Wheel disintegrating!
I've run this stock wheel from the REI Randonee for 13,000 miles so far and had NO trouble with it. Nothing. Nada. It never even needed to be trued - it was perfectly straight. Until yesterday.
So I was riding along when I heard the dreaded POP! A spoke was flopping around. We were about 20 km from town at that point, so I pushed on. About 3 km later - POP! Another one.
We pulled off to set up camp and fixed it - turned out the spokes were fine, but the nipples had busted. As John was truing the wheel, another nipple self-destructed in the tool.
So this morning, we woke up and found.... THREE MORE BUSTED SPOKE NIPPLES!!! We couldn't believe it. I hitched a ride into the nearest town and another one was gone by the time I got here.
I have found a local mechanic who is replacing all the spoke nipples now and I'm hoping to be back on the road by tomorrow.
But - is this normal? Every one of the nipples completely fell apart when he took the wheel apart. Is 13,000 miles about what one would expect from aluminum nipples? I guess when aluminum fails, it fails all at once!