What are the BEST spokes?

Unicycles and Equipment
1

for strength per weight? I would mostly be riding trials.

Thanks

Daniel

2

Hi,

I spoked with a guy i shared a spot with that had titanium spokes on his bmx. But he broke one during the session.
It should be as strong as steel spokes and a bit lighter.

I read on Sheldon Brown’s page that some spokes don’t have a uniform thickness : more narrow where the stress is less of a problem (spokes don’t often break right in their middle). This kind of structure allows an optimisation of the strenght/weight ratio. Yoggi told me he uses spokes of this type on his XTP.

Manuel

3

You mean double butted spokes - thinner in the middle, to be light, but thicka t the ends, which is where spokes normally break, as the bends etc cause stress points.

Don’t know if they exist for 19" rims though. Either way, a decent wheel build will make more difference to strength than slightly different spokes.

4

Re: What are the BEST spokes?

johnhimsworth wrote:
> You mean double butted spokes - thinner in the middle, to be light, but
> thicka t the ends, which is where spokes normally break, as the bends
> etc cause stress points.
>
> Don’t know if they exist for 19" rims though. Either way, a decent
> wheel build will make more difference to strength than slightly
> different spokes.

Butted spokes aren’t just light, they also build more reliable wheels,
due to the stretchiness of the thin section…think the willow tree,
not the oak.

Butted spokes are less likely to cause cracked rims or hub flange
failure. The stretchiness helps to distribut stresses among multiple
spokes, rather than concentrating it on one or two.

Sheldon “Double Bubble” Brown
±--------------------------------------------------+
| As far as I know, none of my immigrant ancestors |
| arrived with a passport, visa nor work permit. |
±--------------------------------------------------+
Harris Cyclery, West Newton, Massachusetts
Phone 617-244-9772 FAX 617-244-1041
http://harriscyclery.com
Hard-to-find parts shipped Worldwide
http://captainbike.com http://sheldonbrown.com

5

Re: What are the BEST spokes?

“Captain Bike” <CaptBike@sheldonbrown.com> writes:

> Butted spokes aren’t just light, they also build more reliable wheels,
> due to the stretchiness of the thin section…think the willow tree,
> not the oak.

Ding! Ding! Ding! You beat me to it. Thanks for posting, Sheldon.
It is always great to see advice from the master.

I hope you don’t mind my adding some detail…

Spokes need to be thick at the flange, where they are prone to break,
but stretchy enough to absorb shocks, reducing forces throughout the
wheel. Double (or even tripple) butted spokes have both properties.

Thicker spokes do not necessarily make for stronger wheel, since those
wheels have to deal with higher forces.

A quality wheelbuild helps, too. Undertensioned spokes will flex at
the hub flange, causing fatigue and, eventually, failure. They can
also cause the nipples to spin, allowing the wheel to go out of true
(unless some sort of thread lock was applied).

Hey, I have a question for you: Why do spokes loosen “by themselves”?

I noticed that several wheels of mine which had not been ridden only
occasionally for about 10 years seemed to spontaneously develop loose
spokes. They were still true, but loose enough to click when in use.
I had built, or at least trued, the wheels myself and am sure they
were good and tight at one time.

Ken

6

The entire structure is under tension, and even when not being used, is dealing with vibration and heating/cooling cycles. The spoke tension provides the spoke with an unscrewing force; whenever the magnitude of that force overcomes the friction of the spoke/nipple/spoke hole interface, the spoke will unscrew.

7

Its for this exact reason that after i tensioned my trials wheel beyond belief(its gonna snap…i can feel it) but i put loctite on the nipples. theyve never come loose on their own…and my wheel has never come out of true.

I use primo spokes…theyre not great but theyve held up awsome so far.

8

Re: What are the BEST spokes?

tholub <tholub@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> writes:

> The entire structure is under tension, and even when not being used, is
> dealing with vibration and heating/cooling cycles. The spoke tension
> provides the spoke with an unscrewing force; whenever the magnitude of
> that force overcomes the friction of the spoke/nipple/spoke hole
> interface, the spoke will unscrew.

I don’t think this is the mechanism - if it were, the spokes would
detension unevenly and the wheel would go out of true.

