Originally Posted by
kgriffioen
I have more broken spokes than flats. Just had one a few days ago. Took off from a light and heard the familiar "ting" followed by the wobble. Opened up the brakes a bit and made it home and then put in a new spoke and I was good to go again.
I'm not that big, 6' 1", 182 but like I said I snap them all the time and I'm snapping them on both of my bikes. I've learned to deal with it and learned to fix them myself.
Who builds your wheels? I'm 6'1" 175 lbs, and I've never had problems with spoke breakage until the wheel is more than 3 years old. I build my own wheels, or buy factory wheels if I want low spoke count (I build to as few as 28 spokes for front and 32 spokes for rear, and my wheels hold up). I used to break more spokes when I was much younger, and when I used to really rock the bike back and forth on the climbs. Now I keep the bike vertical, and no spoke problems. Also, I never use radial spoking on my commuter wheels; I've had hub flanges rip apart with radial-spoked wheels because the winter salt reacted with the aluminum flanges.
Luis
L.