Swapping spokes

26/07/25 22:51 Filed in: Gear

Four years ago I bought a new single speed bike - the Spot Rocker SS - from the company that is accredited with getting Gates into the bike business with their belt drive (for reference, see all the hype for this year's World Cup DH racing with 4 teams gunning for the big prize to be the first to win one with a belt). Spot designed the Rocker to be both SS and gear friendly. There are adjustable length dropouts for the frame to allow belt tension adjustment (much tidier than a creaking eccentric bottom bracket). The drive side dropout bolts to the seat and chain stays separately, making room for the belt to be installed into the rear triangle.
When I ordered the bike the stock wheel option was a Stan's wheel with a relatively skinny rim (25 mm from memory) in either aluminium or carbon rim options. Spot put ENVE wheels on their bigger travel bikes, and I opted to upgrade to an ENVE M630 to get carbon rims and wide rims in the same wheel (as the name implies, 30 mm wide). ENVE doesn't drill their spoke holes, makes all their rims in Utah, hand builds each wheel - all the little details that should make these wheels the envy of the industry. And the price was good.

And they've been basically good wheels. The CushCore has the tell-tale marks of firm impacts where the foam is damaged between the rock and the rim sidewall - the best way to break a carbon rim (or ding an alloy one). No marks on the rim at all. My biggest complaint would be that the ENVE stickers are a little delicate and missing in places where rocks have impacted the rim wall on the trail. Biggest complaint aside from my actual complaint - which is that the rear wheel regularly breaks spokes. And always the same mode: non-drive side spoke, where it enters the nipple, when I'm pushing on the pedals to complete a technical move. Each breakage requires removing the tyre and foam insert and the rim tape to access the hidden spoke nipples. I've always had to buy a new nipple as well as the spoke because there is a piece of spoke in the nipple rattling around inside the rim cavity - you can fish them out with a little effort once the rim tape is off, but getting the spoke out of the nipple is usually impossible. I hate taping rims for tubeless. I've tried many methods and different brands of rim tape and still find I'm hit-or-miss with getting a good seal on the rim floor.
With the most recent spoke breakage I decided to rebuild the rear wheel and see if I can avoid the breakage problem permanently. After some looking at what's available, I chose Pillar Wing spokes. The Wing is about the same mass as the Sapim CX-Ray spoke that was in the wheels already, but with a lower cost and a higher strength rating. They have a slightly oversized elbow to reduce movement in the hub flange, and a non-traditional wing shape to the bladed section to improve the aerodynamics (not a consideration at all on a MTB wheel). I'm hoping that a new set of spokes, carefully stress relieved, will not break. But in the rebuilding I noticed that the spokes are not as tight as I'd like them to be (tighter = longer life right up until they start snapping or the rim tacos) and there are only 28 of them (all my other carbon MTB rims have 32 spokes). Either or both of these might contribute to the breakage. I carefully preserved the ENVE spoke tension because I don't want to pull the rim apart.

Only miles on the wheel will tell me if I fixed it. Here's hoping.

Michael Hanslip Coaching

If you want to go faster, you have to pedal harder

Swapping spokes