>>From: "cmontgomery" <cmontgomery15@cox.net>
>>Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 17:07:50 -0700
>> Broke a spoke, at the head, on my TF, about 6 months after it was
>>built up. Commuted, with 20 pound loads, and I'm a load. Did a
>>saddlebagged motel tour and an overnight camptour on dirt. Seems like
>>this should not have happened on a reasonably fresh wheel like this.
>>I've got fixed hubs with tougher miles on them almost 2 decades old.
>>Something's awry. I figured maybe it was a fluke spoke. Or maybe
because
>>it was built with straight guage instead of double-butted. Then Doug,
my
>>wheel building guy, suggested it might be those thin steel flanges
>>cutting into spokes made for thicker alloy hub flanges. Now there's an
>>interesting thought. Were spokes made differently 70 years ago?
Anybody
>>else experience a spoke break like this on a Sturmey hub?
>>Craig Montgomery in Tucson-about to go test this thing on another
motel
>>tour.
I had a wheel built up using a 40 hole AW hub and 15ga spokes for my Raleigh Super Grand Prix that I converted to pseudo club bike. The wheelbuilder(owner of my LBS) decided that the thin steel flanges would be hard on the spokes so he used the brass spoke washers. Have only a few hundred miles on but no trouble. Looks like "Bike Tools etc" has them at a better price than QBP.
http://www.biketoolsetc.com/
Note: The 15ga spokes were my idea for appearance sakes. He suggested double butted due to load they would carry (me) but relented since after all there's 40 spokes I reasoned. In Craig's case the damage may be done and you'll have to rebuild with new spokes.
Pete Geurds
Douglassville, Pa