Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

Hey all

Hoping for a bit of advice on spoke fixing. Busted one on the ride home today on my Shimano R500 rear wheel. Wondering a few things:

• how hard are they to fix;
  what tools do you need to fix them; and
  if you have to true the wheel after is that difficult and do you need any further tools to do that

So far thanks to youtube and this forum i've been able to get my way around changing tyres, fixing brakes, changing a stem over, but this is a new one for me.

Also does anyone know how much an LBS might charge to get it done if I won't to get it done quickly.

Thanks
Andrew

You will definitely need a new spoke and a spoke key. If it's the rear wheel, you'll probably need tool to get the cassette off, viz. a cassette lockring tool, a chainwhip and a big shifter. The actual replacement - it's not especially difficult, but it can take a bit of practice.

I gather than the R500 has a lower-than-traditional spoke count and non-traditional spokes. This makes the spoke harder to obtain and more expensive. It also makes truing the wheel up a bit harder - you need to get more tension on and it's less forgiving of errors. That said, I haven't done it on this particular wheel, so I can only say that it sounds hard - maybe someone with actual experience can comment.

Bikeshops, IME, charge $20-30 to replace a spoke. It's all right for a one-off IMO...


EDIT: actually finish the last sentence

Don't know if I would do it on a low spoke count wheel. Learning to true wheels is a good skill to know though. The spoke will be cheap, a conventional spoke is only about $1. However, bike shops will charge about $30 as there is a lot of labour involved and it certainly is skilled labour.

DS

Get a spoke cut at your good local bike shop and buy a spoke tool. Its not hard to change a single spoke on a finished wheel. Soon you'll be building your own wheels. Job #1 is getting a spoke the right length though. Worst ones are drive side rear as has been stated, you need to pull the cassette off to fix those. Don't be put off by people telling you wheels are a dark art, they are quite simple really.

Not that hard, it's not really a dark art but truing a whel can sometimes require a large dose of patience to complete the task for a newbie.

Thanks all for the advice. Given I've only got one wheel set will get it fixed ASAP at the lbs and then when the next one goes have a play with it.

Warnesy wrote:Thanks all for the advice. Given I've only got one wheel set will get it fixed ASAP at the lbs and then when the next one goes have a play with it.

I started that way too, until one week I busted 3 spokes on almost consecutive days and spent $30 each time getting it fixed!
With an R500 wheel set you can pick up a new set for not much more than 4 busted spokes worth of lbs fixing.
I finally gave wheel building a try and found it was nowhere near as difficult as I had assumed.

queequeg wrote:

Warnesy wrote:Thanks all for the advice. Given I've only got one wheel set will get it fixed ASAP at the lbs and then when the next one goes have a play with it.

I started that way too, until one week I busted 3 spokes on almost consecutive days and spent $30 each time getting it fixed!
With an R500 wheel set you can pick up a new set for not much more than 4 busted spokes worth of lbs fixing.
I finally gave wheel building a try and found it was nowhere near as difficult as I had assumed.

You probably just needed to back off the tension on the R500's and re-build them.

high_tea wrote:You will definitely need a new spoke and a spoke key. If it's the rear wheel, you'll probably need tool to get the cassette off, viz. a cassette lockring tool, a chainwhip and a big shifter. The actual replacement - it's not especially difficult, but it can take a bit of practice.

Can I assume the tools you need to get a cassette off are the same you'll need to get a cassette on

Warnesy wrote:

high_tea wrote:You will definitely need a new spoke and a spoke key. If it's the rear wheel, you'll probably need tool to get the cassette off, viz. a cassette lockring tool, a chainwhip and a big shifter. The actual replacement - it's not especially difficult, but it can take a bit of practice.

Can I assume the tools you need to get a cassette off are the same you'll need to get a cassette on

To get it on you only require a lockring tool (and ideally a torque wrench).

To get it off, you require the chain whip and lockring tool + big shifter.

They are pretty much essential DIY tools.

Too easy, thanks

Yeah, I started replacing my own spokes when I was breaking one a week. Great learning curve.

DS