Rebuild or replace wheel?
 

Hello all, new guy here, pretty new to serious riding. I bought my first road bike about 6 months ago, a Fuji Newest 2.0. It was fine for the first 300 miles or so, but now I can't seem to ride 50 miles without breaking another spoke in the rear wheel. I've had two replaced so far and broke another one last weekend on a flat piece of road, so it's not like I was jumping off curbs on it.

For some background, I weigh around 210 and ride pretty hard, and the wheels are Alex R500 (think that's right), 32 spokes, 700x23c Armadillo tires, as we love the thorns in Arizona. This spoke is on the gearing side of the wheel, I forget what side the other two were on, but all three have been in the rear wheel.

I'm doing a triathlon in a month, so I don't want to just keep replacing spokes one at a time, and end up breaking down halfway through the course. I just want this fixed for good. Should I have my bike shop rebuild the wheel with new spokes all around? Or is this just typically a lousy wheel and should be replaced by something sturdier? I'd love to keep it under $100.

I know nothing about this type of problem, I never ran into it on my commuter mountain bike. Thanks.

Isn't your bike under warranty? Take it back to the shop!

Sheldon "Spokes Shouldn't Break" Brown

Concur. That wheel is far too new to be breaking spokes. Were they originally tensioned properly? A 36-spoke wheel would theoretically be a bit stronger, but 32 spokes is pretty standard these days.

Get it retensioned. I weigh 230 and I've had to get new wheels retensioned 2 or 3 times in the first 1000km.

Thanks guys. Retensioning may be the ticket. I guess Sheldon is right about the warranty, I called the shop up and I'm bringing it in tomorrow. They said they'd take care of whatever needs to be done.

Make sure they stress-relieve it. If they don't know what you're talking about, read about it on Sheldon's page and do it yourself with both wheels after they're done working on the messed up one.