Spokey Dokey, then…

I can only name three spoke manufacturers: DT Swiss, Sapim and Alpina (often erroneously called ACI). Sapim are nearly impossible to find and Alpina are so cheap that I fear they may fall foul of Roger Musson’s sermon on spoke quality, so by default that just leaves me with DT Swiss! That’s no bad thing, I’ve had loads of wheels built with DT spokes and never had a single problem.

Without going into exotic options there's effectively a choice of three types of spokes: plain gauge 2mm, double butted 2/1.8/2mm and lightweight double butted 2/1.5/2mm, which correspond directly to DT's Champion, Competition and Revolution lines respectively (Sapim make similar distinctions between their lines, but I’m not familiar with the names). The double butting removes material from the centre of the spoke where it's not required, creating a lighter and marginally more flexible spoke, but one that is equally as strong as it's plain gauge relative and also more resistant to fatigue when correctly built into a wheel. The claims of some people that plain gauge spokes build a stronger wheel are plain wrong - they build a cheaper, heavier wheel that's more likely to experience spoke failure at the spoke elbows, and that's it. Others will claim that double butted spokes build a stronger wheel, which is equally fatuous. Since when did removing material from a component make it stronger? This sort of nonsense is usually enunciated by lay people unable to make the distinction between ultimate strength and lifespan (defined by the likelihood of fatigue failure).

But it’s not always good intentioned amateurs who make such mistakes. The myth that black spokes are somehow more prone to breaking was for years pedalled by www.stif.co.uk (amongst many others who should also have known better). Stif have won awards for the perceived quality of their discount wheel builds, quite incredibly given their proud, and 100% bonkers, boast that they only use silver spokes because they’ve “seen too many broken black spokes to be able to have any confidence in them”. What utter rot! Cheap spokes break, fact. Black spokes cost more to make, fact. Therefore it’s reasonable to suppose that cheap black spokes will have had proportionally less spent on their manufacture than silver ones, are therefore poorer quality and will consequently break more often. I’m convinced that this is the source of the black spoke myth. Quality spokes, black or silver, will always perform equally well; you’ll just pay a little bit extra for dusky ones. So for all these years, have Stif been subtly implying that they build their wheels using cheap spokes of dubious quality?

Lastly we come to the nipples! Small as they are, they hold the whole wheel together and so they are vital: not something to prat about with in some half-arsed attempt to save weight. They are usually made from brass or aluminium, and can come in a rainbow of colours. Brass is most suitable because it doesn’t corrode and screw threads cut into it are very smooth and easy to turn. Aluminium nipples are lighter but much softer and easy to damage with a spoke wrench, and are prone to corrosion. Different colours are available, but the nipple is the only part of a wheel which engages with a tool during the whole wheel building process, so coloured coatings are easily damaged and then look untidy. Lastly there are self-locking nipples, such as DT Swiss ProLock, which contain a thread-locking adhesive to prevent the nipples unscrewing during use, though quite why this would happen if the wheel were built properly to begin with I have no idea. Standard silver brass nipples are by far the best option!

As said before, I object to paying what are clearly rip-off prices for spokes in the UK, but on the face of it there doesn’t seem to be much choice in the matter. The cheapest UK retailers of DT’s Competition spokes are Bike Dock (at 35p per silver spoke & nipple) and Chain Reaction (at 56p per black spoke & nipple). Alternatively www.parker-international.co.uk sell Alpina spokes for the equivalent of 30p or 50p each respectively for silver or black. Buying from abroad is an option, but one would think that international P&P plus credit card charges are likely to negate any advantage found there.

Not so, as it turns out! www.rose.de, a German on-line merchant, are so much cheaper that even after a €12 P&P charge and Barclaycard’s pound of flesh I will still save stacks over the cheapest UK retailer. They sell in packs of 20, and for the quantity that I’m buying this works out at a net price per spoke of 24p or 36p respectively for silver or black DT Comps! So I’m going to buy 80 DT Swiss Competition spokes in silver and the same again in black (sizes to be confirmed), plus 160 standard brass nipples for a total consideration of €68.80 (about £40 in real money). By buying enough to build four wheels with plenty of spares I will dilute the P&P, but they’re still the cheapest option even if you buy enough to build just one pair, such is the extent to which the UK retailers are ripping us off!! It feels good to have stiffed the thieving gits.