mev

There was a bit of history there...

I lost my rear wheel near mile 500 of the Alaska Highway (where it crosses the Laird River). The 36-spoke rim was tearing apart. It took 6 days including Victoria Day holiday but a new wheel was built in Ft Nelson and sent up via Greyhound bus.

Unfortunately this new wheel was a 32-spoke wheel and I already started having some troubles with it riding towards Edmonton. So in Edmonton, I decided to replace the rear wheel with a 36-spoke well built wheel at a local bike shop there. Rather than throw away an otherwise good 32-spoke wheel, I decided to carry it along as well.

A day out of Kenora, Ontario the 36-spoke wheel also started to develop some cracks and the spokes started to pull out. Better safe than sorry so I took a rest day in Kenora and got a new rim sent from Winnipeg and had new replacement 36-spoke wheel built. I still carried along my 32-spoke Ft Nelson wheel as an extra spare.

The photo I included was in Cape Breton Nova Scotia where I was still riding the Kenora wheel and had the Ft Nelson wheel strapped on the back. The Kenora wheel did fine until I was outside Corner Brook, Newfoundland where I noticed another wobble and spokes starting to tear out again. So, I found a local bike shop. At that shop, I decided to switch over to the 32-spoke Ft Nelson wheel, though I also bought a steel rim replacement wheel just in case to get me the last bit to Cape Spear.

It might have just been bad luck with rims or wheel building or perhaps a combination of extra weight from both myself and the bicycle. However, after that trip I switched over to using a 48-spoke tandem wheel on the rear. On my longest trips, I still had an occasional rim wear out but the incident rate went way down and I also didn't find myself carrying a spare wheel like I essentially did from Edmonton to St John's.