I was walking down the street Saturday heading to a garage sale when! I saw a bicycle on the sidewalk with a free sign on it. A GT Timberline. So not a grail bike but its my size and would be a great shop bike. I can keep this bike at work and use it around the neighborhood. Both wheels have broken spokes that i will need to replace. My question is where do I

find economical spokes? I could get Sapim spokes but thats alot of money for a budget bike.

Do you have a local bike co-op? or try ebay https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw...023.m570.l1313
You do know they are different lengths for the rear DS vs NDS,

Ah the co op yes there is one around. I will disassemble the wheel and measure the spoke lengths. Hopefully I can find the spokes and get this bike running.

I suggest only removing a couple of spokes, to measure, before going further. Unless one already knows how to relace a wheel from separate parts it's far easier to just replace one spoke at a time to maintain the lacing pattern and handle the floppy partially apart wheel at the same time.

A spoke from each side, each hub flange, can be brought to a shop or coop and any measurement errors eliminated by direct comparison. On the rear wheels these bikes use there's generally a 2mm difference in length between the two sides of the built up wheel.

Where are the OEM spokes broken? At the hub/J bend, at the threaded end or somewhere in between? One trick to check the rim's untensioned condition is to relax all the spoke tensions about the same amount. As the spoke tensions decrease the more the rim will seek it's unstressed shape. By spinning the wheel one can watch the rim edges for any localized wobble of flat spots. A rim that is already flat and round will true up quicker and last longer Or another way, if the rim isn't pretty straight and round with essentially zero spoke tension the wheel will never last as long and one might not even be able to true out any wobbles. Andy

The reason why I ask about where along the spoke the breaks are is that there have been batches of badly made raw spoke stock. In the 1990s the LBS world saw thousands of lower cost bike wheels with stainless steel spokes that would form an "inclusion" or other issue that made that spot ultra brittle. This problem was on many different brands and there was little reason to why one bike suffered but the next one on the production line didn't. If your spokes are broken along their mid points look for small blackish spots on the spokes for possible future problems. When this problem was first noticed (and this was long before the interweb was what it is today, so information spread by word of mouth or in monthly industry publications. We initially just replaced a few of these breaking spokes but soon began to see returns with more broken spokes so we would just replace the complete wheel (less time and cost VS respoking the entire OEM wheel). For some of these we got reimbursement from venders, sometimes the shop ate the cost and sometimes the customer did. Even years later I would sometimes still see these bad spoke problems with tell tale spots and breakage points. Andy

Yes the spokes are broken near the center. I suspect now that the other spokes will probably snap in a similar way if I replace just the broken spokes. Maybe the best course would be to replace all the spokes. I did look at the ebay link provided and I found some basic spokes.

It wouldn't be surprising if at least a few more were ready to pop. I'd assume from the general condition that seized nipples won't be a problem, but that's something to bear in mind - if you set out to replace only a few, but then find you can't true the wheel because they're seized or breaking, you might do better to replace the lot. Maybe think of it as "bought $50 of spokes, won a free bike"?

I would look at new wheels, wasting time and money chasing spokes around an unknown wheel on a bike marked free is not something I could or would recommend. It is already a low initial cost bike and was being given away with unknown problems. I would agree about not putting much money towards it but I also would know when to cut losses. This bike might not be so free in the end.

Most bike shops these days have a spoke thread rolling machine and stock long raw spokes that they cut to length, if the spokes are constant section (not butted). A good shop tech can measure the spoke lengths fine without removal. For a couple spokes, don't worry about the price, I think they'll be $1.50 or $2.00 each, just standard stainless steel spokes in the same size, and make sure the new nipples take the same size spoke wrench as all the others, and nickle-plated brass, NOT aluminum. If the spokes are ultracheap galvanized non-stainless, the bike shop won't stock those, just use a couple stainless steel ones.

The other spokes are fine, and not all gonna fail soon. Spokes usually fail from a gouge, like if the chain fell against it because of no spoke protector, or lack of stress relieving during initial wheel build.

