Is it because I is fat?

Skrynesaver

Wisdom of the crowd required:

I have a Felt X-City commuter that I love dearly, however the rear wheel lost a number of spokes a couple of moths ago and yesterday I noticed 2 spokes gone and the rim is out of true

The wheels are Mavic A317 Rims with Shimano Alfine ISCG Rear Hub;

So should I just lose a stone and quit whinging on or does the wheel need work done?

Lusk Doyle

Skrynesaver wrote: »

Wisdom of the crowd required:

I have a Felt X-City commuter that I love dearly, however the rear wheel lost a number of spokes a couple of moths ago and yesterday I noticed 2 spokes gone and the rim is out of true

The wheels are Mavic A317 Rims with Shimano Alfine ISCG Rear Hub;

So should I just lose a stone and quit whinging on or does the wheel need work done?

You did replace the spokes when they went didn't you?

Sagi

well if you loose spokes, the wheel needs some maintainance, it's not like half of the spokes are just for decoration and when you ride araound for a while with missing spokes the rim will get out of center.

(by the way my alfine backwheel also misses 2 spokes at the moment and is not centered perfectly anymore, so let's just say it's the alfine's fault)

Skrynesaver

Lusk Doyle wrote: »

You did replace the spokes when they went didn't you?

Yes, or more accurately the nice man in the LBS did...

I was wondering if there was a weightier issue that was leading to the loss of spokes that could be addressed through maintenance/repair/replacement

t'bear

I was a bit of a tubster, and I am no lightweight now for sure, have hit a few large potholes too and wheels are still fine, not high end jobbies either, so I would say there is an underlying problem....its not cos you is fat

HivemindXX

In my experience if you have a wheel that has been fine for a long time and then starts to lose spokes on a regular basis the problem lies with the rim (or maybe the hub). I went through a phase where I would pop a spoke at least once a week. After the fourth or fifth I replaced the rim and the problem went away completely.

Note that losing spokes may cause the rim to go out of true since it's the spokes that keep it that way. Even if your spokes are going because they got damaged while the bike was parked or something the wheel would likely still end up bent out of shape even though there is no problem with the rim.

godtabh

When I start cycling I was probably close to 20kg to heavy for my bike. Never got any broken spokes.

In more recent times I've had to have 3 placed (3 trips to the LBS!)I put it down to poor roads and my ability to find every pot hole going

seamus

Broken spokes tend to be a bit of a cumulative problem. They wear fairly evenly, so unless there's a reason why one specific spoke has been weakened, after when the first one breaks you will start to see the others ping off every now again over the following months.

Treat them a bit like punctures. Fix the first two, but then if keeps happening, the problem is most likely down to wear and you need to replace all of the spokes, or the wheel.

feck sake lads

it's not your weight more likely spoke tension ,get the wheel respoked with dt spokes ,the rim your using is a good quality rim but check it for ware.
other than that get a new wheel:rolleyes:

doozerie

I'd suspect a poorly built wheel. Once one spokes loosens, either through bad luck or simply because the wheel was built badly to start with, then other spokes will start to loosen too usually - the integrity of the wheel relies on reasonably consistent tension across all spokes and once that is compromised in one part of the tim it'll have a knock-on effect on other parts too. After you had spokes replaced the first time it's possible that the wheel was not adjusted properly/adequately and the problem just got worse from there.

There could be other issues mind you (some of which could still be described as a badly built wheel). For example if all of the broken spokes snapped where they sit in the hub then the issue could be a poor quality finish on the hub which is overly stressing the spokes a the bend. Or the spokes could be the wrong choice for that hub. Or maybe the spokes are not strong enough to take the forces applied to a rear wheel. Etc.

It could also be that that the integrity of the rim is gone but while I'd expect that to result in the wheel being out of true, I'd be surprised if it would cause spokes to break. Broken spokes suggests a quality issue to me, of the hub and/or spokes and/or build.