Trek Checkpoint Gravel bike – only a year old. I have done no rough riding or any bumps or crashes. When filling my tires I noticed one spoke has this kink in it. Is it safe to ride? What kind of repair am I looking at?
by 38-RPM
Trek Checkpoint Gravel bike – only a year old. I have done no rough riding or any bumps or crashes. When filling my tires I noticed one spoke has this kink in it. Is it safe to ride? What kind of repair am I looking at?
by 38-RPM
11 Comments
Totally fine. P
I’ve had a kink in one of my front wheel spokes for a couple of years. Never had an issue.
Eh, if it holds tension its fine, but its also on most wheels really easy to replace a spoke as long as they aren’t really proprietary
The kink isn’t an issue, but it might be a symptom of a spoke that isn’t properly tensioned.
Does it feel less taut than other spokes on the same side of the wheel?
This is fine. It looks like a pretty beefy straight gauge spoke, which is of course, is steel. Its fine.
If you are worried about it, swapping it out is pretty chill.
If you want to do this yourself, you’ll need some measurements from the hub and rim. Alternatively, you could remove and measure another spoke. You could also pull a measurement of the bike without removing the spoke, but that is going to take some know-how.
Once you have the spoke type (you’ll need to replace this with an identical spoke), and length, you can swap in a new spoke on your own.
Paying a shop to do this will probably be like $60. You can try and find matching spokes online, or, a shop can cut spokes for you.
I had a kink like that in my MTBs spoke, and rode it for some time without issues. When I broke a different spoke (probably unrelated), I swapped the kinked one as well and noticed that the kink was way worse when the spoke was relaxed as opposed to tensioned in the wheel. What I took from that is that catastrophic failure is highly improbable, but if you can easily sort a new spoke at the local bike shop, you should probably take the ten minutes to swap it.
No problem. And it’s not as simple as R&R. The best way is to loosen the surrounding spokes then replace.
Not a problem at all.
Tension is the key. Doesn’t look the best, might be weakened somewhat, if a spoke is going to fail, it will be that one, but if it’s holding tension properly, it could also last 10 years without another issue.
https://preview.redd.it/vq5yorg4j2md1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=04e17055866490fe3c155e1ba0e8e61d7eb0e62e
I ride this daily.
Watch out for pedals from another bike when you park the bikes for a break.
If the wheel is still true keep on riding it.