Replacing a spoke
 

Ok, bike shop has the replacement spokes for my Bontrager SSR's (which have like 5kmiles on them, and are apt to break some more--I made sure to buy spares). When I inquired what it would cost to replace, I got two quotes for them to replace: one was to replace just one spoke and true, the other was to loosen all spokes, install spoke, and then true. I would have taken the latter, but, how hard can it be to change a spoke? :twitchy: Quite hard, as the hard case tires are hard to mount, I bet!

Anyhow, I don't have a trueing stand, but I do have a bike repair stand; and I do not have any sort of spoke tension meter. I'm also tone deaf. Should I just install the one spoke, making sure it's around the same tightness as the others; or should I dare to loosen them all, see if the rim is bent, and go from there? I figure, it's good practice, and if I botch up the job badly enough I'll just buy another wheelset--but at the same time, I've pulled my hair out trying to figure out what wheelset to get, so if I could put that off for longer it'd be great. [I like the look of these SSR's, so it'd have to be another set of black semi-areo rims. Would not have to be low spoke count, but i do admit to liking the look.]

Edit: I should add, I do plan to a few more thousand miles onto this bike. If I'm good boy, maybe 2k this year. Roads are kinda iffy here, but at least my weight is coming down. Don't know if that matters, as much to say, I kinda expect it to not stay true.

http://www.bikeforums.net/search.php?searchid=7150443

http://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-...and-rim-truing

http://sheldonbrown.com/tooltips/truing.html

Put the new spoke in and tension, then adjust the ones on either side until the wheel is true. Use your brakes as a truing guide.

If you don`t feel comfortable, get LBS to do it. On a brand new wheel, I wouldn`t see why they`d need to retighten everything.

If the rim was true before the spoke broke and had not had an earlier accident followed by truing there is no reason for the rim to be bent. It's simply reacting to the absence of tension in that spot. I would go for the detension/retension/true, because:

• You don't know if overall tension is correct
• You broke a spoke ,which can be caused or accelerated by low overall tension
• You like the wheels and want to put many more miles on them.

Spoke snapped at the end of last riding season. Season prior (I think) I hit a lip in the road and knocked it out of true. One spoke was really, really loose; I forget if all I did was tighten just that spoke. I suspect I touched the two next to the problem pair. Never got it perfect, but it was good enough at the time. [Actually, after snapping it, I finished my ride home--and have been using for the last couple months in the trainer.]

This is a set of SSR's, 4 or 5,000 miles, known for spoke breakage. Low spoke count--20 I think? Paired design, I think is the term, as the spokes are not evenly spaced around the rim. Nothing high end, actually rather low end. I like the looks, but the tech is nothing to write home about. The rims have very little wear on the braking surfaces.

Edit: Found my old thread. Wow, I guess I hit that lip further back than I thought. In the thread it appears I just tightened the loose spoke (more or less). I never checked for radial runout back then though, to see if I had a flat spot on the rim.
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...98-Loose-spoke

I would seek out a competent wheel builder to see if there is a good chance of adding another 5K miles to that wheel. Low spoke count is a pain to fix after a major incident since there will be at least 3 spokes with large change in spoke tension. You could increase the tension in all spokes by 1/2-3/4 turn and attempt to true the wheel to within +/-0.05".