Keep breaking spokes on tour. advice wanted!
 

Hello I am 1000km in on a tour from victoria to alaska and have ran into spoke issues for the last 300km.

Road conditions havent changed. Weight on bike hasnt changed.

Broke 2 rear spokes initially. All on rear wheel. Forst two on disc breke side. Trued wheel checked tension and all appeared to be good.

Broke 2 more spokes 150 km later... both on the cassette side. Trued wheel (didnt get tension however ). Now just broke another one in 50km.

I have a new touring bike 2014 salsa vaya 3
Have about 75 pounds on the back rack I estimate. 32 spoke 700cc wheels. Which I had no issue carrying for first 750km.

Rim does not appear bent but woll check thouroughly tonight. Next bike shop is 300km. I have 3-4 spokes left

Options:
True wheel and new spoke.
Redistribute weight more
Rebuild wheel
New wheel? 36 spokes?
Bob yak?


I have already redistrubuted some weight to the front see before and after.

All the advice I have seen on spoke breakage says, that after two it is time to have the wheel relaced with new spokes by a competent builder.

Another option might be to throw away 50% of your gear. 75lbs on the back is a lot of weight.......to put things in context that's twice the weight of my gear AND my bike

good advice above.

i have recently, after a number of eventless decades of riding, had a similar experience with broken spokes, but i'm pretty sure i know the cause. and it may be enlightening.

i built up a new set of wheels and left the rear one pretty true but not tightened, planning on doing it the next morning before the ride.

i forgot, and rode on the wheel for about a mile before i discovered it. it turns out i had just about worn all the heads off the drive side spokes, but didn't know it. i tightened the wheel when i got home and within 500 miles had busted six spokes. so i installed all new spokes on the rear wheel's drive side. haven't had any problems since (about 200 miles) but i won't be surprised if a non-drive side spoke pops in a while... :lol:

lesson: loose spokes cause premature spoke wear. big time.

I would at the very least have all the spokes re-tensioned... I broke 3 spokes in one year with a brand new rim, re-tensioned rim and haven't broken a spoke in two years...

tonytwotimes, My first impression after reading what weight was on the rear wheel made me think that neither of my touring bikes would fare any better than yours. As far as your list of options, I'd pick the first and the last.

Best of luck on the remainder of your tour.

Brad

32 spokes is too few for the weight you're carrying. I gasped when I saw the photo of your rear load.

I would dump as much as you can & replace the rear wheel with 36 spoke (or greater) wheel. When touring, I carry less than half that load with 40 spoke wheels front & rear.

Just what the heck are you carrying? Is your easy chair and television loaded on your rear rack? Time to drop some weight or buy a trailer.

You're lucky you haven't killed yourself. How can you control you're bike with so much weight and so high?

At this point you've broken spokes on both sides of the wheel, so I would guess that all of your spokes are compromised. Either the initial spoke breakage put the remaining spokes under too much strain, or the long miles with an overloaded wheel have finally taken their toll. Either way, I would be concerned that the spokes will continue to break until you either replace them all or have the wheel rebuilt. Given the load you are carrying, I think you need more spokes. If you have the option of going higher than 36, that might be worthwhile. Moving that weight off of the bike might be a good idea, too, but at this point, when you already broken several spokes, I would not be surprised if the spokes continued to brake even after you moved weight off of the wheel. So, while a trailer seems like it might be a good idea, I think it might still make sense to get a new wheel with more spokes, or, at the least, have your wheel rebuilt with new, good spokes.

It is new wheel time and also maybe time to lose some weight. Get a new wheel with a much higher spoke count and make sure it is double walled. Hand built by someone who knows what they are doing or at least working with them is always better than a machine. You have to keep in mind your rear wheel is carrying you and your gear plus dealing with the stress of disc brakes and shifting.

While I understand that taking the full Encyclopedia Britannica gives you plenty to read and you can whip out facts when needed, you shouldn't carry them on tour. Nor do you need to carry your grandmothers cast iron dutch oven. I am a chronic over-packer but man you have me beat by at least 20 pounds. Send stuff home or if staying with a friend have them keep it or donate it. You will thank me.

Good luck

Get an Extra Wheel .. Extrawheel Voyager Bike Trailer | Bike Trailer

With another set of panniers on It. Unload that rear rack ..


all 3 can be 48 spoke if you wish .. 2 fronts and a rear.

The weight on the rear wheel is in some sense excessive, but not the only problem:

1) I average around 215, but one time I went on tour I weighed 275. Just crept up on me. If you are average male weight around 180, you already have a lot less weight back there, even though you are running about 40-50 pounds more than I do back there. My wheels never budged, and they never broke a spoke, I even hit a rock so hard it ruptured my Schwalbe (lightish) tire. With 75 pounds you are over what most racks carry and you can easily shear the average bolt which is structured to support fenders, not racks. Weight issues aren't helping but they do not by themselves constitute the source of the problem, unless you are perhaps 350, and are carrying 75 back there.

2) 32 spokes is a bad idea, though it presumably came on the "touring" bike. 36 is the minimum rear in my mind, Some English bikes used to come with 32 F, 36 R. I have never heard a convincing argument for 32 rear on a 700c touring bike, spoke weight is trivial. That said there are cases where pro made 20 spoke wheels have stunted their way over terrible long tours. So while 32 is bad, it isn't the same as 32 in the days of spaghetti rims. But your rims presumably aren't double eyelet, since those are rare today, and so the load is going on plain aluminum for which there isn't a reliable fatigue limit.

