I keep breaking rear spokes on my bicycle. Are there stronger wheels?

Factual Questions
1

I am a big guy. 6’-2" 300 pounds. I bought the bike for exercise and am loving it. The problem is that while I have dropped about 100 pounds thus far, I am still apparently above the theoretical weight the wheel designers are building for.

I have a Novara XL. I guess it’s a cross training type bike… not a road bike and not a full suspension mountain bike. I love the thing and it has performed well for me except for the blown spokes. I do not do any off road riding. My usual riding MO is on pavement or tight packed gravel. As a result of the blown spokes/warped rim, I’ve had to replaced the stock wheels. I upgraded to what were described as cycle-cross wheels/tires. The construction is much beefier, and the narrower tire allows for much higher tire pressures. Unfortunately I’ve already blown a spoke on the new rear wheel and I figure I will need something stronger. Is there anything stronger than an aluminum cycle-cross wheel available? Is this mythical wheel affordable?

thanks.

2

Congratulations on your weight loss!

I think the best thing for you is to go to consult a local bike shop and have them either rebuild your wheel, or build you a new wheel. If you let them know of your problems, they can choose more beefy components including thicker spokes. Or they may tell you that your current wheel is fine for your needs once it’s trued properly. (An improperly trued wheel means some spokes are under more stress than others; this is the most common cause of broken spokes.)

Needless to say, you need to go to a real bike shop, not the bike department of a sports store. They won’t mind if you didn’t buy the bike there.

3

After you have one spoke break on a wheel, it puts extra strain on the other spokes, making them more likely to break later. Each spoke that then breaks strains the remaining ones. You just need to have your wheel rebuilt.

A similar thing happened to me about 15 years ago - I had a series of spokes that broke. Then I was on a 100-mile ride in hilly East Texas, and at the 95 mile point I started a good climb, and two spokes broke simultaneously. My back wheel looked like a Pringles potato chip^H^H^H^Hcrisp, and couldn’t be ridden further. I learned my lesson.

4

I bought the bike at REI… they have a bike mechanic on site who’s done well by me thus far. It was on his advice that I changed to the cycle cross wheels. I do know that the spokes need to be properly stressed… unfortunately, the failures thus far have been of the catastrophic type… the wheel seems fine and then Bam! pringle chip. I went on a short ride when I got the new wheel and noticed a loose spoke and some very minor warping of the rim… I brought it back to get tuned up and all the spokes seem equally tight now. I have another bike shop closer to my house that I’ve used for spoke replacements for the original wheel but they didn’t have any advice about a stronger wheel so I’m thinking it’s not so good a shop.

The guy at REI mentioned that the wheel can also be built differently (spoke pattern I guess) but he felt that the pattern that came with the new wheels are about as strong as is possible.

I am of the thought that the materials of the wheel construction are the culprit here… aluminum is only so strong. I do not mind a bit more weight overall as I figure I’d only have to upgrade the rear wheel… but I have not seen steel/carbon/titanmium wheels for fatties around anywhere :wink: and am not sure I could afford NASA spec’d wheels anyway.

5

Tandem rears. These wheels are heaver and built to take extra loads.

Get it built by some one who knows why you need it done and the problem should resolve itself.

Good for you on your weight lose.

If you want it back, I found it.

6

Something that a lot of bikers do not realize is that wheels are available with different numbers of spokes. You need a wheel with a lot of spokes. Generally, the strongest standard wheels (read: most spokes) have 48 spokes; they are usually used on tandem bikes, but they are perfectly suitable for regular bikes as well, usually for the rear wheel. (It’s overkill for a front wheel). In my lifetime I’ve had three rear wheels make up with 48-spoke rims for my various long distance bike tours. Trust me, they are unstoppable!

A few warnings. You will need to have these professionally made, unless you have access to a shop that specializes in tandems which may carry them as normal stock. Secondly, if you go into most bike shops – even good ones – they will try to talk you out of getting them for two reasons: 1. All bike shop workers have been brainwashed into thinking that nothing is more important than saving weight on a bike, and the extra spokes mean more weight, and 2. The extra-spoke parts (the rim and hub) are oddball items for most shops, and they will have to be special-ordered from one of a limited number of manufacturers. The shop workers will tell you, “What do you want that for? Try this XXX wheel. Why, my brother Tiny – who weighs 350 lbs. – has been riding on this wheel for years and never broke one spoke!”

