Problem bike is an 1989 Specialized Rock Hopper Comp (with a hilarious Pinarello repaint).


I use this bike mainly for casual on road/groomed trail rides and it does not see hard trail riding. I am 145lbs, soaking wet, so I am not overloading the bike. Bought the bike used a few years ago, did minimal maintenance as everything was smooth. So, I am riding on flat paved road and I hear a "ping", stop, and realize I have a broken spoke. I took it to my local shop watched the owner and lead mechanic replace the spoke and true the wheel, good shop, long history, seem competent and knowledgeable. They did comment that it was strange that the broken spoke was on the front wheel and in the middle of the spoke (not at hub or ferrule). Fast forward a few month's I come back from traveling and grab my trusty Rockhopper to go for a ride and hear something "off", check the wheels and there is another spoke broken on the front wheel, right in the middle? I have never broken a spoke on a MTN bike before. Not when I was younger and beating on them? why now? I could understand the first break, if the wheel was not in proper tension. The break after having the wheel trued? Would the spokes have fatigued when ridden not trued? More importantly, how do I proactively address this going forward? New wheel? replace spokes? have re-re-trued?
I am digging for a picture now, of bike and rim, I believe it is a Parallax hub? - found some from when I 1st bought the bike, I can take more if needed

I've only ever seen spokes break in the middle when there's already some damage there, like something scratched/etched them creating a stress riser. Otherwise that's not a fail point. If there's no visible damage, check the broken spoke and the rest on the same side, I would assume maybe a bad batch of spokes that were drawn out improperly creating the problem. Based on the cost of any future fixes and the cheapness of the wheel, I'd just replace it rather than do another fix, should be 75-80 for a basic wheel like that and the problem is gone. I've always had a 3 spoke replacement policy, on the third break replace or rebuild, but with the weird location I'd be inclined to skip a break.

It's just everyday metal fatigue on vintage crap.

Spokes can break anywhere along the spoke, at any time.

If you love it, re-lace it.

Or live with it.

By the way, can't re-true a wheel with crap spokes.

Nothing wrong here. Carry on.

Maybe a picture of the broken spoke end?
Pics of hub, rim & tire aren't helpful.

I can't remember the correct term of the top of my head, but i think there is some type of "embrittlement"? that can cause this.

Those wheels are pretty cheap so it is probably metal fatigue. Considering they haven't probably ever been serviced and they are not made of quality parts and the bike is of unknown usage before you got it but probably at least 30 years. Those wheels probably aren't quite that old but considering they are newer could mean that their was issues from the previous owner and maybe they were heavier or carrying a lot of extra weight or didn't maintain their bike or whatever.

I would probably just get some new wheels and maintain them with some regularity

Not sure why paint it to be a different brand unless it was a sponsorship thing. Specialized is a good brand and their old paint jobs were neat.

OP said that the shop 'trued' the wheel but wasn't clear what that entailed. Were the tensions checked? Or just replace the spoke and adjust a few spokes to get the rim true?

Right? There is a thread on this bike somewhere?

• The specialized paint job was much better
• It takes a lot of work to paint a bike (even badly)
• Decals cost money
• I did not pay Specialized $$ for this bike, let alone Pinarello $$
• Bought from Beverly Hills, picked up from a guy in a hundred thousand dollar SUV
• He told me (awfully convincing) stories of him and his brother riding this bike hundreds of miles over years
• Messaged with the seller a few weeks later, told him I loved the bike, but asked if he knew the history and he sounded as surprised as I was, took him a minute to even understand/digest what I was talking about
• It ended with the seller saying he was going to reach out to his brother (who he got the bike from), who was traveling in Europe to try and get the story, again he sure sounded to me like he was as curious as I was . . . but never heard more.

I keep thinking I might break this down and strip it. Then use it as a test/practice frame to paint, can't make it much worse.

I am no expert (don't build my own wheels) but it seemed like they checked and adjusted tension on all the spokes. Seemed like they went through a few rotations double checking? Had a proper shop truing stand and it was the owner and lead mechanic

So you didn't paint it? I am confused now, you have before and after photos so I was assuming you had painted it. Hopefully if you didn't paint it you didn't pay extra for a fake Pinarello that would suck.

Fair enough, I guess I have just been lucky so far. I used to abuse mtn bikes and never do any maintenance and had never broken a spoke, but I guess they were much closer to new then. I foolishly have been lax in maintaining my riders, while I work on projects.

I can take a couple of shots of the spoke in a bit, Included the old pics so at least knew what rim and hub it was, I will try to get a detail pic of he spoke break

Sounds about right

I like this philosophy

So, I have other wheels laying around, from similar era vintage bikes. If I want to use one of these should I start with a rebuild? all new spokes? I need to go look at what I have, but likely have likely have a few options.

maybe I will gather a few pics of what I have available, but I know there are wheels from a Shogun Prairie Breaker, Schwinn MOS, MB-3, and probably some others

No I bought it, already painted as a Pinarello, but paid less than Specialized $$ for it, it was right size and price and Deore. After I bought it, I put it up on the forum to get help with identification (cause it sure did not look like any Dogma). The BF, as usual, was amazing and someone quickly posted the pic of the Specialized Rockhopper Comp and "that's your bike!' So I have been riding around on a hilarious imposter since. I was thinking about stripping it now, because the repaint is failing badly, and it draws a lot of attention. Would be happy to have this one be more subtle, instead of a fake Italian billboard.

I dinnt check every post so I apologize if this was mentioned earlier.

If these are stainless steel spoke, I strongly suspect "cancer", more precisely chloride stress corrosion.

Stainless steels of the type commonly used for spokes are vulnerable to chemical attack by chlorine. The combination of salt (sodium chloride) and high humidity, like in warm coastal areas can cause this. Essentially chlorides on the surface can migrate into the crystal structure and weakens the steel to where it has the n mechanical properties of dried spaghetti.

I've seen wheels break 1/3 of their spokes from tension alone while in storage.

Eyeball and do a somple test to confirm my theory. Look along the spokes gor black dots or lines, or squeeze paired crosses across to raise tension.

If this is the issue, every spoke in this wheel, along with every wheel built with this batch of spokes is going to fail this way.

FWIW this issue is possible in all stainless steel spokes, but can be prevented or slowed during manufacture. That's why it isn't universal, and b occurs in batches from time to time as a result of manufacturer error.


BTW this is a well documented issue in stainless steel. Anyone wanting to know more can search under stress corrosion or passivation.

Jives with my coastal living and slightly leaky coastal garage, I am going out now to take a closer look and try and get pictures.

Odds are pictures won't help, since what you're looking for is tiny. It looks kind of like mildew or lice. In any case, do the squeeze test to know.