In my case, i simply don't know. I'd be riding along and a spoke would just break. Always on the non drive side and always at the J bend where it goes into the hub. That means it had to be working the metal somehow.

I checked spoke tension all the way around and it meets Mavic's specs for the rim. I carefully adjusted them so that there was (on each side) not more than a 5% variance in spoke tension. The wheel was trued to within about 1mm or so - very true. So it's about as nominal a wheel as you can get. Yet, I broke 5 spokes in about a two week period all the same way. It's crazy. I thought about having the entire wheel rebuilt again, but this would be the second Mavic Reflex rim that I've had problems with. The rim before this one developed cracks at the holes in the rims and was replaced under warranty. My current theory is that this is not the Mavic Reflex of days gone by and that there is a design or manufacturing deficiency in the rims.

I fixed the wheel and I'm going to put it on my daughter's bike. She's a lightweight so the rim should not be stressed in any way and it would be a nice wheel upgrade for her. I'm betting that solves the problem.

J.