Bullsh*t! Do not let them discourage you. Once you get one of these wheels you’ll never go back!

7

Ror the record, I was typing my post while Booker57 slipped his in before me.

8

Off-the-shelf tandem wheels usually have wide hubs (140 or 145mm) and won’t fit a solo bike. But it may help to have a wheel built using a tandem rim and/or spokes.

You really need to find a better bike shop. I don’t think you’ll solve this by buying a new factory-built wheel. If you can’t find one in your town, there are shops that build tandem wheels (and therefore have things like thick spokes in stock) and do mail order. I believe Peter White Cycles is one of them. But I strongly recommend you try to find a local shop first.

9

The guy I’ve been working with at REI was onto the same vein with the cycle cross wheel… my guess is that that is the best he can obtain… the Tandem wheel sounds like the right way… I think I’ll concetrate on finding a good shop nearby.

Anybody in Boston know a good bike shop in and around the Dorchester/milton side of Boston?

10

A loose spoke is not a good thing, for reasons already mentioned. If all your wheels so far had this flaw when they were new, it might be the root of the problem. It does suggest that the wheel-builders technique needs improvement.

A good quality aluminum rim is plenty strong, and probably stronger than a steel one. It’s the wheel as a whole, including spokes, hub, and building, that’s at issue. I agree that a wheel with more spokes and possibly thicker spokes is the way to go here. It definitely needs to be properly laced and properly tensioned.

11

One of the reasons that a tandem wheel is stronger than a conventional wheel is due to the way the spoke flanges sit exactly middle distance from the rim.

http://www.gtgtandems.com/tech/wheandhub.html

Freewheels have all those sprockets on them, and to make room for this, the hub is built so that it is effectively pushed to the other side, away from the freewheel.
This makes the spokes on the freewheel side a little shorter, and thos on the non-drive side a little longer. The other advantage of those cassette hubs is that they push the bearings wider apart and so reduce the chances of an axle snapping.

It also means that the shorter spokes tend to break first.

On a tandem, the axle is longer, but your frame needs to be wider at this point to accomodate this.
If you were to stand a tandem wheel vertically, you would see that the spoke flanges stick out exactly equal on either side, which does not happen on a solo wheel.

The stresses are more evenly distributed, and the wheel is far stronger.

Fixed wheel machines have their rear wheel built this way too, and at one time cyclo-cross bikes were fixed wheel, that was some years ago and the crossers all ride gear, but then they also wreck more wheels.

You could ride with more spokes, preferably tied and soldered spokes, you cannot readily widen your frame to fit a tandem wheel.

One really good thing with these cassette hubs is that you can get the freewheel off if you have the right tools with you and replace the brokn spoke at the roadside, providing you carry spare spokes and spoke key.

Get to know your spoke key, its your friend.

You can spend a huge amount of cash for a top class 48 spoke wheel, aka Birdcage wheels, or go the other way and go for pretty much disposable components like this person does.
Whatever you do, when you specify the wheel, the distance between the rear axle drop outs is important.

http://derbyking.com/Detail/?n=11

12

I know that in Jamaica Plain, Ferris Wheels is pretty good. And Broadway Bikes in Cambridge.

If that don’t help, you might want to ask the Mass Bike Coalition discussion group:
http://groups.google.com/group/massbike

There are guys there that have forgotten more than you or I will ever know about wheels, and can perhaps reccomend a good shop in your neck o’ the woods.

13

Tandem mountainbiker here. We ride 36-spoke wheels with a mounted weight of probably 400 pounds. It’s a wheel made for solo downhill bikes. Never had a wheel failure, despite regularly running into large logs and taking jumps.

A lot of it depends on your riding style - I’ve spoken to heavy tandem teams that do fine with fairly light-weight wheels because they unweight for obstacles.

A hand-built wheel (by someone who knows what they’re doing) will generally be stronger than a factory-built.

