My education continues. Down at Mr Sugiyama's bike shop and he crouches down next to the back wheel of my Trek. He gets up and goes into his shop coming back moments later with a spoke in his hand. He holds it up to one of the spokes on my bike and it's a bit shorter. 'Hmm..', he says. He then peers at the hub end of the spoke in his hand and then at the hub ends of the spokes on my wheel. He doesn't say anything and I know better than to ask - he will just ignore me till he has something to say.
He hands me the spoke in his hand and points to something embossed on the end of the spoke. I can't make it out so I ask if he has a magnifying glass. He goes and gets one. I still can't make out what's written there. He tells me he's had those spokes for 30 years and he can't remember.
I then look at the ends of my spokes poking through the holes in the hub and see there's something written there, too. 'What? They even put logos on the ends of spokes?' I ask. I can't make it out so he looks. 'DT', he says. 'DT? What does that stand for?' I ask. He doesn't know either but goes into his shop and returns with a box full of spokes with 'DT Swiss Spokes' written on the side and top.
He then starts running one of the spokes between 2 fingers so I get one and do the same. 'It's thicker at the ends, thinner in the middle!' says I. 'Yes, they're racing spokes... they're lighter in the middle where less strength is needed and thicker and stronger at the ends.' He then points to my spokes so I look closely at them and see they're the same. 'They're double butted too.' he says. Then it clicks what double butted frame tubes are.
My spokes are stainless steel whereas Mr S' box of DT spokes are chrome moly. He tells me that with those spokes he's never had one break, even when the L-shape at the hub end has started to straighten. SS spokes, he explained, tend to just snap.
Mr S has disappeared into his shop, this time to return with some stickers with 'DT Swiss Spokes' written on them and sticks one on the front rim and another on the back, right between the Matrix sticker and the ISO Cll sticker... it's as if a space was left for them.
Mr Sugiyama is pimping my ride.
Bigger photos on Flickr, at:
http://flickr.com/photos/22983673@N0...7603905040368/
and the following 2 pics.