Against sound advice and common sense. I went ahead and found some same length spokes at the coop where they advised I was on a fools errand. But the wheel turned out pretty good, haha. See how it does on the bike next week.

I find wheel truing to be extremely satisfying, calming in a zen kind of way, and as you get better at it, and with more time spent on a given wheel than the pro tech, better results.

When everyone is saying the same thing there is probably something to that. Hopefully you won't be chasing tons of spokes over and over and over.

Nice Bike! I am sure the other guys in the shop are going to like it too. Certainly spending the bucks on spokes is not a big deal. Here is where I get mine...

https://www.bikehubstore.com/Sapim-R...leader-sil.htm

Actually, very few bike repair shops have spoke machines now. The cost is prohibitive.

I am one of those few but getting a Hozan tool is not prohibitive and have known plenty of mechanics with them. The Phil Wood machines are initially costly for certain but are long term machines, ours is from the mid 80s and we were able to get parts for it and get it back up and running without too much cost.

there's a phil wood machine on ebayt now.. for 6700 dollars.... the Hozan spoke machine sells for about $2000... there's an AliExpress unit selling for $1400 (Update: Now priced at $3145 and change.. gee, Thanx, DON .)... i won't speculate on it's ability to function for more than a wheel's worth of spokes... and the Hozan thread-only, vise mounted, hand cranker is selling for between $100 and $300, presently...it looks incredibly flimsy, but might be ok for onesy-twosy stuff, eh? ever used one of those?

so a good :"cut and thread" machine is cost prohibitive.
i'll keep shopping with SunnySpokes and SugarWheels, thanks.
SugarWheels always does me right on nips too... i buy a thousand at a time.

I am talking about the Hozan thread only set up which is cheaper and yes I have used it and the Phil machine is WAAAAAAY better. If you are doing high volume spokes then a spoke machine is I think crucial if you are low volume then a whole different thing.

Well after all the bike has been a success. I was able to find replacements for the broken spokes at the local coop. Been riding the bike for errands around the neighborhood all summer.

The low end HKC threader wasn't really intended for stainless steel spokes, when it was designed and initially offered to the public (LBS too) galvanized spokes were the rule. Long ago I used the HKC and what I remember as an Eldi threader of similar design and really disliked them both. When Phil threaders came into my world my view of spoke stocking management changed and soon the only length speced spokes I would stock were those that couldn't be threaded by the Phil tool. Andy. (who's Phil sits at the shop, not at home)

The bike: Awesome, always great to hear that repairs are victorious over buying new.

Wow, I didn't know the spoke thread rollers were THAT expensive. A former employer did thread rolling on a different part, I never saw the machine internals. I can think of several ways of implementing one, but I have no access to a machine shop, and the local bike shop has a roller. I think I'll go there soon and buy at least 3 each of the lengths I need, so after a breakage I am not counting on them still being open. This is the kind of thing you want local, rather than paying shipping for 9 spokes. Good to know that Park Tool still makes one and parts... or do they?! I see none on their website after search, I'm gonna look at the comments above more carefully... OH, not Park, but Phil (Wood); Yep, there it is, and for what I see, as a former machinist and engineer, that price must be based on every part prototype machined. One would think that based on economies of scale, they would do a short production run of the things. Premium pricing. Somebody will make the same and undercut them by a LOT.

There's one on Amazon for $90 for 14g, Cyclo (I have one of their chain tools, not fancy but 36 years and still going), either spoke is clamped and wrench on the tool, or secure the tool and power the thread by grabbing in a drill motor, if the curved head will fit behind the chuck jaws, probably. Cutting the spoke to length first can be done half a dozen ways, I would use hand cutters like a bolt cutter, then dress the end flat and to length on a grinder or sander.

I agree that most shops don't have spoke machines. We bought 3 Phill Woods at Interbike many moons ago. I forget the price, but got a great discount, and still wasn't cheap, I want to say they came out to less than $3k each, but don't recall exactly. I do know we've used the crap out of them since, and they work grat, and have held up to the use.