I’ve only ever broken 1 spoke on previous wheels and that was a rock impact when I fell off.

But I have had 3 spokes fail on the same wheel on my FSR. They have all gone at the spoke nipple. My LBS has repaired the wheel both previous times and I’ve asked them to check the spoke tension in the whole wheel while replacing the spoke. To my untrained fingers/ears the spokes always feel a bit twangy.

I’m wondering if I should ask the LBS to rebuild the wheel with new spokes and nipples to be a bit more confident with the wheel? Any opinions?
if I do, is there a particular spoke I should go for (I know very little about wheels and wheel-building. Equally, the spoke nipples… Are they all the same? The current ones are red anodised I think.

Ta.

Are the spokes or the nipples failing?

Very likely it’s just the alloy nipples. Get yourself a box of brass nipples and swap them over one at a time.

Good question – assumed it was the spokes, but it could be the nipples. I didn’t look at the latest one too closely as I was in a bit of a hurry while cleaning the bike.

I have heard that brass spoke nipples are better than alloy.
If I replace them myself, how do I know that I’ve got the tension in them right? Guesswork/experience?

sheldon cooper has a lot to say on this and links to a page with a list of appropriate musical pitches your spikes should twang at. as tension rises so does the pitch. and all the spokes on one side of any given wheel should twang to the same pitch. check that first. multiple breakages like yours are probably down to uneven tension, causing one spoke to take more than it’s fair share.

sheldon brown :$

😳

If the wheel starts out true, remove one nipple, replace, tighten until the wheel pulls true again. You’re finished wheel will be roughly as well built as your old one (but no better) but with stronger nipples.

Cool. Would like to give it a go, but currently am very short on time. Any spare time is currently going on an impending wedding and the unending list of stuff still to sort out.
Reckon I will chuck it at the LBS this time and perhaps look into sorting it out myself if I break another one…

thanks for the advice.

If you have the time and inclination to learn wheel building. Have a look at this. http://www.wheelpro.co.uk/wheelbuilding/book.php it’s £9 so you’ve got to be keen but it’s a very useful skill to have. I had a couple of bought wheels go clown shaped on me, so figured I’d best learn to do it myself.
First two or three builds were hard work but now it’s just part of normal bike maintenance.

A quick way to true would be. Take off tyre. Wash wheel and spokes. Get a plastic disposable knife and pluck the spoke at the nipple side of the spoke. Go round once to get a feel for the pitch, then equalise it.
A recommended spoke key would be the “spokey”.

It’s a bit of effort mind

Sounds just like the experience I had with my old Epic. In my case it was Soesh’s use of alloy nipples; look pretty but useless. Replace with brass.

£9 for that book looks well worth it.

Hmmmm. Yeah fandango; anodised red alloy nipples on this Stumpjumper wheel, so could be a sign of Spesh wheels.
Thing is, my other wheels all have alloy nipples and have never had this problem. The ones on my Inbred that came off my 2001 Stumpjumper FSR are now 12 yrs old and have only had one spoke replaced in that time (not anodised though). I wonder if the anodising causes a problem….