I need to replace all of the drive-side spokes on one of my wheels. Is there some reasonable technique for doing this while leaving the spokes on the other side of the wheel in place?

You need to remove one of the spokes from the damaged side of the wheel as they are usually a different length between sides and to get a correct size of spoke since they come in 1 mm increments as well. It is best to detention both sides of spokes to release pressure on all spokes. This will allow you to keep the wheel round when truing it back up. You will need a dishing tool to make sure the rim is centered to the hub or let the lbs true it for you. Also if the wheel is still true squeeze all of the spoke pairs and see if they are balanced in tension if not and the wheel is straight then the rim is slightly bent and replacing the spokes might make matters worse, wheel should be replaced at this time instead of repair.

This is a PIA job. Here's some help, but before you start, might I ask why.

Unbuild w/o warping the rims.
Start by slackening all the left side spokes 1 full turn, 1/2 turn at a time, going around twice. This will detention the wheel somewhat, while still leaving enough tension to help you later on. Next slacken the right spokes 1/2 turn at a time working around, until slack, then remove the nipples entirely.

You can push the outside spokes through, but removing the inside spokes is easiest if you cut them near the flange. Use one of the outside spokes to confirm the length for the replacements.

Start relacing
Take 1/2 of the replacement spokes and gently curve them by pulling them through your fingers, so that when pushed through they can be lead out past the outermost cross on the opposite side. If you curve them carefully without any kinks, they'll straighten nicely when tensioned, otherwise straighten them as well as possible, but it's better to leave some curve than to put any kinks in. Push through the outer spokes.

Lay the wheel flat and bring all the inner spokes out toward the rim sort of parallel with their opposite flange mates, and let them drop into the appropriate gap. Repeat for the outers. Now lace them in crossed pairs, so you won't have to drag them past each other and possibly scratch the rim. The crossed pairs are 3 holes apart for 1 cross, 5 for 2x 7 for 3x and 9 for 4x. They should already be in the right place. Double check the phasing to the opposite flange, lace the outer under the inner and attach the 2 nipples, move to the next pair, and so on until finished. The right holes will be obvious because the crossed pairs will appear equal in length.

Now that the wheel is laced, tighten all to a set somewhat slack but equal length using a reference, such as one thread showing outside the nipple. Then tighten by degrees, counting turns and working your way around until there's some tension, and proceed as with any other build from there out.

Note, one trick I use that's not in most, if any tutorials is to build the wheel overdished to the right slightly, then add final tension from the left only as you bring it to center. This reduces the amount of work on the tighter right side spokes.

Good luck.

Andy K:

If you have a tensiometer, I can tell you
how I did one a couple of months ago
on a bike I bought where it appears the
previous owner had jumped the chain
off the freewheel and into the spokes,
carving nice notches in about 2/3 of the
drive side spokes. Worked reasonably well.

Let me know.

Mike

I got the derailleur caught in the spokes during a CX race a while back. None of the spokes broke, but two were very visibly bent. I was able to true the wheel and use it for warm-up on the trainer. Now, as I'm doing my end-of-season maintenance, I see that all but four of the drive side spokes were damaged, so it seems best to replace them all.

Thanks for your detailed instructions. I'll study them a bit and see if I can get my head wrapped around this. On first reading, it almost sounds like it would be easier to replace all the spokes and rebuild the wheel entirely.



Yes, I have a tensionmeter. I've built two pairs of wheels, so I've got a tiny bit of experience with the process. I'd appreciate hearing your method.

Andy_K:

My rear wheel in this case was a six
cog freewheel hub, so by current
standards not greatly dished and
also by current standards, with fairly
minimal difference in tension between
the drive and non drive side spokes.

I mention this only as a caveat. All
the young guys seem to ride hugely dished
10 cog rear wheels (in the most egregious
cases with minimal spokes) that frankly
frighten me, so if that is what you have,
this may not work and you would indeed
probably be better off just starting over
from scratch.

1. Pull the cogs/freewheel for spoke access.

2. Check the tensions all around for both the
drive and non drive sides. Try to get a feel
for the average spoke tension on each side.
This is your benchmark.