3) If the components are for real then:

a) broken spokes do not call for a rebuild. They are weakness leaving the wheel, the other spokes haven't broken.

b) however if the components are of quality, then the wheel needs professional/serious stress relieving, and tensioning. If you buy a package bike the store you got it from should do the wheels for you, but it needs to be a serious stoke. Touring, couriers, etc... Wheels must be at maximum tension spec for the components, and that is not a "feels good to me" thing. Tests with pros indicate not even they get all that close without a gage.

To stress relieve the wheel, there are a number of useful things that can be done, but the one that must be done is to put the wheel between your legs like a harp (or for now visualize this, you don't actually have to take the wheel off the bike). notice how some pairs of spokes on either side of the wheel are parallel to each other, and about 3 inches apart. Notice how another pair is adjascent on the other side of the wheel. Place you left hand on a left side set, and your right hand on the right side pair, and squeeze them as if panic stopping, that hard, probably more progressive than fast. Really squeeze them hard, but not so hard you hurt yourself or break the spoke (if that is even possible). Do this all around the wheel and do both wheels.

Having done that you will need to re-true the wheel, and retension to max the spokes. How high is max? With a deepish wheel like a one inch deep rim you really need a gage, but I guess not higher than when you bought it. It might need to be a lot higher, but how to know. The old way with flattish rims was to keep tightening the wheel, never loosing true and then at some point the wheel tacos, and you back off from that, but the new rims can't take that. They don't have the eyelets, and they don't have the flexibility.

Of course, even if the wheel is "fixed", maybe the odd spoke will continue to break because it was:

a) damaged hitherto.

b) even if it is a quality component, maybe it doesn't play well in the current rim or hub environment, or it was improperly sized.

So, you might be inclined to replace it with all new spokes:

a) If you take it to some pros, they will want to put in all new spokes What if they replace a few, and you later crash and die from a tacoed wheel, they want to know that they did a full job.

b) Normally they will clip all the spokes pull them and rebuild the wheel.

c) this will not solve your issues, if you have a wheel that is made of bad stuff, but one hopes they know that.

d) If a well used wheel is not rebuilt in the same pattern, with the same force vectors as the original wheel (what happens when the spokes are replaced one by one), then you can experience broken flanges or rims. Or so they say.

What I would do:

1) determine whether components are quality, this is hard to do if the spokes aren't name brand, or the other components either. Easiest thing is if it is a package wheel, and you for sure got the package.

2) If the parts are quality (or you are stuck with them for the next 350). If you feel up to it, stress relieve the wheel, and do your best to true it and bring it up to max tension.

I don't have anything useful to add beyond the oft-repeated "Rebuild the wheel", but dang it I really want to see a copy of your packing list.

You'll probably breakdown before you make it another 300KM. Redistributing the mass is not the same as reducing it. You need to unpack everything and remove 10-20KG. Kitchen kit, books, that 3rd pair of shoes and outerwear that can be replaced by layering things you already have. While the next bike shop might be 300KM off is there an address where you can get things shipped to before then? If you are staying with the QBP family your looking for the Salsa Fargo wheel. DT Swiss TK540 36H rim, DT Spokes, Shimano XT hub. They are inexpensive and abundant. Available for $180USD mail order. If you have to carry heavy loads you should probably consider a 40spoke wheel.

My experience with a Vaya and a Bob was that above 20KG there was just a lot of wind up in the frame when traveling slowly. I think they are rated at 30-35KG, but the Vaya frame is fairly compliant so I don't think it would be a very enjoyable ride for those times when your traveling 10KM/H or less.

While he very well may have a lot of extraneous stuff, keep in mind that he is riding to Alaska. That may explain some of the load, which may include a bear cannister and an abnormally large supply of food.

Definitely don't understand the choice of 32 spoke wheels.

I agree on this except will say that even given where he is going that is a lot of stuff. I'd advise no more than about 30 pounds of gear and bags TOTAL, even with a bear canister, but not counting food. Figure 2 pounds of food per day for the number of days between restock points. I would think water would be frequently available there so he shouldn't be carrying huge amounts of that.

OP... If there will be a post office soon, I'd mail at least half of your stuff home. If, not I'd consider throwing some away.

Sure, but it looks like he'd got two pads, etc. And if you look at other loaded touring bikes that have been used for self-supported Alaskan trips, they are not loaded anywhere near that much, to say nothing of all that weight up so high.

But yep, at least 36 spokes, and preferably more would be my choice, even with half that load, if I was going to be in remote areas far away from bike shops for long periods.

I'm impressed the wheels lasted that long.

1. Replace wheel, I wouldn't bother with a rebuild. If you plan on carrying insane loads again maybe a Rhynolite rim with 36 butted 13g spokes.

2. Mail 40lbs home.

75lbs? Plus your bodyweight?

Mystery solved.

+1

I agree that the load weight is excessive, but some people weight 150lbs and tour, while others weight 225lbs and tour. That is a 75lbs difference right there and they both have a load to carry. I weight 165lbs and wouldn't want to ride on 32 spoke wheels. I have carried 75lbs many times, but not on a tour, just locally, and I have 36 spoke wheels. Add the fact he is running disc brakes, and there is no way the wheels would be suitable for touring in my opinion. Shave weight off and they may work okay. I would have a new 36 spoke wheel built though.

True, but body weight is at least sprung a bit if you have some of the weight on your legs instead of on your butt. I ride that way and additionally un-weight a bit over the bumps. At least get body weight onto your flexed legs on the bumps. Given that, I think body weight can be much less damaging to wheels than gear weight.

Don't get me wrong, body weight still matters, but at least you can limit it's impact on rough surfaces and bumps. Gear weight is just there all the time and all of it's shock is on the wheels.

Very true, much on the shock of the body's weight is absorbed by the body itself over bumps, and it is distributed more evenly between the front and back wheels.

75lbs on the rear wheel