Originally Posted by
lopek77
I broke 2 spokes in 2 days... I'm 6.2 and around 270 lbs.
My Specialized Crosstrail has regular Alex Z-1000, 26", single wall, 36h rims with Forged alloy, double sealed, ground race, freewheel type, QR /
After doing some research, looks like the wheels on this bike are from 20th century ... single wall, freewheel... My fault... shouldn't trust my LBS sales guy.
Is this pretty common to brake spokes while riding on perfectly flat surface?
Poorly built wheels break spokes.
Machine built wheels are generally poorly built.
Well built wheels don't break spokes for the first few hundred thousand miles (although you do need to periodically replace the rims as they get crashed or the braking surfaces wear out and perhaps the bearings).
You might have shoddy spokes too, but primarily it's a build quality problem.
Question is... what to do to make my wheels/spokes lasts for a long time, without spending to much $$$?
Bring the wheels to uniform high tension (lightish box section rims can be alternately stress-relieved and tensioned until they deform in waves, backed off half a turn, and re-trued. All wheels can have spoke tension measured with a tension meter, of which the $50 Park TM-1 is the only model that's really affordable for the occasional wheel builder) on the drive side, set the non drive side to whatever it needs to keep the wheel dished right, and stress relieve using your preferred method (squeeze near parallel spokes together (preferably wearing gloves), bend them around each other at the outer crossing with something softer than the spokes (an old left crank, screw driver handle, or my favorite a brass drift)).
Since all of the spokes in the same group (rear wheel drive side leading, drive side trailing, non-drive side leading, non-drive side trailing; front wheel spokes are pretty much the same) have seen similar fatigue conditions you can expect them to fail at about the same time and it may be prudent to pre-emptively replace the other spokes in the groups where you're having failures.
When you have spokes de-tensioned during replacement, I'd take the opportunity to bend the outbound spokes around the hub flange (use your thumb) and once the spoke has some tension bend it so it makes a straight line between nipple and hub.
Using the same gauge (ex - 2.0mm/14 gauge) spoke when replacing will mean that all the spokes on the same side make the same tone when at uniform tension.
You can also buy inexpensive replacement wheels although they'll need the same treatment if you want them to survive.