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Old July 31st 03, 01:31 PM
archer
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Default Lifetime of spokes?

In article ,
says...
I've been riding a hybrid bike with street tires for about three years on a
daily basis (about 12 miles a day on average). Street and rail trail use
only. No big impacts. Never had any spoke problems until a month ago when
one spoke broke. Had that fixed at a local shop. Then yesterday, two more
spokes broke. (All on rear wheel.) Took it into the local shop for repair
and spoke with the service person about possable causes. Her thought was
that the stainless steel the spokes are made of is starting to "crystalize"
and become brittle with age. This makes it prone to breaking. She did not
think the problem was caused by looseness of some spokes. Suggested fix was
to re-spoke the wheel (~$50) or buy a new wheel (~$70) or just fix the
spokes as they break (~$10 labor total plus 66 cents for each spoke). For
now, I'm doing the last.

Anybody have any ideas about this?


You shouldn't be breaking any spokes in normal riding no matter how old
the wheel is. Have the wheel properly tensioned (you can do it yourself
if you're careful), and you shouldn't break any more.


--
David Kerber
An optimist says "Good morning, Lord." While a pessimist says "Good
Lord, it's morning".

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