Ah- yet again, another black DT double butted spoke randomly gives up the ghost on my back wheel. The first one just pinged cycling along a snowy road, repalced this, and low and behold a week later another one goes.

Never had this happen before, certainly not with silver jobbies.

Where is the best place to get a set of nice silver DT db spokes? Price the issue I guess- not paying £1 a spoke for sure!!!!!!

CRC always seem to be the best for DT prices.

I’d wager that the colour of the spokes is not the reason for them snapping. Chances are, the wheel is not evenly tensioned.

Eh… I’ve been running black DTs exclusively for years now, and I’m not exactly a featherweight.

Not saying you’re wrong, just saying you might want to look for other factors before assuming it is the 2 nanometer* thick black coating which is at fault…

*or however tiny the measurement is

Sapim spokes are cheaper if you can manage to buy them separately. I got two wheels built with them for less than 64 DTs would have cost to buy on their own!

i dont rate sapim spokes – ive broken 4 spokes in my life – 2 on a non branded wheel and 2 on a hope pro 3/stans with sapims

the sapims went right in the middle of the spoke – wasnt impressed

ive built all my own wheels(and many for the shops customers) over the last 10 years and even when downhilling i never had breakages. I dont exactly not ride my bike either !

Are black spokes weaker in the same way that red frames are faster?

it’ll be the crap wheel build and nout to do with the spokes, thats unless you’ve twatted them with a rock or summink

Once there was a man who was walking through a forest when he saw a rabbit run headfirst into a tree stump and die.

He cooked and ate the rabbit, and thought ‘All I have to do is wait here for another rabbit to run into the stump, and I have my next meal sat right in front of me!’

So he sat and waited for the next rabbit. He waited and waited, and eventually died of starvation.

I think that they are more brittle, for sure.

ah, but the second spoke snapped in the middle, and there was no starvation involved.

I’ve seen more broken black spokes than silver for sure in the workshop. maybe that is just down to the weekend warrior types who ride them?

or it could be that more wheels are built with black spokes.

never buy wheels from rabbits who wear crash helmets

What hub?

I think that they are more brittle, for sure.

For sure you think they’re more brittle, or for sure they are more brittle?

Lots of cheap black spokes broke when they were initially fashionable, leading to the urban myth that all black spokes are rubbish.

As onzadog says, probably a poor build.

Always used sapim silver spokes on my own builds – never broken any.

Mate uses black factory-build wheels, snaps 2 spokes at heads before replacement of whole set with silver handbuilt, no problems since.

Missus uses silver factory build wheels, broke two spokes. Wheels re-laced and re-tensioned by moi, no problems since.

My conclusion – poorly built wheels break.

Black DTs are fine. I tried Sapim spokes on an 819 and they would just keep loosing tension so had wheel rebuilt with black DTs.

The ‘black spokes are crap’ thing came about 10ish years ago when Spesh and a few other big brands spec’d what turned out to be pretty crap spokes on some of their wheels that happened to be black – they usually had a relatively rough finish rather than the smooth finish that DT and other black spokes have.

As above, it’s almost certainly simply that the wheel is loose and the spokes have been flexing leading to fatigue and snappage. Once a few have gone, chances are it’ll keep happening.

Well, no matter the root cause, new set of spokes needed!!

Black DT spokes are no weaker or stronger than silver.
As has been said above, much more likely down to:
Crap quality build in the first place.

Spokes a poor fit in the hub, in which case get a new hub or rebuild using spoke washers & new spokes.

Or they’re not actually DT spokes in your wheel, but a cheap generic black spoke that you beleive are DT, do they all have the DT logo on the heads?

I thought the black was from heat treating them? So, should not be weaker…

No, its just a coating, DT did have a bad batch apprently years back (they even admited to it) which is where the reputation comes from. I prefer the look of silver spokes anyway.

My rear wheels been fine for years but has snaped 5 spokes this year, time for a rebuild methinks.

So he sat and waited for the next rabbit. He waited and waited, and eventually died of starvation miximitosis.

Fixed it for you.

silver is the new black.

I hear you on this- there should be no reason to suspect that the black ones are weaker really. Interesting to hear that they produced a bad batch of black ones- these amust be a few years old but not had too hard a life. Hmmm.

Silver=new black. Lol

spokes breaking is generally down to a poor build..

sometimes the break is down to manufacturing fault in the spoke or more likely some minor damage to the spoke sustained during riding…

last spokes I bought in Silver were Sapim Race for 50p each inc nipple from a lbs near waterloo station in London

So he sat and waited for the next rabbit. He waited and waited, and eventually died of starvation.

“Apparently” if you eat nothing but rabbit you die quicker than eating nothing at all. So would he have been better off if loadsa rabbits had topped themselves for his culinary pleasure, hence dying more quickly and not being hungry in the process?

Any physicist will tell you that black absorbs heat where as silver will reflect it. Therefore if you ride on sunny days the black spokes will soak up more of the sun’s energy and be effectively quenched when you ride through a puddle. Repeat this and you will eventually make black spokes brittle and they will snap. The answer is only to ride a bike with black spokes at night.

My cheaper wheels have black spokes and when I’ve snapped a couple I’ve replaced them with silver – although come to think of it I was drunk when I ordered the spare spokes and I couldn’t remember what colour my wheels were and it was awfully dark and cold out in the shed and I couldn’t be bothered to go out and check.

So in conclusion you’ve probably got a poor wheel build.