msparks

Well I have about 2500 miles on my current wheelset. It's a Mike Garcia, DT swiss 1.1 with a speedcific hub. They have been great since new, but I recently busted a spoke on the rear. I had it replaced at a lbs, but was wondering if I should send in my wheelset and have them tuned up by someone else.

Reason is, the lbs was trashing my wheels saying they were unsafe because the spokes where so lightweight. They said they would never ride on aluminum spokes (duh, their Stainless Steel) so I paid my bill and left. (they wonder why I never buy anything there).

Anyhow, just wondering what I should do now, just keep riding on the wheels or send them in to get a "tune up".

Thanks

Pull4Me

Buy a new bike, of course. Duh.

JayC

After my fiasco with MG, the best advice I can give you is find an LBS to do the work for you.

Psimet2001 

I'd go back to the LBS and ask specifically what spoke they used to replace the broken one: Manufacturer, series, and gauge(s).

If it matches the ones that the wheel was built with, and the wheel is true and the tensions are close (pluck the spokes and see if all of the ones on one side of the wheel match in pitch), then ride it.

I wouldn't bother sending it back in to Mike. He seems to be uber busy and some people here have been posting that he has been having some quality issues with his builds lately. CyLowe97 just got a set a while back and they are already out of true - not bad, but bad enough they should be worked on. Jayc had some issues with a recent build as well.

EDIT: JayC beat me to it....

Personally I bought some Speedcific hubs from MG last week and plan on building a set myself. I've heard such horror storys about his communication that I didn't even bother calling for spoke lengths. Oh well....we'll see...

EDIT: Oh and find a better LBS. One that knows WTF they are doing.

msparks

When I bought the wheel, I got a spoke for both of the rear sizes and one for the front.

So they used what came on the bike.

The wheel is true, but I haven't ridden on it yet. Will see tomorrow.

If it breaks another, I'm out of spokes. I guess I should make an order on spokes?

Psimet2001 

Go back to your MG paperwork and figure out what manufacturer, series, gauge(s) and lengths your spokes are. If this is your only wheelset then I suggest buying a spare couple of spokes. MG has good prices on spokes, and they seem to ship parts quickly.

Next time if you are even remotely technically capable then I would suggest replaceing the spoke yourself. Just lace the new one in using the same over/under pattern as the one you remove, then tension it up until the spoke plucks to the same basic tone as the adjacent spokes.

The wheel should be true at that point.

....if all goes well....

mollusk

I agree with all of this especially the part about finding a better LBS, or at least finding a better wrench within the same LBS. You were fed a line of BS.

Also, how much riding did you do with the spoken broken? Riding a wheel in that state can cause pretty rapid fatigue failures in adjoining spokes. If you had to ride a fair distance you might find that a couple of other spokes will "pop" soon as well.

msparks

I was about 15 miles into a 30 mile ride. After the spoke went the wheel was way out. I took the shortest route home--Was going on a 50 miler but had to cut it short.

waterrockets 

Yeah, I wouldn't read much into one spoke breaking. I built my best ever set, with a 36h Deep-V rear, and broke a spoke after about 1200 miles. At first I was thinking I must have really screwed up my build. I rode home, replaced the spoke, checked tensions, and everything was still perfect. Wheel true, round, dished, even (really even) tension.

It's now been about 10,000 miles since then, and the wheel has been flawless and bombproof. I use it to break potholes.

Just a bad spoke.