Breaking Spokes on Fixed Gear Wheel, Lacing Pattern?
 

I broke my first spoke a couple months ago, then another a few weeks later. Then yesterday I broke THREE at once. All the broken spokes have been on the drive-side and since I broke the last bunch while track-standing I believe they're breaking due to the back-and-forth forces that none of my freewheeling wheels experience.

Is there a different lacing pattern I can use to prevent this? Would a large-flange hub be better? I've built all my wheels according to Sheldon Brown's instructions and all of them have been fine except for this one. The spokes are all breaking at the head, and in some cases it looks like the head has been sliced in half.

The wheel:
Campy record freewheel hub, small flange
Double butted 2.0/1.6/2.0 stainless spokes
Velocity Aerohead rim, 420g
32x3 lacing pattern
Handbuilt by me
Approximately 10,000 miles on it

After 10K miles with track standing on a FG at stops - the spokes are probably fatigued - the hub maybe also...

Time to rebuild with all new spokes and nipples. Basic rule: one spoke breaks, replace it; when the second one breaks, replace them all.

I know... But is there any way to prevent this in the future? I'd rather not have to rebuild this wheel every couple years.

Unless you can safely - as in measured - say that the spoke tension was OK, I'm not gonna bother looking any further for another reason.

Got any pictures, [MENTION=193959]FastJake[/MENTION]? I would assume you'd be building with good tension and stress-relieving, so the wheels ought to be lasting a lot longer, regardless of your track-standing. If the spokes were breaking at the elbows, I'd wonder if they are from a batch where there is too much length between the head and bend, so that they're not well-supported against the hub flange.

For an evenly dished, torque-carrying wheel, I can't think of any pattern better than good ol' 3X.

This thread makes me wonder how many durable, functional and reliable 32x3 wheels there are in the world.

You say this is a Campy FW hub. Have you re-spaced it to remove most of the dish? If you are going to rebuild this, why not get a fix gear hub and 1) get a hub with very wide flanges, almost the same as a front with very little dish and 2) has provision for a lock ring.

True fix gear hubs make up wheels that are a joy to own. Those wide flanges with almost no dish (none if it is a flip-flop) make for very strong reliable wheels. Wheels that are a big step up from any FW or cassette wheel. I lace them like you, with 2.0-1.6-2.0 spokes (same but 1.8 on my city fix gear), 32 spoke 3X.

Ben

More tension. But that may or may not be possible; insufficient information.

Most of my wheels are 32 3X. Most of my wheels die from rim damage and brake wear and get rebuilt with the same spokes. (Swapping rims on a well built wheel is easy and requires little thought.) My winter spokes go three rims. I rarely retire wheels due to spoke issues, save on wheels that I did not build (many of which I buy for parts and call the rides before spoke issues show free miles).

Ben

For 36 or more spokes, 4X. Kinder to rims and hub flanges. (And riders on rough roads.)

Ben (with way over 100,000 miles on 4X wheels)

I didn't take any pictures but I can. I was wondering if spoke washers might be the solution, and if I decide to rebuild the wheel with the same hub I'm going to look very closely at the spoke head/flange interface and see if I need to fit some washers.

I don't own a tension meter... Probably time to buy one. This is the first time I've ever broken a spoke on anything though, and since I broke five on the same side I thought I could be missing something.

Yes, I re-spaced it for basically zero dish. Reasons I've never built with a track hub:
- Good ones are expensive (~$150). I don't want some CNC'd piece of junk with cartridge bearings.
- I prefer quick release.

I've tried to find old large-flange freewheel hubs but have been unsuccessful so far.

Where did they break? FWIW, unless you are quite light, I'd go for 2.0/1.8/2.0 DB spokes.

You might consider Miche hubs. ~$70. They are cartridge bearing and not quick release, but are fully track worthy and lace up beautifully (and hold up very well for road use except the cartridges aren't as well sealed as some). Several different flanges available as well as both single sided and flip-flop (both FW-SS and FW-FW which I ride). New cartridges through a bike shop is usually ~$30. A Pedros Trixie wrench will give you both an excellent hub wrench and lockring spanner (which is much better than the standard flat plate spanner like the Parks if you go to a bell shaped lockring to use with 12 and 13 tooth cogs).

One caveat re: the Miche hubs. The lockring threading is slightly larger diameter than the standard used on most track hubs. Retapping a lockring from standard to Miche is straight forward but beware that some of the bell lockrings are very hard steel. A machine shop that charges you for time and tooling costs (broken bits and resharpening) will make your lockrings a little more precious than gold. Replacement Miche lockrings (the standard down to 14 teeth) are not expensive and easy to order. (I now have two "unobtainium" bell lockrings, hence I know of what I speak.)

Ben

At 155 pounds, I have no need for 1.8s on wide flanged track hubs. I use them for my winter/rain/city wheels because they are cheaper, more rugged (bike rack accidents, etc.) and slightly less appealing but for the road, hardly a benefit ever. With the super wide flanges, track wheels are very strong and rigid side-to-side using very light spokes. (Basic engineering - wide flanges = well braced triangle. Far lower loads on the spokes when you load the wheel sideways.)

Ben

It's almost always low spoke tension. They definitely shouldn't break while trackstanding. Fixed should be easier on them than geared. Buy a Park TM-1 and no more problems. Velocity recommends 105-115 kgf front and 110-120 kgf driveside. New spokes, rebuild as before.