Shinkers

Hello there,

Sorry if this has been hashed over before, but I've got a Shimano R500 wheelset (I know, bottom of the barrel, etc.) that was shipped in the mail. During shipment, the front wheel which is spoked radially, broke a spoke. I went to the bike shop to for a replacement, and they didn't have the same aero spokes that are on the wheels. Instead, he sold me a regular double butted spoke of the same size.

I put it in and checked the whole wheel for tension and true. I did bring the deflection of the DB spoke up a bit higher so all of the tensions match (all around 105 kgf).

My question is, would having a round spoke mixed in with the aero's cause any sort of weak point or anything like that in the rim? Aesthetically, I don't care because it's not noticeable at all, I just don't want to start breaking multiple spokes or something like that.

The wheels are brand new, had less than a miles riding on them. The spoke broke during shipment and the wheels weren't ridden with the broken spoke.

Thanks!

Bezalel

The only issue would be that you will need to use a different scale when checking tension than for the rest of the spokes.

hueyhoolihan

IMO, it doesn't make much difference. on the bright side, if you should break more spokes and keep buying them at that LBS, the spokes will only become more uniform in design and eventually all distinctions between blade and round spokes will be eliminated entirely. so there's that.

in keeping with the holiday spirit, i'm not going to comment on what may, or may not, be fuzzy logic concerning uniformity of tension as regards two different spoke designs. as long as you are satisfied with the wheel's trueness, it probably doesn't make any difference anyway.

in fact, just yesterday, i noticed a broken spoke on my beater bike. it gets abosolutely zero love . it's got 36 straight 14ga spokes on a 559mm rim and even with the broken spoke it's barely out of true. i may not even summon the energy to dig around for a replacement spoke till after i pay my taxes, which could be a while. and when i do find one of the proper length, it may or may not match anything else on the rim.

Shinkers

Which I did do. So I know my tension should be the same on all the spokes.

Shinkers

Please, do tell.

fietsbob

One thing about bladed spokes . is they can be prevented from nipple turning induced wind up, because you can hold On to the flat blade ..

Shinkers

I've always back twisted my nipples once I start to bring tension into the wheel. I'll go tighter one full turn, then back off 1/2 a turn. But I can see how aero spoke would make that easier to deal with. Problem is, LBS didn't have the right ones.

These aren't like full on fat blade spokes, they're closer to the DT Aero Comp spokes that will fit through a standard spoke hole. They're just flat in the middle.

hueyhoolihan

it doesn't bear not repeating.

rpenmanparker 

Your technique to prevent windup of light gauge round spokes is helpful but not foolproof. The most common method to guarantee unwound spokes is to put flags made out of masking tape on them all pointing either parallel or perpendicular to the axis of the wheel. If a spoke winds up despite your attempt to prevent it, you will see the flag twisted. Then you can continue to use the technique you described to work the twist out of the spoke.

I wouldn't ride around on a new pair of wheels with a mismatched spoke. OCD? Perhaps. But if you wanted something less than perfect for your money, you could have just bought something used. Myself, I would get in touch with the seller or manufacturer and get the right spokes. Either from them or if they gave me the brand, model and length, from another source. It isn't a whole lot of trouble to keep the wheels in like new condition.