Originally Posted by
Pete Hamer
Oh good! I would love to talk to you. You don't happen work for stay-tru do you?
We true, tension, and adjust the hubs on all of our wheels before we sell them. Anyone who knows me from BF probably knows I am all about using spoke tensiometers. I have also had many customers come into our store with these problem "n" and Cn" spokes on wheels that were bought at other stores so it is not specific to our shop. Plus, none of the wheels with other brands of spokes are having problems. We once had three customers at the service counter at one time with broken spokes in newer wheels that had these "n" brand spokes.
I didn't realize that the "n" and Cn" were the same brand of spoke. That's quite a coincidence that I mentioned both of them.
What's even more amazing is that you say the upper case "N" spokes are also the same brand because that is the other logo/spoke that I've seen this same issue with. I didn't mention these the first time because I don't see the "N" spokes nearly as much as now as did at the last shop I worked at. The warranty guy was just furious with them. He ended up replacing my new wheels before a spoke broke based soley on the fact that they had the dreaded "N" logo on them. They were that notorious for the exact same issue, the heads would pop off of them too. It was well known that they were problematic.
These spokes that I am talking about are breaking within the first few hundred miles of use! The heads are all popping off! I've probably seen this 30-40 times this season. Please don't tell me that these spokes are okay
There are basically 4 major brands found in many bike shops here in the US - you can probably guess what they are - I'm not going to name them else I'll get threatening cease and desist letters and stuff...
These four brands entry level bikes are pretty much equipped with machine built wheels utilizing CN spoke spokes...now you'll mostly see the "n" inside the "C"...CN has reduced the use of the capital "N".
As I visit shops here the bay area - what'll I see 9 times out of 10 - bikes slapped together - nothing further done on the wheels other than a few spokes tweaks on the bike. A lot of these wheels have spokes that ARE FREAKING DAMN LOOSE!!!
And the same shops will complain when the wheels come back 3 months later with broken spokes...they'll complain to their distributors - the distributors will blame CN. Once a distributor was right there in front of me when I was visiting a shop - and was blaming CN. The distributor rep didn't even notice I was there...
So you can imagine where I sent my next email to and what the "heads up" messages consisted of.
For entry and mid-range spokes - I am very happy with CN. I have no complaints for the wheels for which I use them for. My customers are happy.
Of course, for my high end wheels - I go with DT Swiss and Phil Wood.
Keep up your high standards...that alone nips a hellva lot of problems right up front.
