Originally Posted by
miki150
Hi,
I'm currently cycling through Patagonia, and have broken 10 spokes during the last 2000km. All of them in the back wheel on the left side. 8 of them were the ones that pull when you pedal. My wheels have 32 spokes. Only about 600km were on paved roads, the rest on gravel ranging from bad to very bad.
The weird thing is that only the ones on the left side break. The drive side are supposed to break more often, right?
I'm thinking maybe they got damaged when I flew to South America with the bike. In this case, I only have a few more to replace and then they should stop breaking. Or might there be another reason? The wheel has been trued 2 times during the trip and it didn't seem to help.
Thanks,
Michal
Where are the spokes breaking? If at the elbows, that is a sign. If elsewhere, it is another sign. It would help if you could describe or mention where they are breaking.
Spoke quality is important. DT Swiss spokes are probably the most reliable (of the reasonably priced spokes, at least).
Spoke diameter is also important.
Butted spokes are different from straight gauge.
DT Swiss Alpine III, if you can find them, are one of the best choices for touring.
It is somewhat counter-intuitive, but loose spokes can be (and often are) stressed much worse than tighter (or properly tensioned) spokes.
You can try this trick: compromise just a bit on the centering of the wheel, in order to even out the spoke tension (between the drive and non-drive sides), and increase the tension on the non-drive side. I've done this, and it can help. In my experience, it did not affect handling. You could try it and see.
You can also order rims with offset holes.
You can cold set your frame to balance the tension as well (along with offsetting the wheel a bit as described above).
You could increase your spoke count.
Please keep us posted and let us know what you find.