Originally Posted by
Trueblood
I have a Tourist as well, and had the same issue with the rear wheel. Several spokes broke. Had the rear wheel re-built. Apparently fairly common with the machine built wheels the Tourist has. Some commented that the first thing to do when purchasing that bike is to throw out the pedals and rebuild the wheels.
The first thing I do with a machine built rim, is to have the spokes de-tensioned, then re-tensioned properly. I had that done on my Surly LHT when I bought it in 2011, and I have not had any issues, or broken spokes, despite multiple heavily loaded tours, and heavy loads while commuting.