Bent derailleur hanger led to repeated chain-drop, which damaged every other drive-side spoke. My lovely LBS (love them) offered to order the 6 Sapim Laser spokes I needed -- but what arrived were DTS C-Race. LBS assures me the spokes are nearly identical, but I confess to being a bit particular...and I know the DTS spokes are slightly thicker (1.8 vs 1.5 i think), and when I set myself to repair this wheel I'll have three different tensions in play, won't I? 12 Lasers non-drive-side, then 6 Lasers crossing 6 C-Race on the drive side.

(1) I know you CAN mix spokes and the earth won't end. But would YOU forge ahead with the mixed spokes in my situation? I can always buy more spokes...
(2) would you de-tension the entire wheel, replace the 6 spokes, then re-tension as a whole wheel, OR just replace & retension each damaged spoke, one at a time?

Thanks in advance!
[24-hole Boyd Altamonts to WI T11s]

measure one of the old lasers, and order your own.
from inside of j-bend, to tip of thread.
chances are they found some spare dt swiss in the back room, or at home, maybe, and are trying to sell them to you.

the only reason i'd mix differing gauge spokes like that is in an emergency, gotta have it running, situation.

onesy twosy replace? just swap in the new ones...
half of one side? de-tension/re-tension.

There are a lot of wheels with mixed gage and shaped spokes out there. I've known shops that would only use straight gage 14 spokes for any spoke replacement repair and I've personally subbed a different spoke a number of times when the matching spec spoke was, realistically, unavailable within the time line needed. Would this mixing be my first choice? No, but I would ride on with it if the other choice was to replace the wheel of not ride that bike. Andy

If you're confident truing wheels it's fine to have different gauges on the pulling and pushing spokes, but it will affect the whole wheel not just the one side. It's OK to replace them one at a time and bring them up to approximately the right tension, but if you do that and roughly true after each spoke that's a lot of truing - I'd expect the rim to rotate slightly relative to the hub, and the dish will change too.
If you want an easy time then hold out for spokes of the same gauge as the originals, there will likely be a lot less work overall - after replacing each spoke the rest of the wheel will be pretty much unaffected.

If you replace them one by one it won't matter at all. This is no slower or more difficult than replacing all at once, and involves less screwing around. The tension is whatever puts the rim back into true.

If you rebuild the wheel with different spokes, you'll need to use two different tensiometer readings, which is a pain.


The wheel doesn't know what kind of spokes it is made of, just how hard the ends are pulling at the rim and hub. You could have a kevlar spoke next to a ti one next to a straight and a bladed.