Tandem Tom

As I ready our bikes for a bit of touring this winter I was fussing around with a better way to store extra spokes. This Summer, as we rode cross country, I kept them in my rear pannier but they tended to poke stuff and I was also concerned that they might poke a hole in the Ortliebs. I know that some tape the spares to the frame but I really didn't like that direction either. So yesterday there was a discussion on the FB bike touring page about the subject and the idea of storing them in the seat post came up. I had heard that in the past but I guess I always heard incorrectly as I took it to mean the seat tube. Then I had one of those "AH,AH" moments!! It's the seat post dummy!! So now our extra spokes are nestled in my seat post with a stopper of foam padding.
Me thinks the winter is getting to me!! So off the South Carolina and points south in 2 weeks!!!

fietsbob

A couple in the right rear pannier , a couple in the left and a couple in 1 of the front ones , assuming they use 3 different lengths..

With Ortlieb panniers, you can tape them to the Black Plastic stiffener Panel behind the Grey Put-In Organizer pockets piece..

With my Old Beckman panniers He has a velcro panel over the Mounting bolts , with a bit of Padding to protect the stuff sacks the Gear is packed in..

the sample spoke spares went in that space.. (I only used 1 of the 6, Right Rear Of Course, .. as said before , 47 backup spokes were already in the rear Wheel

Putting them all in the seat Post, I hope you labeled which goes where.. Tom.

jimblairo

I tape them to the bottom of the chain stay on the non drive side.

indyfabz

You must have a mighty long seat post.

Tandem Tom

I have all spokes tape together by size and labeled!

79pmooney

Is your post long enough or are these spokes sticking out past the plug? I would worry about the plug slipping out and all getting stuck in the seat tube but maybe this is more likely caused by road vibration on a single bike than a tandem.

Ben

79pmooney

I did this for Cycle Oregon on my ti bike. With Scotch tape, they were near invisible. (I will wrap them with at least three separate wraps next time. I broke the one of the tape wraps messing around with the rear wheel mid-ride and had to get creative stashing them to get home.) Redundancy, always a good thing. Or I could use more durable but visible tape.

Ben

MassiveD

I used to just tape them and put them in the pannier. I don't like the chainstay racks, and think they are a bit of a gimmick. Currently I have taken the other gimmicky direction, and built 4 more into each wheel.

Wanderer

A plumbers stopper, would be a better internal end cap on that seat post.

BobG

+2!

Two wire ties to the chainstay and done! Why listen to rattling parts inside a seat post and have to fiddle with removal in the event of a repair? The Surly braze on to accomplish the same is silly.

fietsbob

Yea Purely as a Gimmick, for Looks, Putting the 3 spoke thingie on as a chain slap catcher on the Right chainstay top .
and using thread lock on the threads and leaving them there is probably OK.

there never was any guarantee the sizes the holder kept fit any of the wheels chosen separately, anyhow.

Tourist in MSN

I have commented many times on this forum that I used a wine cork to hold them in my seatpost, when the cork dried out I then wrapped some electrical tape around the cork to make the cork fit more snuggly. I do that on two bikes. No, I do not label them, I will be able to hold them against an unbroken spoke to figure out which one has more or less unthreaded length of spoke, except on my Rohloff bike the rear spokes are so much shorter that it will be immediately obvious.

Maybe I have longer than average seatposts, but I did not have any problems with the seatpost being too short.

Some people put their spare spokes in the handlebars, but I am not sure if anybody does that with drop bars or if that is specific to only flat bars.

But, on my LHT I use the external spoke bracket instead.

When you have three touring bikes, putting your spokes in your panniers instead of on the bike is a very good way to make sure you bring the wrong spare spokes on a trip.

dwmckee

To me taping them to the chain stay looks well, disheveled. I have a small 1/3 in ciece if PVC pipe that I put spares in and just toss it in the botton of the pannire with all of my other gear. Nothing special. Have not needed one in more than 4 years...

