Hello all, not sure if this is the right sub, but I'm looking for some advice.
It seems like at least once a year I break a spoke (nipple) or two and I don't know what I'm doing wrong.
I have a Surly Long Haul Trucker that I built 18 years ago and have put countless miles on. When I was assembling it, I had the local bike shop build me a custom wheel set for it and they were great until about 6 years ago. Bontrager Ranger rims and Shimano LX hubs, 32 spoke.
One day on a long ride I broke 2 rear spokes. I'm an automotive technician and very mechanical by nature. I've always done my own bike work, including lacing up and truing wheels. I replaced the broken spokes and continued the rest of the year with no problems. Next year I broke a front spoke. Replaced it. Then not long after that I broke a rear spoke..
Over the 15 years or so I'd had the custom wheels I had gained about 30 pounds (I weight about 200 pounds now) and I had also gotten into more of a touring style of riding, full rear paniers, gear hanging from the front bars, etc. I assumed that I had just outgrown the original wheels' capabilities. Not living in the same state anymore, I went to a new LBS and explained my problem to them. They sold me a new off-the-shelf wheel set that was supposed to be a bit stronger rim design (Weinmann brand) and with a 36 spoke count now. This wheel set came with a warranty, as long as I brought the wheels back to them for a re-tension after approximately 200 miles.. I got about 100 miles in and a rear spoke breaks one day. I bring the wheels to them, they seem very surprised, the wheel wasn't damaged at all, just the broken spoke. This seems to always be the case, by the way. They replace the spoke, check all the spoke tensions and send me on my way.
Well, it's been maybe 100 more miles and yesterday I was riding along and all of a sudden my front wheel starts rubbing the brakes badly. I stop and investigate and a front spoke is broken! The nipple is, anyway… I get it trued up and limp the bike back to the car. I now live in a different state again from the bike shop that the wheels have a warranty at.
When these spokes fail, it always seems to fail at the nipple, not the actual spoke itself. Like it just separates itself in half.
What is happening??? It's like the spokes/nipples are just snapping at will without cause! I ruled out myself tensioning them improperly because even the set that only the LBS worked on had the same issue.
Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? Do I just need to pony up and buy some extra strong components and build my own wheels? I'm at a loss here. Are there stronger nipples I can buy and just replace all these? I'm no bicycle expert, so I don't know my options.
I've got like 6 other bikes of all shapes and sizes and have been riding for almost 30 years. This is the only bike I've ever had this issue with and it seems to be happening more frequently.
Thanks!
by JeveStones69
17 Comments
It’s a little hard to tell, but alloy nipples tend to break because aluminium has a fatigue life and wheel cycles tension as it rotates. I recommend brass ones for this reason.
r/bikewrench might be more helpful
Continually breaking brass spoke nipples instead of the actual spokes is pretty surprising indeed. Are the spokes butted? This tends to prevent failures of the actual spoke itself more than the nipples but I expect it wouldn’t hurt in this case.
Also make sure the spokes are actually long enough, if they are tensioned before they go all the way to at least the bottom of the “slot” in the head of the nipple, the nipple is more likely to have the head break off.
You are over loading the wheel. If you’re doing fully loaded touring try replacing the wheels with 36 spoke wheels built with heavier gauge spokes. Make sure to use regular brass nipples and not the fancy alloy ones.
You can read the late great Sheldon Brown’s ‘old man yells at cloud’ rant about spokes here!
[https://sheldonbrown.com/adv-cycling/hubsspokesrims.pdf](https://sheldonbrown.com/adv-cycling/hubsspokesrims.pdf)
Pic 1 looks like the spoke nipple sheared. I’d guess that the wheel wasn’t really built properly; even higher end off-the-shelf wheels if machine built can suck. I’ve had cheap wheels built by hand that last years. I’d suggest having an LBS build a custom set of wheels. When your custom wheels first broke a spoke, they probably needed a full re-tension, something you may not have had the equipment or skill to do at the time.
If the hole in the rim is ovalized ..?
There is your answer
The rim is toast
Have a set of Clydesdales built or build them yourself. Use a rim from HED.
If the wheels are tensioned properly, it seems like it could just be bad nipples. Its possible that there either might have been a batch with some kind of manufacturing defect.
Can you post a pic of both sides of the broken nipple? Without knowing exactly where it cracked, it’s hard to rule out that the spokes aren’t too short.
Also, as soon as you break one spoke/nipple, you are throwing off the tension and probably doing more damage to the wheel, so it’s not totally surprising that once one went, others are breaking.
If you’re 200lbs+ riding fully loaded (maybe 30-50lbs of gear) you need to look in to 36h wheels. I weight around 215lbs and I ride 24h wheels on my gravel bike and do very VERY light load packing with it and it’s been fine but if I was doing fully loaded touring I’d run something beefier.
Those are some very thick spokes (is it 3 mm or something?), but nipples look kinda usual. No a surprise that nipples are the ones to fail.
If you are on the heavier side and ride a lot, with cargo and on difficult terrain – spoke failure is kinda expected. The tourists I know just take replacement spokes for a fied repair with them.
If these are basically new(ish) wheels (200 miles?), you shouldn’t have gotten to the point where the rim becomes diseased from wearing at the retention holes and accelerated wearing from spokes coming out of tension/breaking over and over.
I don’t know anything about Weinmann products except that they are one of many Chinese OEMs. Could be that the tension is off from the box and that the shop hasn’t been rebuilding them evenly. Could be that the nipples are just garbage (they look like brass but with really heavy plating?)
I think investing in a wheelset from a manufacturer with a known reputation, or getting a wheel built by someone who really know what they are doing from known components is really critical.
I would just change all the nipples for new brass ones, at least in one wheel, if they keep breaking and the spoke holes aren’t circular, change the rim too.
Check the whole wheel.
Uneven spoke tension can cause spokes to break. Replacing broken spokes will just result in more spokes breaking if you don’t address uneven spoke tension.
Another is rim integrity. I was breaking spokes on a wheel often and that was because there was a crack at two nipple holes. Ended up having to replace the rim and replaced all spokes and nipples as well.
From that picture, my guess is too much tension and the spokes are too short.
Straight gauge spokes, spoke nipples not quite tight enough. When the wheel deflects where it’s at the bottom position; that spoke will have the least tension on it. If the nipple is so loose that it goes slack, and then snaps up to support weight, that fatigues the nipple in short order until it breaks. It can also cause cracking at the spoke hole in the spoke bed of the rim.
I’ve had problems with spoke nipples unscrewing in newly built wheels. It’s always a good idea to check a newly built wheel after a few rides to make sure the spoke tension is correct all the way around. I once built a wheel with a little grease under the spoke threads and that just made them unscrew faster.
They actually make a special threadlocker paste for bicycle wheel spokes if this is an ongoing problem. It keeps the nipples from unscrewing, and also keeps it from seizing so you can true the wheel in the future.
Broken spokes are a sign that you’re taking on too much load. With your weight gain, sounds like you need to have another wheel built with even more spokes. FWIW, I noticed my new gravel bike has nearly double the spokes as my normal road bike.
You broke a front spoke??? Are you riding rock gardens?
Another vote for the spokes are too short. Remove the tire, tube, and rim tape. Look at how far the spokes extend into the nipples. The spokes should go all the way through the nipple.
The builder miscalculated the length and/or thought DS and NDS spokes have same length. On the rear wheel they don’t (unless you have an uncommon dish-less rear wheel).