Mithrandir

So last Friday, I noticed my old rear wheel broke a spoke; I brought it into the LBS with the intention of getting it repaired, but decided to buy a new wheel instead because the old hub was in such bad condition. After 16 years, it was time for a new wheel.

They managed to convince me to get a 32 spoke wheel (as they didn't have 36h), saying it was stronger materials than my old one so losing 4 spokes wouldn't make a huge difference. I was wary at first, given all of the 36h advice that people give here, but decided it was important to get cycling again as soon as possible instead of waiting up to a week for a new wheel. They trued it up for me and I was on my way.

Saturday I went 20 miles, it worked great.
Monday I went 35 miles, it still worked great.

Today I commuted into work, and around mile 16 I noticed the wheel starting to wobble badly. I hopped off the bike, swearing because I figured I broke a spoke already, but didn't notice any broken spokes. However, what I did notice is that a lot of the spokes were now loose, so much so that I could spin the nipples with my fingers with no problems.

I have an emergency spoke wrench, but I'm figuring this is way too much work to fix on my own if every spoke is like this, especially considering I've never trued a wheel before. I was in a very bad neighborhood so I decided it wasn't too prudent to get wrapped up trying to true a wheel, so I decided to continue on.

I managed to wobble the last 3 miles to work (which is such a shame too, I was making my best time ever, was on track to hit around 16-17mph average for the trip. Ended up with 15.3mph average, which actually is still 5 minutes better than my old best record), at which point I inspect the wheel closer, and notice even more spokes are loose this time, I'd say there were only 6 or so that weren't loose.


So there's my dilemma. I'm stuck at work and I have no idea how to true a wheel properly. I've seen some youtube videos but I'm pretty sure this is beyond me at this point in time. The bike shop that sold me the wheel is about 10 miles away from work, about halfway between my work and my home. I'm thinking this is going to be my plan:

1) tighten the spokes so that they are at least tight and not loose
2) bike slowly to the bike shop
3) have them true up the wheel


Should I demand that they do it for free? I just bought the damned wheel, after all. I'm not really sure what the etiquette is here. Any other options/advice? This might be awkward because I've got an appointment for a bike fitting at the same shop at 4pm today... heh.

chasm54

Yes demand that they do it for free. They have sold you a wheel that is trued but not properly tensioned, and under those circumstances it is inevitable that the wheel will go out of true after a while under load. There's no reason why it should be awkward, it's their job and if you're going in for a bike fitting they're still going to want your business, right?

Doing it yourself isn't too difficult, and you should certainly be able to get it to a point at which it will get you to the shop. Just go round one spoke at a time tightening them evenly - don't tighten one spoke as far as it will go before moving on to the next, try to make even progress around the wheel until they are all similarly tight and the wheel is still true.

Neil_B

The shop should cover it. A wheel shouldn't do that after so little use.

wfournier

Did they build the wheel? almost sounds like they didn't use spoke prep from what I have read.

Mithrandir

I do not think they built it. It was partly covered with shrink-wrap when they brought it out from the back.

Biggziff

I'd call the shop and ask them what they'd recommend as now you're stranded at work with a wheel they just built/sold you. If they're only 10 miles away they may have someone there that could come get it and return it to you repaired. Personally, I'd push for this as a solution given the timing and the fact that this is your commuter.

All they can do is say no...

Mr. Beanz

Heeeeell yeah demand they do it for free! DON'T MESS WITH THE WHEEL OR THEY JUST MIGHT VOID THE WARRANTY!!!!!!!!!!! The other thing is that tightening and turning the spokes, you could throw the wheel way out of dish if you don't know what you're doing.

They need to loosen all the spokes then redo everything correctly.

Neil_B

Don't rely on machine tensioning. Get them to hand tension the spokes.

TrojanHorse

+1 to anybody who said its a case of a poorly built wheel. And YES! That shop should certainly correct the situation, or of course you could return it and buy a hand built wheel on the interwebz.

Mithrandir

Ok just got back from the shop.


I tried to eye-true the wheel at work. I left work at 2, hoping at worst case, I'd get to the shop at 3. 1 mile in, the wheel detensioned itself again. Wrenched it all up and went on my way, only to have it detension again a mile later. Repeat... and at mile 3, the tube deflates. Gaddamnit. I'm beyond pissed at this point, and in a very bad neighborhood to boot. So I walk the bike a mile to get out of the neighborhood (I was right near the border, thankfully), and then swap out the tube. Do a complete retensioning again, to the best of my inferior novice abilities, and I'm on my way. The wheel gets progressively worse, and by mile 5 I have to stop and retension again. I go on my way and by mile 7 I have to stop again. This time I hear air spilling out of one of the spoke holes that went loose again. Son.of.a.

