jim beam writes:

wrote:
Second, do spokes in well-built (by whatever means) wheels require
constant inspection and replacement?

if you read the instructions that come with all these expensive
pre-built wheels yes! but, that's only a cursory visual
inspection. it's just like the contrasts between the safety &
inspection regimes for cars vs planes, wheel spokes are not usually
considered a high fatality risk, so there's no reason to subject
them to a rigorous expensive certification procedure.

A nice duck and weave instead of answering the question. You sound
like a politician, and I've had enough of that for one week.

The answer to Carl's question is "no." I ride my bikes, I never
bother to inspect the spokes and I haven't broken a spoke in 50,000 to
60,000 miles of riding, racing, light touring and cyclo-cross. Of
course I built those wheels using a method of wheelbuilding that
mr. beam is attempting to discredit by misleading analogies and such;
I suppose you have to resort to that sort of thing when you can't
produce facts that are contradictory.

The last spoke I broke was in about 1994 on a group training ride;
rather embarassing for the guy who built the wheel, as he was along
for the ride. It was an Asahi 14g spoke, on the non-drive side of a 7
sp wheel spaced at 126 mm; Sun rim, Avocet Model III hub (Campy copy).
Hmm, correction, the last spokes I broke were in an 18" wheel built on
an SRAM 3x7 hub in a folding bike (Birdy, which was infamous for
broken spokes for a couple of years). I rebuilt the wheel in 1999 or
2000 and no broken spokes since, but that bike doesn't see many miles.