Nothing like a broke spoke to force a rebuild

[fender]

Was out riding yesterday and broke a spoke on my road bike. Outside of some brake rub made it home without further incident. Figured I might as well completely dismantle and clean the rear hub, needed to pull the rear cluster anyways to replace the spoke.

When replacing a spoke is it best to un-tension all spokes and re-true or to simply replace the spoke and re-tension and re-true were necessary?

Fortunately I've had no issues with those on my Bonnie.

 

[Speed3Chris]

Road bike as in cycling variety? You just touched on my biggest passion.
In answer to your question, no need to untension all the spokes...in fact, waaay more work.
Simply replace the spoke that's broken and then true the wheel which will generally only require retensioning local around the replaced spoke. Real question of course is why did the spoke break in the first place? Perhaps the tension in your other spokes has loosened...you may have caught something in there etc....you are heavy relative to the strength and wheel spoke count....curb jumping...lots of contributing factors.
Good Luck.
My roadbike below...next to my bonnie, my favorite toy.
PS: Spokes are rarely generic as you likely know, so be sure to contact the manufacturer for a replacement.

 

[fender]

Chris thanks for the info. I've heard it done both ways and was looking for additional input. Yes road bike as in the cycling variety. The broke spoke is a result of the crappy roads around here and several thousand miles on them. I was already planning on getting the rear re-laced over the winter as it's more frequently coming out of true. I switched long ago from a low spoke count wheel to a 32 spoke Dura Ace/Velocity Areohead combination. Much more bullet proof and you can loose a spoke and still be able to ride home. From a weight perspective I run around 175lbs. The spokes are DT Swiss butted 14/15. This spoke broke at the elbow.

Nice bike by the way I keep looking to replace mine and go carbon at some point. I had a saddle like that on an old Gitane when I was a kid. I still kick myself for selling that one. The Brooks saddles are some of the most comfortable out there once broken in.

Between my Bonnie and either road bike or mountain bike there are times where I go one to two weeks without driving the car.

Ride safe

 

[Speed3Chris]

Sounds like you know your stuff Fender and should be a pretty easy repair. I too ride on less than ideal roads and am heavier at 195#. The Campy machine built wheels you see have been bombproof. You should have no problem at all at 175# even on bad paved roads. Consider something like Mavic Open Pro's or equivalent. Carbon fiber is fantastic for its stiffness to damping ratio and yes you do see a bit of retro grouch with the Brooks B.17 on an otherwise high tech bike. I have one on the Ti 29er I just built as I live out in the country as you see in the pic and try to cross train on my mountain bike when I am not out on the road in group rides with my friends. I have been riding a lot lately. I love cycling and even though this is a motorcycle forum I sure wouldn't want to pick between either cycling or the motor variety. You know what I mean.
All the best.
You will laugh but I drive my car to go ride my bonnie I keep in town in storage because I don't want to ride it on the dirt.

 

[em_dot]

Road bike as in cycling variety? You just touched on my biggest passion.

Mmmm.... Campy! Very nice bike indeed!

Yea, I'm a huge fan of the pedal bikes. Raced Cat4 in college. Triathlon has been my staple the last decade. To old to race crits. I just won't take those risks.

A couple of years ago I was finally able to afford a Campy Record 10 speed group on my Cervelo Soloist. I still prefer their tapered square BB though... Anywho, the next month after I hung the Record 10 on my bike, they came out with 11 speed. 10 speed is still nice.

My litespeed tri-bike is Dura Ace 10 speed (7800 series). Triathlon never embraced the Italian stuff, so if you lunch a rear deraileur right before (or during) a race, the mechanics can't support you. So I guess I'm still that guy that wears a Campy T-Shirt, but races on the Jap stuff...

 

[schnabba]

a 32 hole pattern is nice - the weight savings over lower spoke counts isn't enough for me to do it (this gets into discussions much like oil threads, so, whatever your preference is today is cool). I have seen 36 hole rims - a lot of the tandem bikers use that.