So I start walking, too pissed off to want to change the tube again (I'm down to my last spare), get a mile before realising how stupid this is. I feel the tire, and it still has quite a bit of pressure, so my game plan becomes "ride until you cannot ride anymore". Got on and rode. The wheel became ridiculously wobbly, to a point where it actually rubbed up against my kickstand and sent it flying into the extended position. I had to keep kicking it back up. Speed fell to just about 6 mph by the end, and my pulse was higher than it had been the entire trip so far. Either I was wasting a lot of energy pedaling with the tire hitting the chainstays, or my blood pressure spiked due to anger... possibly a combination of both.

Finally I make it to the bike shop. Here's where the good finally starts. Mechanic looks at it and goes "Oh wow, it's not supposed to do that". Ya think? You mean brand new wheels aren't supposed to spontaneously detension every single spoke? Grumble. Well they are going to give it to their wheel guy as a rush job. They hope it'll be done tomorrow or Saturday at the latest. They're going to either completely retension it, and if he is not comfortable with how it looks after doing that, he is going to completely rebuild it. If that doesn't seem to do any good then they're going to build a brand new one for me. All gratis.

Also they offered to drive me home, which I took them up on, because walking 10 miles home would have sucked.

Sigh. A few times during the trip to the shop I thought to myself "why did I ever get back into this??". Ah who am I kidding, I still love cycling.

Pinyon

That is an excellent bike shop. They really want your return business.

Mithrandir

They're all super nice and friendly and have never treated me with anything but the utmost professionalism and respect. Prices are almost always full on retail though, which kind of annoys me, but I still buy from them because of the service. This whole wheel thing surprises me though, nothing they've ever sold me before has malfunctioned like this.

chefisaac

They sold you a wheel that perhaps would not stand up to your fit just because they didnt have what you wanted? That sucks.

skilsaw

Glad it is working out for you.

One thing I noticed in the other posts is the "DEMAND they fix the wheel."


First be nice and give them the opportunity to be nice.

"I bought this wheel here last week, and the spokes are not staying tensioned. What do you think is wrong? When can you have it fixed?..." Ideally at this stage, they say, "Oh dear, this isn't right. We'll fix it for free, and have it back to you as soon as we can..."


All this while you are burning inside and wanting to say, "What kind of $hit is this? I demand that you fix it for free..." But this will make them defensive. "Its your own fault! Fat guys like you should not ride bikes. If you would stay in front of the TV where you belong, eating Cheetos and drinking beer, this never would have happened..."


Being nice is not "wimping out". You can be polite and assertive at the same time.

Good luck on getting the wheel back trued and tensioned, and having many touble free miles.

Homeyba

Sounds like you have a good bike shop. They are standing by their product. You can't ask any more than that. Properly built, your new 32 spoke wheel should work just fine for you. If it makes you feel any better, a poorly built 36spoke wheel would have done the same thing.

motobecane69

having to give you a wheel for free shouldn't make or break their business. you are 360lbs. While it makes sense to want to get riding again ASAP, the bottom line is you probably should have gone with the 36 spoke wheel to begin with. With that said, there is no reason why the wheel you did get should have done what it did. IT flat out wasn't built right. BTW, what kind of wheel is this new wheel and why did you say your old hub was no good? could it just have been regreased and a new wheel built from it? BTW, if they have a wheel guy, he should be able to build you a wheel in a couple of hours maximum and do it correctly. Finally, to the guy who said "they probably didn't use spoke prep" I'm guessing you haven't built too many wheels before. I openly admit that I've only built 6 wheels and they were all in the past 6 months but I can tell you that I've never used any spoke prep because pretty much every source I read on wheelbuilding said if you do it right, you don't need it. So far my wheels have all been perfectly fine. Haven't had to true any of them or retension them.

professorbob

It sounds like 1) they sold you the wheel they had simply to make the sale, 2) They are doing you right by being responsible for it. If I were you, I'd look into having them hand-build you a wheel using the strongest rim, hub, spoke pattern combination possible. I had a similar problem with an original wheel that came with a new bike that I bought. I got tired of having to bring a spoke wrench with me on every ride. They made me up something good and strong (36 spokes, front and rear) and I've never looked back. Best of luck to you!

