Harsh.

Our razor clam season got put on hold cuzza toxins, dunno if they ever OK'd clamming or not.

Getting some brass nipples, maybe.

Steel doesn't float.

Check the tension on the adjacent spokes?

Now you tell me....

After we booked this boondoggle.

It popped about three months ago, 1000 miles or so later it pops again. The bike shop that fixed it the first time touched up the true, it was slightly out of true recently, then it just popped again :/

Incorrect

Check the spoke tension on that wheel.

That would happen to be above my abilities at this point. I will just bring it into a shop to be looked at. Just kinda wondering if it needed to be completely rebuilt or something a little different.

Hubs feel notchy while spinning in the hands, I think they should also be looked at.

Just some cheap china 50's with about 2.5k miles, wondering if a complete rebuild is even worth it.

...even an alloy nipple will usually last a while unless the spoke within it is a tad too short. so if youi are breaking the same nipple, it makes sense at this point to swap that one out for brass, and to make certain that the spoke is extending all the way up through to the head, past where the nipple comes out of the rim.

Otherwise, if they are cheap-assed machine built wheels, and nobody ever worked them over to balance the tensions and relieve the bends, might not be worth paying someone else to rebuild.

OTOH, they might make an excellent learning project for you. If you are gonna continue racing, and continue being poor, and are not quite good enough yet for a sponsorship, you need to learn as much as you can about tension spoked wheels, their care, construction, and feeding. Going faster on a budget was what got a lot of us into wheels in the first place. it did me, anyway.

...crab for Christmas is a big tradition down at the in-laws in Marin.

Where are you heading?

or refer to post #479

Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas.

Depart Fort Lauderdale

Stops in:

Haiti, Dragon Coaster
Jamica, Dunn's River Falls
Cozumel

Is the Guy Fieri?

Sweet!

Should we have booked on a Carbon Fibre ship?

Seven nights.

Depart Saturday.

...you're OK Bermuda Triangle-wise, but take along a few bottles of Kaopectate, just in case. Pretty shallow waters, so it probably wouldn't hurt to have a personal depth sounder ap installed on your I-phone, too. If you get back to your stateroom while in port in Haiti, and find any sorts of blood traces on or near the door, you should probably hire a subcontractor to lift the Voodoo curse.

Have a great time.

Wood ship. Interesting. I reckon it should have sails too.

Wow! Looks like Cuba has BO. Or maybe just head lice. Wouldn't want to stop there.

I'm gonna take my Garmin 800, then post to Strava. I may get a KOM out of this.

As far as the Haiti stuff goes...

We will cover the door header with Lamb's Blood. That will keep the Voodoo spirits away.

The depth sounder idea is interesting. Two problems with that though. I don't have an iPhone and I'm not sure the Captain would be enlightened by my cell phone depth sounding. Which one of you will bail me out of a foreign jail?

I can hear Mrs. Doug28450 now...

Your BF clown buddies got you into this mess, they can get you out.

...besides Trinidad-Tobago again, Cuba is the one place I'd like to visit in the Caribbean. Everyone I know here who's been has enjoyed it a lot, and I'm a big fan of some of the music there.