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Bent spoke

Sibreen

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Jul 23, 2010
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I was hoping I could draw on the collective wisdom of the forum:

I had a little accident a couple of days ago when some shopping I was carrying got jammed between the spokes of my front wheel. This caused me to nearly go over the handlebars but, shock aside, I was fine. One of the spokes on my front wheel, however, is now slightly bent and has a lot less tension than the rest of the spokes. There is also a small, but noticeable, wobble when my front wheel rotates.

My question is:
is it safe to ride on this front wheel as it is?
The wheel is a Shimano WH-R500 - an entry level, 24 spoke clincher.

Incidentally, I asked at various bike shops how much to replace the spoke and true the wheel, and I was quoted from 'about 2500yen' (but I'd have to buy new rim tape myself) to 'at least 4000yen'. If I include train travel etc, then it comes to about 4000yen minimum. Since the wheel only costs 5000yen brand new, I'm thinking I'll either continue riding this wheel as it is, or buy another new one (I can probably sell the old one on auction for 1000yen or so).

Any help is much appreciated.
 
2500 to replace a bad spoke is expensive. not sure on your wheels but the spoke is probably 100 yen to 300 yen. Suggest you go for another bike shop.

would not suggest riding with broken spoke - will cause damage to wheel. if you have a spoke wrench (or small cresent wrench), I would bend the spoke back a bit and try to true the wheel myself (remember that the nipples turn counter clockwise to tighten) until I can get it properly fixed
 
Spokes -N- Forks

I was hoping I could draw on the collective wisdom of the forum:
I had a little accident a couple of days ago when some shopping I was carrying got jammed between the spokes of my front wheel. This caused me to nearly go over the handlebars but, shock aside, I was fine.
Any help is much appreciated.

I had a similar accident a few months back. It was cloth trash day, so I had a fair sized bag of soft cloth in my left hand as I embarked the bike and started down hill intending to toss the bag into the community trash collection point about 50 metres away. The bag got caught between the fork and spokes bringing the bike to an abrupt forward motion halt, the momentum being transformed to rotation of bike in a 180 degrees flip. It happend so suddenly I was still seated with my back to the road, bike on top of me!

Fortunately, the only witness was a rather startled neighbor hood cat.
 
If you buy the spoke and nipple, I will install and true it to the best of my ability in exchange for 2 cans of YonaYona Ale. :beer1: Need to travel to Setagaya.

Of course I would not attempt this until after consuming the beer. ;)
 
Thanks for the replies.

Nalsima Friend in Yoyogi quoted me 2500yen, Ys Road in Ikebukuro quoted me 4000yen. The friendly chap in Ys also suggested that if it's only a 5000yen wheel, I might as well buy another one.

So, I bought a spoke wrench and tightened up the loose, bent spoke (took a fair few turns, worryingly), and I'm gonna see how it goes.

@Doug3
if that's a serious offer and you have experience with wheel building/trueing, then Ill definitely get you those beers!
 
Hmmmm

Usually a spoke will not unwind, rather, something may have broken possibly on the inside.... Take the wheel off the bike and shake it, if you hear something inside of there take off the rim strip by sticking a flathead screwdriver in where the valve stem from the tube enters the rim after you remove yout tire/tube. Place the screwdriver between the rim and the rimstrip horizontally and wedge it in about 1 inch and gently peel it of to the side and you should be able to reuse it. this is for a plastic type of rimstrip, for the cloth type just unroll it and reuse it no problem. If you need to use electrical tape two times around the wheel covering the holes and you will be fine. Good luck!
 
I've taken the wheel off the bike, shaken, but no noise.
It seems like nothing has snapped or broken, simply bent and loosened..

By plucking the spokes as if the wheel were a harp, it is possible to tell which spokes are tighter and which looser (does anybody else do this?). I'm tightening this spoke up to the same tautness as the loosest of the non-affected spokes.
Ok, time to put the tire back on and see how she goes!

Just out of curiosity, if one spoke fails completely on a 24 spoke wheel, am I correct in assuming I won't die? :angel:
 
No

You wont die!
Look between where the brake pad touches the rim and spin the wheel. When the rim is close to the pad tighten the spoke that pulls it in the direction you want it to go. Even tension is nice, but dont go tightening things unless need be. The idea is the wheel should be perfectly centered in between your fork. Your brake should be evenly centered as well but for me to teach you that I need to know your what style and brand of brakes you habe. I think your best bet is to take Bromie up on his offer for beer and I bet he could teach you to fish;)
 
Thanks for your help, proracemechanic!
The wobble is a lot less pronounced now (though there is still a wobble).

Should be fine for riding to Setagaya at least!
 
2500 Yen is not just to replace the spoke but to completely retrue and tension the wheel. Its a good price but as you said its only a 5,000 JPY wheel.
 
I used to have lots of problems with broken spokes.

These days I have my training wheels strengthened by having the spokes bound together with wire at the point where they cross. It makes the wheels a little hard but broken spokes are much rarer these days....

The rims are ceramic too. A weight weenie I aint!

Andy

www.jyonnobitime.com/time
 
I used to have lots of problems with broken spokes.

These days I have my training wheels strengthened by having the spokes bound together with wire at the point where they cross.
...

That takes me back to the mid-70s! I had a Peugeot PY10, high flange hubs that came stock with tied spokes. (simplex/stronglight, full 531, french thread, etc) Bought in Paris in '76, thought I was going to Spain on it, ended up over near Angers with some serious hand numbness. Trained it back to Paris, then back to Seoul (former Peace Corps, and I had escorted some adoptees to Europe), then later to the US and a uni stint (Champaign-Urbana). Nobody there knew what clinchers were, I had to mail order them.
 
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