Mithrandir

Yeah, I didn't even bring up the gratis aspect, they did. "Of course we'll have it all fixed up, you just bought it 5 days ago!". So that was good.

Mithrandir

The reason I agreed with the 32 is because they do have a point. The old wheel was 16 years old and entry level; apparently back then they used 36 spokes because wheels were crap back then and they had to have more spokes. So the fact that it lasted 16 years before any spokes broke is a good sign that a better wheel with stronger materials but slightly less spokes should be fine. In theory.

I forget the brand at the moment. The old hub was corroded inside to a point where when I spun the axle with my fingers, it took some major force to even get it to move. I disassembled it the other night out of curiosity and the inside is a mess, the bearings aren't really perfectly spherical anymore, lots of chips and grooves in the "cup" area that holds the bearings.

I am considering using the old wheel as a test vehicle. I might buy a new hub and spokes learn how to make my own wheel. I'd probably need a truing stand as well, which I don't really have room for and costs a lot too, but I figure it's something I ought to learn eventually.

Seattle Forrest

Sounds like a good shop. It also sounds like they didn't touch the wheel themselves, just bought it and sold it as-is, expecting it to already be in good shape. Stuff like that happens.

Mithrandir

ARGHHHHHH.


So the shop called. The wheel is trashed, no point in rebuilding it. They're going to order me a new rim, 36 spokes this time, and build a brand new wheel for me from scratch.

Problem is, the rim will take a week to get here. Possibly more. I go on a trip to DC in 9 days, which I was hoping to take my bike with me on and tour the capital. If it's not done by then, I'm out of commission for 2 whole weeks. GAH.


So it looks like I definitely need a 2nd bike. I can't take this much downtime. As it stands I doubt I'm going to make my 400 mile goal, and 300 will be a stretch as well.

motobecane69

Go back to the bike shop and ask them to loan you some kind of wheel. There must be something they could give you that they could trust to get you going again. Hell, the shop owner should personally give you a wheel off of his bike!

Not surprised that the wheel is totally trashed. When the wheel detensioned totally and you kept riding on it with all your weight, I'm sure you warped the crap out of that rim. As I mentioned earlier, once they have the parts in hand, a novice wheelbuilder could build you a wheel in 4 hours. An experienced one could probably do it in an hour.

Can you reassemble the old wheel and just put a single new spoke in it? if your going to ride local, that might last for the next week or so for you?

nfmisso

All interesting comments above, but no really technical explanation.

The root cause of the problem was that the wheel was not properly tensioned and stress relieved. (see Peter White's website and many others)

Spoke prep or Loctite are not the answer. Spokes should be lubricated at both the nipple and hub ends. Nipples should be lubricated so that the will rotate in the rim during assembly.

The process is tension, true, stress relieve; re- true, re- stress relieve. Repeating truing and stress relieving until truing is not longer needed; typically three or four repeats. A wheel that is process like this is extremely unlikely to fail.

Regarding your specific dilemma; purchase or build a back up wheel set. I have a back up wheel set for my commuter; which has been hanging on the wall since I rebuilt them last year. Kinda like taking an umbrella so it doesn't rain.

Building the set yourself will give you valuable experience and confidence.

Sixty Fiver

Off the peg wheels can often appear to be an excellent deal as quite often, the entire wheel costs about as much as the individual parts but they are most often poorly finished and are not properly stress relieved to remove any wind up.

Have seen brand new wheels de-tension themselves with nothing more than bringing the tyre up to pressure and then you hear a bunch of pings that sound like crickets on speed as they all unwind and de-tension.

Modern spokes and nipples are generally so good that spoke prep is not needed but one has to be mindful of windup during the build process.

I strive to build wheels that are 5 by 5 and that they stay that way... will also buy off the peg wheels because of the aforementioned cost and then re-build them so that they can be counted on to deliver a long service life.

The OP seems to have found an excellent shop that stands behind their products, even if they did not build them.

Mr. Beanz

Funny, I almost ordered a rim from a shop (Deep V). They wanted to charge me shipping cost, wait a week or two and charged me $80 for the rim.

I ordered it online, had the rim in 2 days and only paid $56 for the rim vs the $80 the shop wanted.

If I had ordered the rim from the shop, I would have paid about $110 for the rim and waited 2 weeks vs the $56 (no shipping sale).