I would think that you could replace the one spoke, and then true / check the tension on the other spokes.... you'd need the right tension gauge though!

I like the 32 hole cross 3 patterns.... I have lost up to 4 spokes before the wheel gets more wobbly than normal (happened to a crappy abused 12 speed street bike in college). the 5th spoke the wheel got unstable while riding.... I didn't think to check for broken spokes at the time.

Maybe get a tension gauge and a new spoke? The DT swiss ones you mention are pretty stout spokes - I like them (have used them on several sets of wheels for my MTB, and have them on there now).

Unless you want to learn to lace a wheel... in which case, take everything apart and inspect each spoke

 

[nohawk]

What are those high end bikes made of?

 

[fender]

Now days the high end bikes are mostly carbon fiber. Aluminum is mostly used in the mid to lower end. The custom builders typically use titanium and some still work in steel. It's quite amazing how with the carbon they can design the bike to be extremely stiff in one direction but compliant in another. The ride quality of the modern bikes is quit remarkable.

 

[Speed3Chris]

Cool to hear from other cycling freaks. Gear and mods, often referred to as bike porn seems to permeate both motor and no motor variety...lol. No escape. Em dot, good to hear from a competitive cyclist. Crit racing is a suckers game anyway without sponsorship as crashes are inevitable and bikes cost too much let alone all the broken bones from racing with hacks so completely agree. The new Campy Record stuff is pure jewelry...nothing like it. I haven't jumped to 11s in back...still happy with my 10s Chorus groupset but did upgrade to the new style Ergolevers and loove them....big improvement.
Fender, schnabba made a good point. Take a hard look at your broken spoke and in particular your current spokes if the break especially was down by the hub. Maybe a fatigue failure from running lower spoke tension and if so if you have a lot of miles on your wheels a good idea to replace all spokes. Replacing them one at a time will be the least amount of work because you maintain the wheel dish that way and get tension pretty close but believe you guys know all that stuff.

Hawk,
The fast bikes are pretty much all carbon fiber today...which includes most of the components as well...from handlebars to seat post to stem to even derailleurs. Amateurs like me train and race on aluminum wheels but the guys who do it for a living who btw are ridiculously fast, race on all carbon fiber which includes wheels, hubs and even spokes. My bike weighs 18 lbs and the bikes in the Tour de France which is going on right now...their bikes weigh 15 lbs and cost more than a new bonneville...weght limit set by the racing body as a partial hedge against minimum strength as precipitous failures at high speed can cause major injury.
To put into perspective just how good the fastest in the world are....they race one another for over 100 miles in stage races in the mountains of europe with ridiculous elevation and air so thin you can't breath and they average close to 30 mph. A top rider can sprint to 45 mph and if you do the math is much more than 1 horsepower. The best are always hard to believe.

 

[nohawk]

18lbs? 15lbs?! Pretty incredible stuff.

 

[Speed3Chris]

18lbs? 15lbs?! Pretty incredible stuff.

Really is. Carbon fiber is amazing stuff and as fender mentioned you can formulate the weave and the tensile of the weave to create not only the yield strength but modulus of elasticity (flex) you want to tune the bike's ride characteristics. Strong cyclists generally want a laterally stiff bike that is vertically compliant. Having asymmetric tubing with deliberate weave direction can create what the designers want. Higher the modulus of fibers, generally the stiffer and stronger the frame with the lightest weight.
Today's technology can make bikes even lighter than 15 lbs but this bogie is established to ward off the temptation to make bikes too light in sacrifice of strength. Bicycle technolgy is just like Formula 1 technology with almost everything carbon fiber with FEA and CAD modeled for optimum flex and strength. Weight is a big factor, especially when climbing mountains because effectively you are carrying the weight up with you. Many boomers that like the bonnie for example remember the Schwinn Continental 10 speed. Europe put Schwinn out of business by making MUCH lighter racing bikes even 30 years ago. This trend continues. A Continental back in its day weighed almost 40 lbs.