Second Broken Spoke

Riding on Sunday, I got the second broken spoke on my FRONT HED Ardennes. It's a Sapim bladed spoke, and the end broke inside the nipple. The last time it was just a nipple failure. Oddly, these were adjacent spokes right and left side. I put in a 288mm and brass nipple, which does the trick, although I'm not going to win any bike-bling contests with a mutt silver spoke.

I was out of the saddle and putting weight on the front wheel. This could be a manufacturing problem or maybe something to do with high tension and dish with disc wheels. I hate these prefab wheels with nipple lock-gunk, which on this wheel is particularly strong. I probably should apply some heat or something. I bought the HEDs because they were reasonably priced on sale, and the OE Askium discs were suitable only for holding-up the bike on the showroom floor. They would uniformly loosen after about two rides.

O.K., while I'm ranting, WTF is up with spoke prices! Holy mother of gawd they've gotten expensive. I probably have four hundred spokes of odd ball sizes left over from wheel building a million years ago and my own wheels over the last few decades. If I could sell those, I'd be a hundredaire. I should frame the 310mm spokes from some old 4X Weinmann concave wheels I built in 1978. I think they were 27". I wonder if any of the cheap-o cutter-threaders are any good. I'm not going to buy a car-priced Phil tool.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Tuesday, March 23, 2021 at 11:42:03 AM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
Riding on Sunday, I got the second broken spoke on my FRONT HED Ardennes. It's a Sapim bladed spoke, and the end broke inside the nipple. The last time it was just a nipple failure. Oddly, these were adjacent spokes right and left side. I put in a 288mm and brass nipple, which does the trick, although I'm not going to win any bike-bling contests with a mutt silver spoke.

I was out of the saddle and putting weight on the front wheel. This could be a manufacturing problem or maybe something to do with high tension and dish with disc wheels. I hate these prefab wheels with nipple lock-gunk, which on this wheel is particularly strong. I probably should apply some heat or something. I bought the HEDs because they were reasonably priced on sale, and the OE Askium discs were suitable only for holding-up the bike on the showroom floor. They would uniformly loosen after about two rides.

O.K., while I'm ranting, WTF is up with spoke prices! Holy mother of gawd they've gotten expensive. I probably have four hundred spokes of odd ball sizes left over from wheel building a million years ago and my own wheels over the last few decades. If I could sell those, I'd be a hundredaire. I should frame the 310mm spokes from some old 4X Weinmann concave wheels I built in 1978. I think they were 27". I wonder if any of the cheap-o cutter-threaders are any good. I'm not going to buy a car-priced Phil tool.

Jay, I have heard that the HED works so hard at making wheels light that it puts unnecessary loads on the aero spokes.

On 3/23/2021 1:42 PM, jbeattie wrote:
Riding on Sunday, I got the second broken spoke on my FRONT HED Ardennes. It's a Sapim bladed spoke, and the end broke inside the nipple. The last time it was just a nipple failure. Oddly, these were adjacent spokes right and left side. I put in a 288mm and brass nipple, which does the trick, although I'm not going to win any bike-bling contests with a mutt silver spoke.

I was out of the saddle and putting weight on the front wheel. This could be a manufacturing problem or maybe something to do with high tension and dish with disc wheels. I hate these prefab wheels with nipple lock-gunk, which on this wheel is particularly strong. I probably should apply some heat or something. I bought the HEDs because they were reasonably priced on sale, and the OE Askium discs were suitable only for holding-up the bike on the showroom floor. They would uniformly loosen after about two rides.

O.K., while I'm ranting, WTF is up with spoke prices! Holy mother of gawd they've gotten expensive. I probably have four hundred spokes of odd ball sizes left over from wheel building a million years ago and my own wheels over the last few decades. If I could sell those, I'd be a hundredaire. I should frame the 310mm spokes from some old 4X Weinmann concave wheels I built in 1978. I think they were 27". I wonder if any of the cheap-o cutter-threaders are any good. I'm not going to buy a car-priced Phil tool.

-- Jay Beattie.






A Phil thread roller leaves a perfect thread in stainless.
My experience with others is that they don't have enough
pressure to form a clean thread despite much time and effort
to operate. But that was long ago, do report back if you
find one you like.

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

On 3/23/2021 2:42 PM, jbeattie wrote:
Riding on Sunday, I got the second broken spoke on my FRONT HED Ardennes. It's a Sapim bladed spoke, and the end broke inside the nipple. The last time it was just a nipple failure. Oddly, these were adjacent spokes right and left side. I put in a 288mm and brass nipple, which does the trick, although I'm not going to win any bike-bling contests with a mutt silver spoke.

You need to think outside the box. You can embed a coded message using
black and silver spokes!
https://www.livescience.com/nasa-per...cret-code.html

O.K., while I'm ranting, WTF is up with spoke prices! Holy mother of gawd they've gotten expensive. I probably have four hundred spokes of odd ball sizes left over from wheel building a million years ago and my own wheels over the last few decades. If I could sell those, I'd be a hundredaire.

Hey, an RBT contest! Who has the most spokes in storage? (Sorry, Andrew,
amateurs only.)

I should frame the 310mm spokes from some old 4X Weinmann concave wheels I built in 1978. I think they were 27".

I definitly have some of those.

I wonder if any of the cheap-o cutter-threaders are any good.

The one I tried was terrible and useless.

--
- Frank Krygowski