My guess is the the aluminum rims are slowly creeping inward under
tension from the spokes.

Also threadlock is not something I have seen recommended by
wheelbuilding gurus. Oil or light grease is recommended by Captain
Bike [www.sheldonbrown.com/wheelbuild.html, I think - the page is
offline at the moment]. Jobst Brandt, in his book The Bicycle
Wheel, suggested the use of threadlocking compounds was little more
than cult worship that began when a big name wheelbuilder used the
stuff to keep second-rate machine-built wheels from quickly going out
of true.

9

I have had some luck using spokes which i believe were made for Tandems. They are 13g where they seat into the flanges, so they sit in there really nice and tightly, and then they taper to a 14g for the rest of the spoke.
I think they’re made by Sapim. I cut them from blanks using a “Phil Wood” spoke cutting/threading machine. I also used brass nipples.

One thing to note that i do to all my wheels that i build, is that i “seat” the spoke heads into the flanges using a nail-punch (a screw driver will work). So after the intial build and tension, I go through, and hit all the heads, pretty hard, at least twice, to make sure that they’re seated, then i re-true and re-tension the wheel. This makes it so that the wheel won’t have to have the spoke heads seat themselves onto the flanges, and then you generally don’t have to go back and re-tension the wheel after a few rides.

Another thing to mention, is try to get all the spokes at equal tension (which should be quite high!!) using a tensionometer (sp??). I am amazed at how low of spoke tension unicyclists use, especially trials, and street riders.

Anyways, i hope that helps, and please, correct me if any of my thinking is wrong!

-Ryan Atkins

10

I have had no luck in finding the spokes mentioned here, they are always for 240mm+, and my spokes are 170mm.

I have found some high quality nipples, at
http://www.dtswiss.com/index.asp?fuseaction=nipples.bikedetail&id=5

Does anybody know of any high end spokes that will fit 172.13mm?

Thanks for all your help and input,
Daniel

11

I have been told the opposite, and that you would want a higher tension in a road or xc wheel than a trials style wheel. On impact, a lower tensioned wheel will flex a little instead of getting jarred.

I’m not sure if that is completely true though, it seems that high tension would be more resistant to flatspotting, that and nipples wouldn’t loosen up as easily. but 19" hoops pretty much hold themselves together anyway.

12

Re: What are the BEST spokes?

m_extreme_uni <m_extreme_uni@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> writes:

> after the intial build and tension, I go through, and hit all the
> [nipple] heads, pretty hard, at least twice, to make sure that
> they’re seated

Doesn’t normal “stress-relieving” accomplish this (and more)? Do you
worry if this adds fatigue from the impact to the rim?

> Another thing to mention, is try to get all the spokes at equal tension
> (which should be quite high!!) using a tensionometer (sp??). I am
> amazed at how low of spoke tension unicyclists use, especially trials,
> and street riders.

I find it much easier to get even tension by ear. The tensiometer is
still useful for making sure the tension is where you want it.

13

aney spokes if there laced like this

14

Re: What are the BEST spokes?

onetrack <onetrack@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> writes:

> I have been told the opposite, and that you would want a higher tension
> in a road or xc wheel than a trials style wheel. On impact, a lower
> tensioned wheel will flex a little instead of getting jarred.

If you lower their tension, the spokes will flex more at the hub and
eventually break due to fatigue. I don’t know much specifically about
trials wheels, but it seems this problem will only be increased during
abuse from trials.

15

The last thing you want your wheel to do on impact is flex. You want your tension as high as possible so the wheel maintains its strength; if it gets to the point where the wheel itself is flexing noticably (considering how much the tire flexes on its own), the wheel is near failure.

16

Re: What are the BEST spokes?

On Sat, 16 Sep, tholub <> wrote:
>
> onetrack wrote:
> > I have been told the opposite, and that you would want a higher tension
> > in a road or xc wheel than a trials style wheel. On impact, a lower
> > tensioned wheel will flex a little instead of getting jarred.
>
> The last thing you want your wheel to do on impact is flex. You want
> your tension as high as possible so the wheel maintains its strength;
> if it gets to the point where the wheel itself is flexing noticably
> (considering how much the tire flexes on its own), the wheel is near
> failure.

