nayr497

I have broken two spokes in my riding days, both occurring while riding rollers.

Do rollers put some sort of unique stress on your wheels/spokes?

Details: built wheel around 5 years ago, double butted, DT spoke, snapped around 4" from hub. Both broken spokes have happened on rear wheel.

This just seems like an odd place for a spoke to break and it seems like rollers would put less stress on spokes than the road.

*I do guess if it is going to happen, it might as well happen at home...so I can't complain too much*

Psimet2001 

Spokes break either at the bend elbow or at the thread. To fail elsewhere indicates that there may have been a stress riser introduced to the spoke - nick, cut, ding, bend, etc.

I would susspect damage to the spokes that failed, and would furthermore examine the rest of the spokes on that side for similar damage. I say side because I bet both happened on the same side of the rear. Odds are something has either fallen on the wheel, or something came in contact withthe wheel at some point.

Also....when spokes begin to fail normally due to fatigue, etc. then it is almost a sure sign that the rest will begin to fail in short order. If you like the wheel set and the rims/hubs are in good shape then it just may be time to replace all of the spokes on that side of the wheel.

nayr497

Thanks for the useful information. I will check out the rest of the spokes since I did think it was an odd place to break.

Just to clarify though, the other spoke I broke was on a different bike/different wheel set.

I will check out the rest of the spokes, as the wheelset is a solid one that has been just fine to date.

Psimet2001 

Totally unrelated unless that spoke also failed in a non-normal place.

nayr497

Yes, totally unrelated, but you *bet* that both happened on the same side of the rear wheel. I was clarifying that the two spokes I've broken while riding rollers were NOT on the same bike/wheel.

They were on different bikes.

Those two wheels did not see the same riding/stress/falls/nicks.

Psimet2001 

Yes...hard to understand why I might think you broke 2 spokes on one wheel...

So...if you had 2 broken spokes on the rear wheel and both broke '4" from the hub' then I would "bet" both would have been on the same side.

To then state that no...in fact you had 1 spoke break on 2 occassions on 2 different wheelsets that have experienced :
Then they are completely unrelated - apart from the variables that are the same: 1. Rider. 2. Maintenance.

To break a spoke in the middle implies the spoke was damaged. It has nothing to do with "riding rollers".

To state that you also had another spoke break says nothing. It could have happened for a number of reasons the least likely of which would be "riding rollers".

If you are particularly heavy then that could contribute to breaking spokes. Also if they are improperly tensioned, trued, or otherwise porly maintained then that could also contibute to spoke failure.