Broken spoke

[skhill]

Happy New Year!

My brother rides a Jamis Satellite, bought last summer. He broke a spoke (rear wheel) just a couple weeks after buying the bike; the shop figured it was probably a defective spoke and restrung the wheel for him for free. Yesterday, it happened again-- another broken spoke (also another call to his sister to come pick him and his bike up!).

He's a big guy, but well under the weight limit for the bike. So does anyone have any idea what's going on? Or suggestions on what to do? He's thinking about going to sturdier wheels, if his shop thinks that's the best option. Of course, they'd like to start of the new year with selling a wheelset...

[pll]

As you probably suspect, it could be a defective wheel or it could be that your brother is too heavy for the wheelset. If your brother is above 250lbs (even 200lbs), he is better served by custom wheels. There are several threads about this (see here, for example). I guess the other two possibilities is that he is particularly rough on the bike or that the bike shop is not fixing the wheel correctly.

[Becky]

It has been my experience that factory-built wheels are often not tensioned correctly, potentially leading to spokes breaking. I suggest taking both wheels back to the shop and asking them to true them again and check the overall tension.