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Old March 14th 19, 11:35 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
John B. Slocomb
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Posts: 805
Default The death of rim brakes?

On Thu, 14 Mar 2019 09:59:33 -0700, "Mark J."
wrote:

On 3/13/2019 4:36 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Wed, 13 Mar 2019 16:07:48 -0700, "Mark J."
wrote:

On 3/13/2019 3:40 PM, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Wed, 13 Mar 2019 13:54:18 -0700 (PDT), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:

On Wednesday, March 13, 2019 at 3:17:05 PM UTC-4, AMuzi wrote:
Snipped

I don't get the obsession of reusing spokes. If that turns
you on, fine.
IMHO 'best rim for this rider/usage' can be severely limited
by adding 'within poorly supported ERD'.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

I don't think it's an obsession to use the old spokes. I think it's because many of us just like to tape the new rim to the old rim and then move the spokes to the new rim without having to unlace t he old wheel. Plus it saves a fair bit of money. Where I am shops cut spokes to length and t hen thread them. My understanding is that those cut threads make a weaker spoke than do spokes with rolled threads.

I have a couple of extra wheels here that have tubular rims on t hem but the hubs and spokes are in excellent condition. If I could get a clincher rim to match the tubular rim so I could use the old spokes by taping the new rim to the old and transferring the spokes to the new rim I would.

YMMV

Cheers

I see 14 gauge spokes with nipples listed on Amazon for $0.10 each in
lots of 36.

Please point me there! The lowest I can find on Amazon are ~$0.27 (US)
each. I looked on Ebay and couldn't get anywhere near that price point.
If they look reliable I'll use them to build wheels at a local
non-profit / pro-bono community bike shop.

Mark J.


I couldn't find the site I originally quoted :-(
But there were a number of sites offering spokes in sets of 36 for
$10.00 or less. Given that the TREK bikes I see listed range from
$11,799, with disc's, to $849, with conventional brakes, a measly ten
bucks is chicken feed.


For high-end Treks, sure. For functional recycled utility bikes that
will be sold on a sliding scale or given away, not so much.


I suggest that if Trek is selling them there are a sufficient number
of folks that are buying them :-)



The shop is sitting on a bunch of new donated rims, and it harvests
hubs, many decent ones, from otherwise dead donated wheels. My goal is
to turn those resources into working wheels through donated labor. Put
it all together, and it's marginally competitive with complete wholesale
wheels due to the cost of spokes. (And it's a fair question whether
wheel building is an efficient use of donated skilled time.)

My conjecture is that the rise of the boxed-wheels market has raised the
price of spokes dramatically, as spokes' drop in wholesale/retail volume
requires a much higher price to be worth stocking. I remember getting
basic but name-brand spokes for 20 cents each, now it's closer to a dollar.


Very possible true. The Shimano wholesaler in Bangkok tells me that
they no longer stock rims, hubs or spokes as "nobody buys them
anymore".

Andy M., did I guess right about the market?

Mark J.


--
Cheers,
John B.


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