@MLE_online it's definitely the most groan-inducing regular maintenance issue for me. I think because it is a "I shouldn't ride the bike until I fix it" issue that is simple to fix but involves an aggravating number of steps.
Still beats the hell out of maintaining another sort of vehicle though
@MLE_online in my case it's because I have 27" wheels, but my fenders are for 700c wheels. That and the fact that axle alignment is apparently more of an art on older bike dropouts (this is a 1983 frame).
It's fairly common that I'll get it just right on the bike stand, but then when I go out to ride it, it'll go out of alignment. I've just accepted that for the next half dozen rides I'll probably end up fucking with it a bit.
I do have a 700c set that I want to convert the bike to, but I haven't sourced new long-reach brake calipers yet.
@MLE_online i have no idea how many miles I put on my old Trek or the Marin i have now.
But I've never broke a spoke. Tubes and chains, sure.
Did it just randomly snap or did you hit something etc?
@MLE_online interesting.
Off the top of my head I've had cassettes, chains, tires, and brake pads replaced as routine wear items, and chains and tubes replaced due to field failures.
Never had a wheel rim or spoke go bad in 11 years of frequent (but not daily) bike commuting. Maybe the roads here are just better maintained or something lol
@MLE_online My Trek was bottom-tier "actual bike shop" bike, quite the step up from the $70 "toys r us floor model that I got cheap because it was a discontinued model and the floor demo had a cracked fake leather seat" that lasted me all through school.
The Marin I have now is a slightly higher end "real bike" that I got after selling the Trek when I moved to the bottom of a steep hill and decided I wanted disk brakes rather than rim brakes for going down the hill in the rain.
@LabSpokane @MLE_online Interesting.
My bikes are definitely not ultra high end carbon fiber "weighs less than your water bottle" things lol. I wanted stuff that could survive the rigors of daily riding, would be relatively low maintenance and not break if you looked at it wrong, etc.
Also since I tend to carry a lot of cargo ranging from a thinkpad with its massive power brick to repair tools to rain gear and extra layers because I never know when it's gonna get hot/cold/downpour, I'm not super concerned about shaving ounces on the frame or something
@LabSpokane Not in my experience. I've built plenty of wheels with good old 13g plain gauge, to spindly DT Revolution spokes. There's nothing inherently wrong with thinner spokes in their durability if the wheel is built correctly. Too many people don't stress relieve the spokes after each round of tensioning and equalisation. That is what most frequently leads to galling, noises during riding, and eventual fracture.
@LabSpokane You grasp it along with the nearest parallel spoke on the same side and squeeze them together hard a couple of times. This creates the overload conditions to plastically set the elbow and the spoke length. When a wheel is fully tensioned and equalised the temporary overload should only result in a slight elastic detensioning of the wheel, and not loosening of spokes and nipples, nor pringling of the rim when its circumferential stress limit is exceeded.
@MLE_online @azonenberg eh, spokes are a consumable part either way, but the specific loading pattern has a huge impact on their lifetime.
I'm reasonably sure the majority of spokes on all my bikes are originals (1972, 1983, and 2017) but I've done several spoke replacements on the 1983 bike (that gets ridden hardest) and none on the others.
I suggest pulling 2 random ones and checking them. look for cracks, their hard to see, I'm not sure of a way to enhance them.
embrittlement. where its worked back and forth and the metal goes bittle and snaps.
@MLE_online 5k miles is not amazing going for a wheel, even loaded/ebike. Some rim/spoke combos will keep tension better than others.
It’s not “worth” upgrading in any real sense but better is possible.
@MLE_online On today’s episode of Contrary to Popular Belief: Mechanical Things Sometimes Wear Out
(Breaking spokes seems like something that used to happen more frequently)
Emily Velasco
SnoopJ
Andrew Zonenberg
LabSpokane
Becky T
Ivor Hewitt
AI6YR Ben
Rue Mohr
Friedemann Wachsmuth
smells of bikes
poleguy looking for lost tools
Coral (bleached era)
Chris Huck