I’ve had a number of spokes break in my front wheel over the last couple of months. Is there anything this could be down to? The previous spokes have been replaced at the LBS, but after a few weeks another spoke will break. Is it time for a new wheel build replacing all the spokes or could it be down to something simpler?

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stock wheel on a stock bike , all breaking in a similar point on the spoke ?

cheap spokes be my guess, either that or shite build

Alloy nipples?

I’ve heard some Spesh wheels are prone to breaking nipples as well, got a friend who’s had a complete set of wheels replaced under warranty and has now the replacements rebuilt using brass nipples as still suffering breakages. (under warranty too!)

Not stock wheels, mavic rims on hope hubs with DT swiss spokes 36 hole too!

How strange! Could be a bad batch of spokes,or poor wheel building.

Perhaps having 1 broken spoke has weakened the others?

spokes not aligned during the build so the elbow angle is just right? where are they breaking?

Too much tension when rebuilt?

Are they the fancy flat “aero” DT spokes? They are bloody **** for anything more extreme than riding across a nice flat field. Even with a good build they will eventually go ping in my experience.

i’ve had sapim cx-rays for years with out one breaking!

complete wheel rebuild I’d say

Too many pies?

My lbs rebuilt the rear on my hybrid because they kept going ping. There a bit like pringles – once they pop they wont stop!
Rebuilt with DT Swiss spokes and problem fixed. Still too many pies though 🙂

Poorly built wheel. The most likely cause is not enough tension in the spokes and/or the wheel not having been properly stress relieved during the building process. Time to find an lbs which knows how to build wheels. A well built wheel with quality spokes will not break spokes unless they are subjected to some external damage.

In cases ilke this a rebuild is generally the only way to be sure.

Sounds like an issue with the build but I wouldn’t go any further than that in diagnosis.

I’ve had the problem with Marin’s in the past they seem to use very light-weight spokes that only last around a year with my riding style. Once one or two spokes have gone (usually at the elbow) I re-build the wheel using DT Competition’s, problem sorted.

No-one’s answered the OP’s question yet. Once you’ve broken one spoke, the tension immediately transfers around the rim into the adjacent and opposite spokes, and tension will be lost on the horizontally “perpendicular” spokes.

So when the broken spoke is replaced, it’s important to re-set the tension on ALL the other spokes in the wheel – and then re-true it. Otherwise some spokes will end up too tight, and some too loose, and they’ll keep breaking.

Sheldon Brown’s got some great stuff online if you want to learn how!

Sam – Member
Poorly built wheel. The most likely cause is not enough tension in the spokes and/or the wheel not having been properly stress relieved during the building process. Time to find an lbs which knows how to build wheels. A well built wheel with quality spokes will not break spokes unless they are subjected to some external damage.

This is spot on and is almost certainly the cause.

Loose spokes flex at the elbow and fatigue then break very fast. Your wheel was almost certainly built loose and the spokes are all starting to break through fatigue. There’s nothing that you can do to stop it other than have them all replaced as even the ones that haven’t broken yet will have been damaged and you’ll continue to break them as you ride the wheel.

Suggestions that it’s anything to do with spokes too tight, alloy nipples, etc are incorrect. I build a lot of wheels and all of them are built very tight and I regularly use alloy nipples. Spokes built properly into a wheel last almost indefinitely (I have wheels with 10 year old spokes that have been on 5+ hubs and similar if not more rims with no breakages).