Fun Stuff > CHATTER
Bickering about bicycles, now with occasional tips about motorised vehicles
Caleb:
Bicycle rant. If anyone who knows anything about bikes can weigh in that would be great.
So my Raleigh's back wheel finally needed replacement.
I went the place in town three times. The first time I was unsure of why the wheel price was like %50 less than what I had been told before.
So it seemed the wheel they put on there was much thinner than the original wheel. Like MUCH thinner. I even took it in after I picked it up and was told that it was fine.
The wheel broke a spoke within a few bike rides. I hardly used it.
I took back the bike again and again told them to please get a proper wheel on it.
They ONLY replaced the wheel and used the same tire. SO it's the SAME type of thin wheel that broke before.
They must think I am an idiot because they left the HAND tuned spoke price tag of $189 on it.
i just don't understand how the SAME type of wheel could possibly not just break in the same way no matter how hand tuned the spokes.
And of course the comments regarding my weight weren't helpful either. I am just under 300 pounds now. THE ORIGINAL WHEEL WAS FINE. I don't see how saying "it's not the wheel it's the amount of strain / strength you put on it". "it's not going to handle going over a curb with you on it". The original wheel MAGICALLY didn't crumple under my weight after years of heavy use.
So yeah $150 for the first round and now another $120 for this wheel replacement.
Which again I don't understand since it's the SAME type of wheel. How can having a price tag saying $198 spokes make a difference? Is this a real thing? I mean if the wheel is the wrong wheel having a more expensive WRONG type of wheel and tire can't possibly make a difference.
And of course a 5 second google search found the local raleigh official shop in VT and they told me they could get me a replacement easily. I just DON'T understand. Why couldn't this shop simply get me a proper wheel off the internet.
Pictures of the replacement wheel that broke after about 5 miles of biking. So you can see the difference between the big beefy front wheel and the shit thin back wheel. (well you can't really see it but yeah)
Akima:
--- Quote from: Caleb on 15 Sep 2015, 23:53 ---And of course a 5 second google search found the local raleigh official shop in VT and they told me they could get me a replacement easily. I just DON'T understand. Why couldn't this shop simply get me a proper wheel off the internet.
--- End quote ---
Just as there are shitty garages that rip you off, I'm afraid there are shitty bike shops that do the same, and unfortunately you found one. Possibly they are cycle-sport jerks who don't know or care about transportation cycling, or maybe they are just jerks.
On spokes, careful tuning of their tension can improve their life, but this is not normally relevant or required for transportation bikes. It's more of a racing-bike thing where light weight is the Holy Grail.
The Seldom Killer:
The width of the wheel isn't a big issue. The Bontrager TLR is a double wall rim that functionally isn't going to be any weaker than the Weinmann XC260 rim that you have on the front. Also, this isn't going to be the cause of the spoke breaking. The hub itself is going to be of pretty much the same dimensions including the flanges and the spokes are still going to lace to centre rim. If anything the depth of the Bontrager rim means you're more likely have shorter spokes which comes with a greater breaking strain. Size doesn't immediately correlate to strength in this instance.
Obviously this doesn't gel with your experience which means that something else is at play. The main cause of spoke breakage is metal fatigue through flexing of a untensioned/detensioned spoke. However, from experience, this is unlikely to happen in 5 miles of usage. 20 maybe, 50 most likely. It's one of those exponential things. So I'm inclined to think it's simple mechanical failure. Metal is a crystaline structure and every now and again there will be imperfections in it. So while it may have been fine in construction of the wheel, a shear plate could easily come exposed under load. That's the most likely explanation to me.
I've had a very similar experience to you. I bought a new wheel, had a spoke go within about ten miles of using it. I took it back to the shop, the mechanic there gave it a quick check on the other spokes, felt they were OK, put a new one in and the wheel then lasted me for a good long time with minimal servicing.
Your 300lbs isn't that big an issue either. While touring in Canada we ended up with a dying rear wheel in the middle of the prairie provinces. We picked up the only 700c wheel that was actually available for sale in a town we stopped in. It was a thin, lightweight racing wheel similar to your rear wheel and again with minimal servicing lasted the remaining 2500 miles of our journey and quite some time after that. This was on a bike fully loaded with rider, panniers, tent, sleeping mat etc. You may find that a narrower rim is a less comfortable ride and slightly more prone to torsional distortion (going out of true through hard cornering) but that's about it.
Your description of the bike shop does suggest that they sold you what they had, not what they wanted which is pretty bad and any comments about your weight are both insensitive and irrelevant. On that basis I wouldn't go back to them as a customer.
Caleb:
Thanks for the replies guys.
This new wheel hasn't broke yet.
So shorter spokes are a thing. But does more spokes = more toughness?
Because this new wheel seems to have more spokes than the one that broke.
bhtooefr:
More spokes means more fault tolerance - if a spoke isn't quite evenly tensioned, more spokes take up the load, and then it's less likely to fail. It's not necessarily a stronger wheel if everything's tensioned properly, but it's a wheel that can take weakness in the structure more easily.
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