I broke 2 spokes in 2 days... I'm 6.2 and around 270 lbs.
My Specialized Crosstrail has regular Alex Z-1000, 26", single wall, 36h rims with Forged alloy, double sealed, ground race, freewheel type, QR /
After doing some research, looks like the wheels on this bike are from 20th century ... single wall, freewheel... My fault... shouldn't trust my LBS sales guy.
Is this pretty common to brake spokes while riding on perfectly flat surface?

Question is... what to do to make my wheels/spokes lasts for a long time, without spending to much $$$? What options do I have?

Thanks for any input!

Poorly built wheels break spokes.

Machine built wheels are generally poorly built.

Well built wheels don't break spokes for the first few hundred thousand miles (although you do need to periodically replace the rims as they get crashed or the braking surfaces wear out and perhaps the bearings).

You might have shoddy spokes too, but primarily it's a build quality problem.

Bring the wheels to uniform high tension (lightish box section rims can be alternately stress-relieved and tensioned until they deform in waves, backed off half a turn, and re-trued. All wheels can have spoke tension measured with a tension meter, of which the $50 Park TM-1 is the only model that's really affordable for the occasional wheel builder) on the drive side, set the non drive side to whatever it needs to keep the wheel dished right, and stress relieve using your preferred method (squeeze near parallel spokes together (preferably wearing gloves), bend them around each other at the outer crossing with something softer than the spokes (an old left crank, screw driver handle, or my favorite a brass drift)).

Since all of the spokes in the same group (rear wheel drive side leading, drive side trailing, non-drive side leading, non-drive side trailing; front wheel spokes are pretty much the same) have seen similar fatigue conditions you can expect them to fail at about the same time and it may be prudent to pre-emptively replace the other spokes in the groups where you're having failures.

When you have spokes de-tensioned during replacement, I'd take the opportunity to bend the outbound spokes around the hub flange (use your thumb) and once the spoke has some tension bend it so it makes a straight line between nipple and hub.

Using the same gauge (ex - 2.0mm/14 gauge) spoke when replacing will mean that all the spokes on the same side make the same tone when at uniform tension.

You can also buy inexpensive replacement wheels although they'll need the same treatment if you want them to survive.

Dude, 270 lbs. On a ****ty machine built wheel.

Do yourself a favour and get a decent hub, Shimano - minimum, DT Swiss or King for bomb proof, HANDBUILT, double butted spokes on a REALLY good 26" rim like a Mavic A719.

The MSRP on a crosstrail is $440. ****, the hub alone would cost half of that for a decent rear wheel. It's ridiculous to expect any sort of quality on a wheelset stock on a bike that price.

+1 Drew, except I'd recommend against persisting with the freewheel hub at your weight.

IMO the cheapest way to get a reliable wheelset would be to simply rebuild what you have around a used freehub, or maybe you can find a nice deal on some quality used wheels.

Since the actual build is the most important component of any wheelset, your best bet is to learn wheelbuilding. All the tips you need to know are floating around online.

For heavy guys, on poorly-built wheels, on the rear non drive side? Very. Not enough spoke tension. Highly recommend off-centre rim to minimise dish.

One of the best things you can do to make them last a long time is to have them properly tensioned.
Do you have any idea what the spoke tension was/is? That is a key number.
Now tthat you've ridden with likely undertensioned spokes and had spokes break you most probably have metal fatigue problems with many, most or all of the rest of them and can look forward to more of the same - broken spokes even if you now have them tensioned properly.

At this point I would replace all of the spokes with new, double butted ones and have them properly tensioned.

Thanks guys for all your input. I will share this info with "pros" at my LBS...
Seems like they don't care about spoke tension at all. Spokes lasted about 200 miles of fast rides, jumping / hitting bumps on the sidewalks... After replacing one spoke, another broke on the same side /non drive/ after 5 miles... / no abuse of any kind this time /

It's time to learn how to build my own wheels... this time I will go with double walled ones...

Lose weight. I use to weigh that much and more. As I lost weight, less spoke breakage. I'm almost breaking 200 lbs. now. If you are serious about losing weight, when I weighed more than you and where you are now, I was losing 15 lbs. a month.

A freewheel is fine , on the right hub.. I have thousands of miles of loaded touring
on a Phil Wood Freewheel hub.. with those, there is no issue of bending axles..

a hand built wheel with, say, Mavic ex721 or Salsa Gordo rim would be fine..

Although You have to quit the curb jumping behavior..

\
I'm loosing about 15lbs a month, I gained a lot of weight when I broke my back...laying down for months didn't help...
On other hand, according to Specialized, I'm bellow weight limit on this bike... So...there shouldn't be any problems with broken spokes... I feel cheated by Specialized and LBS... I didn't have any issues that prevented me from riding with cheap, department store bikes...

Is this a new bike? If it is, and you're less the weight limit, breaking spokes are a warranty issue. Make them give you another wheel, and this time, have them check the tension of the spokes before you ride it.

Good one. Here's a tip: use a different rim front and rear. Since the rear takes about 60% of the weight and is dished, it makes a lot of sense to use something a bit heavier (I'm thinking something close to 500g for you, but maybe you could get away with something lighter @36h). It makes even more sense to use an off-centre rim, too - they allow the spoke tension to be a lot closer to equal on each side, making for a much stronger wheel at a zero weight penalty.

If your front rim isn't a boat anchor, I'd prolly just re-lace one side of it to make it symmetrical (like hand-built wheels are), and tension it up.

In short, just build yourself a proper rear, and rebuild the front.


What's the point of going for a freewheel hub if you're going to drop serious coin? A nice old Shimano freehub can be had for next to nothing, and they can last forever.