My wife's bike's plastic spoke protector is making a lot of noise... is there an easy way to just break it off without removing the cassette?

can I just grab it with pliers and start breaking?

The spoke protector is there for a reason. It's a 12 minute job at the local bike shop

On one bike, the plastic "dork disc" was breaks down and it simply crumbles off the spokes with little effort. Otherwise, I've had the shop remove them when I'm having work done. These dork discs are not made for the long haul.

Reason = poorly adjusted/maintained rear derailleur. Keep the derailleur dialed-in, and no need for dork disc. Kindly like lawyer tabs protect people that don't know how to mount a front wheel.

Yes. They get brittle and eventually crack. You should be able to quickly and easily break it off, without even removing the wheel from the bike.

Make sure the rear derailer's low-limit screw is set correctly and you'll be fine.

Well, one poster here once tried burning it off with fire.

You the kind of spouse that will micromanage how your wife makes every shift

and know for a fact the future will never have the RD bumped by having the bike fall Over ?

NB the Pros have a whole bike as a ready replacement.

^^ Not sure what all this means, but yeah.. you can probably break the disc with some pliers if you're careful and pull off the pieces, I've done it before. And as others have said, if the RD is properly adjusted the disc is a complete waste of time..

Even perfectly adjusted bikes can and do have chain drop on occasion. But having said that riding is a risk management event all the time. Different riders make different judgments in similar situations all the time. To have or not to have a spoke disk is just one more small risk to manage. NBD. Andy.

It depends on the age of the item and the amount of UV damage it has suffered. I tried removing one and couldn't do more than mangle it. I ended up having to remove the FW because the disk was such a mess. You have little to lose by trying. As others have noted your LBS can remove it and may not even charge if you take the wheel off the bike.

You probably won't need the pliers.

I've had some luck using strong scissors working from the non drive side of the wheel. These discs are usually polycarbonate and can be quite tough. Once you have a cut through to its inner edge, you can usually "unscrew" it through the spokes.

I expect more likely Styrene , its much cheaper than polycarbonate.

If it's a newer bike and something is rubbing, they can be a pain to try to break off. But doable -- just requires a bit more tenacity and work.

If the reason it is making noise is because the tabs holding it to the spokes have broken off, chances are it is brittle enough to easily break off in chunks with pliers.

As others have said, make sure the low limit screw is set correctly. Test is to shift to lowest gear/biggest cog out back and sight the chain vertically in the same line with the biggest cog. If the top pulley of the derailleur comes to rest more inboard than the inside cog, make adjustments. Otherwise, catastrophic failure can result in the derailleur in the spokes, broken spokes, bent chain, broken derailleur hanger, and in severe cases, broken frame.

I had a lot of trouble removing one that broke where it connected to the spokes. I used a hacksaw blade part of the way through, then heated up an electric soldering iron and melted a grove through the last part.

I find it interesting that the people that say you don't need the spoke protector are also the same ones who don't have the tools or the knowledge to remove them?

It takes two minutes to drop the rear wheel, and remove the cassette or freewheel to remove the spoke protector.

It takes considerably longer to try to cut it up and get the pieces off the rear wheel.

People without tools who don't know what they are doing are the ones that need spoke protectors the most.

1. She asked me to try to fix the noise....i'll show her what I did and see if she wants a new disk...

2. The bike is several years old, and I got it off pretty quick with scissors and needlenosed pliars.

3. I have adjusted derraileurs before, and have just 're-adjusted this one...I think it's safe now.

4. Don't have a cassette tool, so wanted to avoid that if possible...

I like the easiest solution that gets me where I want to go. In my experience that means breaking the spoke protector with the wheel still installed in the bike. Yes, I have cassette and freewheel tools...

Drill a couple of holes in the spoke protecton and wire it in place. One bad shift and 1/4th of the spokes will need replacing.

Exactly!

I've seen some of the plastic ones with a metal center ring also.

The plastic dork is installed on rear wheels to prevent accidents from catastrophic derailleur/ chain failures like broken derailleur hanger (which are designed to break under pressure) or other major deraileur break. You should be riding with one.

Thanks, that worked well with a couple of cable ties.

Just FYI this thread is 10 years old and has not been active since then.

Greetings everyone! Which one is better for MTB? PressFit or Threaded BB? Also, would you please tell me why would you choose one over the other? Or it is not a question of which one is better, but both have advantages and disadvantages and the choice must be tailored to the rider's needs or budget? Thank you!