leading and trailing spokes touching and exerting force on each other?
 

Hey guys/gals,

I just bought a set of Easton Vista SLs and i took a closer look at the rear wheel. On the drive-side where there is a cross-2 pattern the spokes are physically touching and exerting enough lateral force on them to create a bend in each of the touching spokes. I'm not a bicycle mechanic, but this doesn't seem right to me. The spokes on the Eastons are using a j-pull type spoke. As a comparison i took a look at my shimano straight-pull rear wheel and those spokes are not touching (although i have replaced 2 spokes in 2k miles already on them).

I thought about getting the Easton rear wheel re-built, but i didn't know if this was normal since the spokes were of a different type. I haven't ridden on the wheelset yet.

Just for reference, i weight about 185 lbs.

Eastons (Vista SL)
http://www.thisisjayray.com/Gallery2...serialNumber=1

Shimano (RS-10)
http://www.thisisjayray.com/Gallery2...serialNumber=1

Thanks for any responses.

The spokes in a 2, 3, and 4 cross wheel build normally touch and deflect each other. The RS10 flange is not a normal hub flange and your Easton is. Don't worry about it. If your spoke tension is set properly, your spokes will last fine and not be weakened by touching. I have seen one wheelset where the spokes were significantly worn at the crosses, but it was a very old rim and spoke tension was too low.

+1.

This is 100% normal. Every normally spoked wheel has touching spokes. I suspect that when the hub is applying force to the rim (like when accelerating or braking with disks), the tendancy for either the leading or pulling spokes to lose tension will be countered by the other half of the spokes pulling against them.

All normal wheels' spokes touch at the crossing point. In fact they will show a little fretting wear. It doesn't hurt a thing.

+2. This is called "interlacing" and is common practice. In fact, it makes for a stronger wheel by allowing adjoining spokes to share the load throughout the wheel. It's one of the things that makes conventional spoked wheels great.

Mr. Fred: where are the spokes on the Shimano wheel breaking? At the hub end or at the rim end?

haha,

i broke two spokes at the nipple. i talked with the mechanics that fixed the spokes and i think the likely cause was inconsistent tension throughout the wheel since they were likely tensioned through mass-production. i had the rear wheel completely re-tensioned and i haven't had an issue yet. the main issue i had was actually obtaining the proprietary spoke from Shimano (had a loaner wheel for about 5 weeks) so i wanted to pick up a spare wheelset with spokes that are easier to find.

do you think this is the case? the RS-10s have a low spoke count: front 16, rear 20

Being an old-fart wheelbuilder (30 years' experience) I'm prejudiced against low-spoke-count wheels. It's tension variation while riding that causes metal fatigue, which leads to spke breakage. More spokes, and interlaced spokes, allow several spokes to share the tension changes as the wheel rolls. This leads to less tension variation, less metal fatigue, and ultimately a more durable wheel.

Since I learned this, and re-learned to build wheels with high, even spoke tension, I haven't broken a single spoke that wasn't damaged some other way (shifted the chain into the spokes a couple times, which lead to some breakage). That's a pretty good track record for a fat-arsed recumbent-riding Clyde.

Yeah, but you save 50gm per wheel by leaving out every other spoke!!!

That's your trick, Danno... I was wanting to build a 16-spoke wheel for the front of my recumbent, but I decided to repurpose the rim and laced it with 32 on a generator hub. Extreme overkill on the spoke count, but what the hey...