Heavy rider: Back wheel out of true and broken spokes

[vernon]

Well I dropped the bike off yesterday evening at EBC and when I picked it up this evening I had two new wheels. Shimano R500s, we'll see how I get on with these, hopefully no more broken spokes.

Yay!

FWIW I used to break spokes on one or two wheels when I weight in at 150+kg the problem was cured by having the wheels replaced with Sapim spokes.

All of my bikes now have hand built 36h wheels and I've only popped one spoke in the past five years. I'm now a svelte 130kg so that might have some bearing on the reduced breakage rate though I think that it's more likely to be the wheel builder's skills and knowledge that has resulted bulletproof wheels.

I'd never countenance a sub-36h spoke count in the rear wheel until I shed another 30kg.

 

[Crankarm]

Yay!

FWIW I used to break spokes on one or two wheels when I weight in at 150+kg the problem was cured by having the wheels replaced with Sapim spokes.

All of my bikes now have hand built 36h wheels and I've only popped one spoke in the past five years. I'm now a svelte 130kg so that might have some bearing on the reduced breakage rate though I think that it's more likely to be the wheel builder's skills and knowledge that has resulted bulletproof wheels.

I'd never countenance a sub-36h spoke count in the rear wheel until I shed another 30kg.

OMG!

150kg that's ....... two people on one bike. Blimey. No wonder spokes kept popping.

Even at 130kg that's 60kg more than I weigh.

So if you carry any luggage, panniers, then your bike must be put under considerable strain.

I think you would need 40h wheels which are used for tandems to be truly strong enough for you.

 

[vernon]

OMG!

150kg that's ....... two people on one bike. Blimey. No wonder spokes kept popping.

Even at 130kg that's 60kg more than I weigh.

So if you carry any luggage, panniers, then your bike must be put under considerable strain.

I think you would need 40h wheels which are used for tandems to be truly strong enough for you.

Well built wheels with 1" diameter spokes serve me very well.

At one time I'd contemplated commissioning a tandem rear wheel then common sense and my local bike shop took over.

They assured me that they could build 36h wheels using Sapim spokes and Mavic expedition rims would do the job.

They weren't wrong. I have three bikes with Woodrup hand built wheels and have only had one popped spoke on one rear wheel and no need for re-truing on the remainder. Bikes are far more robust than their appearance would have you believe. My Trevor Jarvis Flying Gate, Dave Yates' Randonneur and Woodrup Chimera bear testimony to the art of over engineered solutions presenting themselves as light weight products.

This year my luggage was effectively weightless as my weight loss this year exceeded the weight of the luggage by a comfortable margin.

Broken spokes, from my experience, tend to be from poorly and/or machine built wheels.

 

[gb155]

OMG!

150kg that's ....... two people on one bike. Blimey. No wonder spokes kept popping.

Even at 130kg that's 60kg more than I weigh.

So if you carry any luggage, panniers, then your bike must be put under considerable strain.

I think you would need 40h wheels which are used for tandems to be truly strong enough for you.

I never needed 40h's

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[Crankarm]

I never needed 40h's

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But you lost a lot of weight.

 

[gb155]

But you lost a lot of weight.

I'm talking before I'd lost the weight

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[asterix]

I'd never have wheels with fewer than 36 spokes. In my sort of cycling a broken spoke far outweighs an unbroken spoke.