Absolutely - you want high tension in all spokes, basically so that no
spoke ever goes slack. Using double-butted spokes helps this, because
you get more elongation in teh spoke as a whole withgout overstressing
thread or elbow.

I can’t see any reason why you’d want a weaker wheel for one style
anyway - you don’t get differrent flexibility until a spoke goes
slack, if a spoke goes slack you’re on teh point of wheel failure, so
regardless of style, you want as strong a wheel as possible (given teh
components used) - and that’s what you get with high spoke tensions.

regards, Ian SMith

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17

Re: What are the BEST spokes?

On Fri, 15 Sep 2006 22:03:05 -0600, cline <ken.cline@cs.cmu.edu> wrote:
> m_extreme_uni <m_extreme_uni@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> writes:
>
> > after the intial build and tension, I go through, and hit all the
> > [nipple] heads, pretty hard, at least twice, to make sure that
> > they’re seated
>
> Doesn’t normal “stress-relieving” accomplish this (and more)?

I think so. I wouldn’t favour nipple-bashing as a technique. If you
thoroughly stress-relieve a wheel shouldn’t go out of true (I have
bike wheels that have had five or more years daily use and never trued
since built).

> Do you worry if this adds fatigue from the impact to the rim?

I wouldn’t, because it’s only 72 impacts, it doesn’t alter teh stress
range seen under service, and if you’re so close to the fatigue limit
that’s significant, you’re already within teh scatter of likely
imminent failure.

It still seems like something fairly nasty to do to a wheel though.

> I find it much easier to get even tension by ear. The tensiometer is
> still useful for making sure the tension is where you want it.

I’ve never used a tensiometer. I can’t imagine it easier than doing a
build by ear/feel.

regards, Ian SMith

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18

maybe i should specify…
I don’t hit the nipples with this punch… I hit the small little branded piece on the extreme end of the spoke (non-threaded end) and I do this, simply to speed up the process of the having the spokes make little indents into the aluminum after some riding around. This has never broken a spoke, and It seems to need less maintenance after the intial build. I still stress the wheel during the build by sitting on it, and hopping my weight up and down, and squeezing the spokes together by hand, and i re-tension and re-true after each of these processes.

I agree that spoke tension is nice to “feel” and i rarely build using a tensionometer, however if you want a really strong wheel, then you should get a better wheel using a tensionometer (assuming a high quality hub, rim and spokes)

Hopefully this makes more sense than my initial post.

-Ryan Atkins

19

Re: What are the BEST spokes?

On Sat, 16 Sep 2006, m_extreme_uni <> wrote:
>
> maybe i should specify…
> I don’t hit the nipples with this punch… I hit the small little
> branded piece on the extreme end of the spoke (non-threaded end)

OK, that’s not what I thought you meant. I still don’t like it - the
spoke head and elbow should seat if you stress-relieve properly, and
your description of stress-relieving seems fine. However, each to
their own.

> I agree that spoke tension is nice to “feel” and i rarely build using a
> tensionometer, however if you want a really strong wheel, then you
> should get a better wheel using a tensionometer (assuming a high
> quality hub, rim and spokes)

I disagree - you don’t know what figure (numeric value of tension) the
spokes should have for maximum strength with a particular rim and set
of spokes, so a tensiometer doesn’t get you closer to some limit.
It’s feel that lets you get to the limit. I can’t see any mechanism
by which knowing the numeric value of tension in each spoke makes a
better wheel.

regards, Ian SMith

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20

Re: What are the BEST spokes?

m_extreme_uni <m_extreme_uni@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com> writes:

> maybe i should specify…
> I don’t hit the nipples with this punch… I hit the small little
> branded piece on the extreme end of the spoke (non-threaded end) and I
> do this, simply to speed up the process of the having the spokes make
> little indents into the aluminum after some riding around.

Is there any evidence that this is a real issue in a stress-relieved
wheel? Well-built wheels don’t need to have their spoke re-trued
after “break-in”, making me wonder about the usefulness of your
technique.

Ken