internal width, 6056 T6 alloy, 375grams


Hope Tech Enduro Rim - 27.5" - 32 Hole - 23mm internal width, 6056 T6 alloy, 510grams


Hope Tech DH Rim - 27.5" - 32 Hole - 27.8mm internal width, 6061 T6 alloy, 655grams


Now in the above, the internal widths vary a lot, so perhaps the above isn't the right sort of test for what you are saying about the small role a rim plays in wheel strength, but I am assuming that with each of the above rims, with the same spokes, same lacing patterns, the strongest wheels would be produced with the heavier rims(which are of course also wider).


I may not have fully grasped what you have been saying, but if you could comment on the above, that would be greatly appreciated.

rgconner

You get it. But... the test would be sort of pointless.

The reason why is that the rim is just a frame for the spokes, the spokes take all the stress of supporting the bike.

If you had a rim, or say two of them, and you taped them together and tried to sit on them with all your weight they would very likely collapse. Give it a few bounces like hitting a pothole or a raised root on the bike trail and they would fold.

Structural integrity comes from the tension of the spokes that spread the load around the wheel and prevent the rim from collapsing.


It is not unlike a suspension bridge in that respect.

rgconner

Looking at the metallurgy for 6061 and 6056 I would pick 6056 for weight, maintainability and strength, 6061 for ease of extruding and better braking (it is a significantly softer metal)