3. Unthread the nipple and pull out one spoke
(your choice) from the drive side. Measure and
obtain replacements for the whole side from the
source of your choice. (I mostly use DT's from
AEBike, but they come in lots of a hundred and
you're probably better off going local for this job).

4. Slowly and methodically remove and replace
each spoke individually, starting with the one
you pulled to measure. As you replace each
drive side spoke tension it to your benchmark.
When you've done all of them, adjust the spoke
line at the hub using the rubber mallet method
or whatever worked for you when you built your
other wheels.

5. Check the dish, put it in the stand and check
the wobble, adjust accordingly.

It's not pretty or elegant, but worked in the case
I described and was faster than a complete rebuild.
In my case I found some spokes of the correct
length lying around on the back of a shelf, but
even without that you save half the money it would
cost for complete respoking.

By removing and then retensioning each spoke
individually in order around the wheel, it never
goes very far out of whack in the process. But
you do need that benchmark for retightening
each spoke - thus the need for a tension indicator
more discriminating than my tin ear.

Respectfully,
Mike Larmer

Now that you've explained your thinking, I'm going to suggest that you leave the wheel alone, except to true it up if necessary.

The nicked or dinged spokes are definitely more likely to fail, but who knows when, and you could be riding this wheel for quite a while, maybe replacing one or even two spokes in the interim.

Yes, I'm definitely of the don't fix what ain't broke school, and you can factor that into the advice, but anticipating potential future spoke breakage is a wasteful, useless endeavor. You're just as likely to trash the rim in a crash or unfortunate encounter with a pothole as you are to break a spoke, so you might as well save the time and money and wait it out.

If there's a reason that puts a higher than normal premium on reliability, such as traveling with the bike, do the job right and rebuild from scratch, which won't be harder, and will only cost you for the added spokes. Otherwise, ride it as is and see how many free miles you can accumulate.

BTW- some years back my chain over-derailed and sawed a few spokes 1/3 partially through. One eventually broke and I replaced it, and continued to ride that wheel until I retired the bike. I still ride it once in a while as my "C" bike, and it still has the damaged wheel. Given my age, and the quality of new stuff, odds are it'll last until there's just no reason to ride it any longer (or I can't)

I've never had to replace all the spokes on one side, but I have needed to replace half of them due to a misadjusted derailleur that shifted into the spokes and nicked or snapped them.

Replacing the spokes one at a time worked fine. I just initially tightened them to a fixed number of turns to keep the wheel round and then completed the truing once all the spokes had been replaced. Didn't take very long and worked fine, i.e. the wheel is still in use 50,000 miles later and no more spokes have broken.

Many thanks to everyone who has offered advice.

It's funny that I got the "don't fix what ain't broke" advice now. When the derailleur incident happened, I posted here looking for someone to tell me it was OK to just true the wheel and ride (thinking then that only two spokes were damaged), and everyone seemed to think I should just replace those two spokes. I guess it looks different when I start asking about replacing all of them.

Anyway, I let out all the tension (before seeing FB's post #6) and without tension, six of the spokes have a pronounced elbow mid-spoke. I think I will try replacing them one at a time, because it was the lacing question that I was mainly worried about. I may also leave the spokes that aren't obviously damaged alone -- it's inside spokes that seem to be alright.

One thing I'll say is that this whole incident has given me a new appreciation for just how strong a bicycle wheel is. Like I said, the spokes bent but didn't break. Meanwhile, this is what happened to the derailleur:



FWIW, the wheel is a 32-spoke Open Pro with Ultegra hub.

Thanks again for all the help,

Since you have a truing stand and a tension meter, I believe you can replace the spokes using whichever technique you like the best. I would check the condition of the rim closely. If there are any small cracks near the spoke holes I would start with new rim and spokes. If the rim is in good condition I would loosen all of the spokes at least one turn then replace the drive side spokes one at a time.
Let us know how it turns out.

Also check to see if you have bent your derailleur hanger/dropout. It looks like you might have from the picture.

Oh yeah, it definitely bent the hanger.