A good LBS should be able to get you on some wheels that will hold up - I know many Clydesdale (200+) mountain bikers; wheel failure problems are rare. A cross-type bike frame should be able to take most mountain bike wheels.

If you’re definitely interested in tandem wheels and can’t find any, I can recommend these very nice and knowledgeable people: MTBTandems.

14

I’m a heavy guy and was popping spokes on my road bike and the local shop built me new wheels with Mavic CXP (I think) V - profile rims. I haven’t had a problem in the couple of thousand miles since.

15
      • Your spokes are cheap. The wheels are likely good enough, even the cehapest wheels can take a LOT of weight but the cheap spokes won’t. And it is common on rear wheels of heavier/stronger riders. Pay to get a wheel hand-built on your current rims but with some better spokes and it shouldn’t happen anymore. Don’t have them “order” a whole new wheel already built, because it will be machine-built and machines fuck up the spokes!!! The machines leave some spokes way too loose and overtighten others way too much. The wheel ends up sitting straight, but some spokes are way overstressed from the start, while others are loose. You need a hand-built wheel.

…Also–learn to use a spoke wrench. Here’s a tip: you can “tune” your spokes by the tune they play. Take a screwdriver and “ding” it on each of your spokes; if they are all tightened about the same, they will all sound the same. If one is over- or under-tightened, it will sound different when you hit it.
~

16

I recommend you read The Bicycle Wheel by Jobst Brandt. The main reason for spoke failure is insufficient tension in the spokes. Without enough tension, your weight will completely relax some of the spokes, so they undergo lots of 0 to tension transitions. This will break spokes.

If you have higher tension in the spokes, you should be OK.

Other things to realize:

  • When you are going to hit a bump in the road, get your butt off the saddle. This lets the bike absorb more shock and stresses the wheel less.
  • More spokes are stronger than less spokes, as has been mentioned.

36 spokes should be enough provided you have enough tension on them, but 40 would be uber-solid. 48 spokes is overkill unless you’re on a tandem.

17

Another tandem rider here, although our combined weight is only ~280 lbs. For a tandem, the best way to go is with hand-built wheels - ours have stayed true for years now although we don’t go offroad much. Some of that is due also to the large hub flanges, symmetric rear wheel, 14-gage spokes, and 48-hole 26" rims - really a bomb-proof set-up for our needs (also, my wife is pretty light and we have a suspension seatpost, FWIW).

For a heavier rider, I would concur with the advice given by many others here - go hand-built from a reputable bike shop. Their builder will have his/her own theories about spoke count, lacing, rim selection, etc. Since this can get quite contentious, I would just make sure that they know what they are doing and then follow their advice.

(I’ll go out on a limb here, at the risk of being flamed unmercifully, and suggest that 36-hole rims with 14-gage spokes laced 3-cross can be put together well enough for riders in the ~200 lb. weight class doing road/fire-road riding.)

Good luck!!

18

The closest I can vouch for personally is Community Bike in the South End, near the corner of Berkeley and Tremont. And even then, Rich is the only guy I trust wholeheartedly. He builds wheels well. Harris Cyclery out in Newton is also known for their expertise at wheel building, and being willing to accomodate bizarre requests. Luckily, it’s January, so the wait might be reasonable. Also, Sheldon Brown, whose website, http://www.sheldonbrown.com, contains the web’s most thorough collection of bicycle information, works there.

If you’re willing to pay a bit extra, Phil Wood manufactures goddam indestructable hubs in pretty much every size and number of spokes that anyone might use. They do indeed make 48 or 40 (generally, 36 is the most a road or touring bike would have, I use 32 with no trouble, but I’m a skinny little guy) in regular road bike widths.

Probably even more important than weight is the ability to ride lightly. Basically, you need to keep yourself loose, and take your weight off the seat over bumps. Let the bike make the jarring up and down movements with your lower legs and forearms, while the rest of your inertia stays put, and relatively slowly adjusts to the bike. If you see a dip ahead, stand up, coast with pedals horizontal (not strictly necessary, but it makes it much easier), and let the bike drop away beneath you, before either catching up to it, or it catching up to you. I don’t know how you ride, but the difference between riding “light” and riding “heavy” can be pretty substantial. And it’s free to upgrade that one.