Rowan

I'd suggest taking a good, long hard look at your wheel specifications. Any properly built wheel built to a spec that exceeds the expected load and riding conditions means you shouldn't need to carry spare spokes.

I haven't carried spare spokes in years (well, around a decade). I build my own wheels. For touring they are at least 32H and more often 36H. It means I have control over the what happens out on the road.

Quality rims such as Mavic A719 rims on higher-level Shimano hubs (Ultegra or Deore XT) and, most importantly, DT Swiss straight gauge spokes with brass nipples are among the specs I have most recently used.

BobG

For a tidier chain stay installation use wire ties and position the spokes on the lower inside of the stay. See edited photo at my post 10 above.

SparkyGA

Taped my spokes to the front fork along with a tent pole repair thingy and spare ground stake. They've been taped there for years, flown across the world a few times and haven't been used

LeeG

Inclined to agree. Pretty sure anything that's breaking spokes on a well built wheel is breaking derailleurs and rims. But you can't bbq a hot dog with a fiber fix spoke!

79pmooney

Agree. I build my own. I do break spokes on my winter bikes because I reuse spokes for three consecutive rims. (Fast sidewall wear. Taping the new rim to the old and moving the spokes over is easy and cheap.) By the third rims I may lose 3 spokes total.

For Cycle Oregon, my thinking was a little different. Doing a 7 day, 500 mile, 35,000' ride fixed at 60 yo was going to be seriously hard. Coming in to camp I was going to be fried. Basically down a large number of brain cells. Anything I could do in advance to make potential problems easier I did. I did not carry a spoke wrench, weight and the fact that Black Park wrenches at CO are like bottle openers at a beer fest. But those specific spokes? Yeah, there will be a mechanic at CO who will have them, probably in different gauges and butts, but I may have to wait for 3 or 4 mechanics to finish with the line in front of then to have them look. This at the expense of food, shower or sleep. (The mechanics work 'till the early morning hours but I was in bed by 9 every night!)

Ben

indyfabz

Ironically, the spokes that came in my LHT spoke holder used to rattle. Eventually, one of them came loose at one end and fell off.

Tourist in MSN

I agree that we should not be breaking spokes on well built wheels. I also laced up and trued my own wheels. The last time I broke a spoke was in the 1980s on a 1961 vintage bike, the wheels on that bike were laced up over a decade before I built my first wheel. But, for the minimal extra weight I think it is good practice to carry a few spares.

I usually use Wheelsmith DB-14 spokes, most recent pair of wheels with Sapim nipples. But I really can't say that they are any better than DT, I simply decided to use Wheelsmith after reading Peter White's website comments.

JerrySTL

My cheap Windsor Tourist has a bracket that holds 3 spokes. I did manage to break a spoke under the cassette a couple of years ago. I was on a trail and kicked up a stick into the rear wheel. I wasn't carrying a chain whip or cassette tool, so I just loosened up the rear brake a little and rode to the nearest bike shop. 36-spoke wheels are nice that way.

robow

Stuff happens, even to well built wheels. A fellow rider broke a rear spoke last tour when he had a crash on wet pavement and I replaced it for him with one of my spares. I don't know how it exactly happened and I don't know for sure the wheels were well maintained beforehand but hey, take a couple of spares, use masking tape and stick ends in a piece of cork or foam and throw in your panniers or I've also seen them taped to one's rack.

veganbikes

That sucks. I haven't had that problem on the DT. It could have been an isolated incident or I am lucky or you were just unlucky or something like that.



The front panniers I am building are going to have some of those plastic corrugated signs as a stiffener I might be able to put spokes in the corrugation.

ct-vt-trekker

I used black electrical tape and taped them to my black rear rack. You really couldn't notice them there unless you looked real hard.

cyccommute 

You don't have to be elaborate about the storage of spokes. My daughter's touring bike has spoke storage built into the chainstay but mine doesn't. I just ziptie them under the rear rack.




They are out of the way and they won't rust.