Subject: RE: Breaking spokes audiojan - 2013-01-23 7:35 AM
It's not as simple as just weight... the type of rider you are plays a major factor as well. A punchier rider will torque the wheels more, hence fatigue the spokes and break them more often.
The biggest problem with factory built wheels is the uneven spoke tension. You can build a perfectly true wheel with a few under tensioned spokes, but them tend to break quite quickly. Same thing goes for a wheel where you broke a spoke and then the shop just replaced it and trued it without checking the spoke tension all the way around.
For a heavier rider, going with hand built wheels with good quality rims (Mavic Open Pro is the probably the most common and recommended), a good hub (Shimano makes good hubs), laced 3x 32 rear and 2x 28 front (or even 36 rear 32 front) with good quality spokes (Sapim or DT Swiss) would be my recommendation. The good news is that those wheels are not overly expensive.
Exactly right. A hand built wheel tensions each spoke in a balanced fashion while it's being construected. Think about it; when you turn the spoke nipple to tighten, you also twist the spoke a little bit as they're pretty flexible (by design ). While you hand build a wheel, you relieve that winding as you work so that each spoke won't unwind later and has an even tension with respect to the others.
Factory wheels are tensioned by machine with each spoke to a known torque, then a tech trim trues each wheel and slaps it on the bike. Much faster, but nowhere near the quality.
I like Velocity Aerohead rims and simple Shimano hubs (105 or Ultegra are perfectly good ). I go 250lbs and race cyclocross on mine; they take an absolute beating and remain true and perfect for years. |