OldCoot

Do you all carry a chain whip to remove cassettes when touring? It's a heavy tool, so debating its necessary to carry along.

mev

I don't carry a chain whip. I sometimes carry spokes. I have lost drive side spokes but did a mix of limping to next bike shop or bending/threading.

I usually carry a Kevlar spoke: https://www.amazon.com/FiberFix-Emer...dp/B001GSMQZC/ I've used it exactly once as shown in photo below. This was in western parts of Argentina between Salta and Mendoza where there is some small towns but also occasional two-day gaps and not a lot in way of bicycle shops. This was with a fellow German cyclist who was on a parallel journey (we first met in Baja, then leapfrogged/cycled some days in Argentina including the night we replace his spoke). As I understood things, this emergency repair may have lasted ~900km until he got a more reasonable replacement in Mendoza.

Atlas Shrugged

I have a Unior Cassette tool (https://uniortools.com/eng/product/1...-lockring-tool) which works ok in a pinch. I also have FiberFix spoke which will get you through in a emergency as well. But my greatest find is with DT Swiss hubs you can pull the freehub off without tools. So all my touring/adventure wheels are now DT Swiss.

mdarnton

I have read of a dodge that I have not tried: buy an extra-long spoke for this job. On the spot put a 90 degree-plus bend in it where you would need it to be, then just 2mm later, where the head would be (the width of needlenose pliers tips?) put another 90 to direct it back to straight. Threading this into place can be done without removing the freewheel and apparently it does the job.

I'd be interested in hearing if anyone has actually done this...

cyccommute 

I carry a FiberFix as well but I have not had to replace a broken spoke since at least 2005. I build all my wheels with DT Swiss AlpIne III spokes. They are about 50% stronger than regular double butted spoke. They are the equivalent of adding at least 4 spokes (Ric Hjertberg says 10).

For cassette removal, I have Phil Wood FSC hubs. The whole cassette body with the cogs slides off so that I can get to the spokes if I need to. I haven’t needed to ever needed to, however, since my use of the Alpine III and the Phils kind of coincided.

If you don’t want to spend the money for Phils…and they are pricey…, Velo Orange sells a toolless hub for about $160 a hub.

garryg

i just bought a Stein mini cassette lockring driver from Velo Orange for when i am touring. It is small and light and pricey. I tried it onmy disc trucker and it worked just fine.

robow

I carry a couple of Fiber Fix spokes but to replace the standard chain whip, I carry a few feet of lightweight 1 inch black poly strap. It can be used for many things but wrapped around the cassette and your foot will allow you take a cassette off if needed.

staehpj1

There are various ways to improvise a chain whip, but I have carried and used a Unior Cassette tool with good success. Whatever tools you use it helps if you do not overtighten the cassette when you install it before the trip. I once saw a guy remove a cassette with a couple pieces of webbing. It came off no muss no fuss. He said the secret was that he only tightened them a few clicks. I'd guess you could get them off if tighter, but it would be harder. His came off really easily.

John N

Way back in the 80s, we used to file part of the spoke head that was closest to the nipple (hard to describe but I tried). This basically allowed the same thing as what you are describing but it was the correct length. It was an emergency spoke for sure and would only last a hundred miles maybe depending on the weight of the rider, gear, etc. But you did not have to carry the tools. I have never needed to do it but have seen it done a half dozen times or so.

saddlesores

when installing a cassette, i tighten 6 clicks past finger tight. that's enough to hold the cogs on securely.
i can then remove using a 6" crescent, holding the cassette by hand with a towel or roadside discarded rag to cushion.

Atlas Shrugged

Another tip I acquired over the years of touring is Lobster Brand adjustable wrenches (Hybrid adjustable angle wrench?UM - Wrench - General handtools - Products - LOBTEX CO.,LTD.) from Japan are the lightest and open the farthest for their size allowing to use the cassette tool to both tighten the cassette and tighten/remove disc brake rotors out in the field. Webbing also makes a good chain whip.

staehpj1

I remember someone in the past grinding them something like the attached photo. There wasn't much of the head left, but he said they held up okay and he sometime left them in a long time.

Btw, I am pretty sure I remember seeing a tool that was made just for putting in the bend mdarnton mentions using. It did it all in one squeeze.

Sorry, not a very good picture or a very clean job on the grind.

John N

Yep, that is what it looked like (but ours were prettier

ClydeClydeson

I have done that. It works great, but sometimes takes a bit of trial and error to get the bend exactly right and in exactly the right place. I have a spoke on my fatbike like that and completely forgot for a long while until I took the freehub off for maintenance.

Steve0000

I carry one that I made myself using a length of aluminium bar and a section of bike chain. Light to carry.
I have needed to use it on the road and the one time it didn't work was when I had to replace the wheel and the bike technician tightened the cassette locking ring too tight for me to loosen. Lesson learned and this won't happen again.

staehpj1

I thought I remembered the unior tool being hard to find a while back. If I was remembering that correctly that seems to no longer be the case. A google search for "unior cassette lockring tool" will bring up a bunch of sources. A video search for the same will show how it works. It weighs less than an once, can be found for under $10, and doesn't require any chain whips. It also doubles as a spoke wrench.

djb

(touch wood in advance)
I have only had a spoke problem once during a trip, back a long time ago in France, and was able to loosen my rear brake and ride with no problem with the untrue wheel until a bike store where they replaced the spoke and trued the wheel.

On my very first trip, I carried a chain whip and all kinds of stupidly heavy tools, so learned my lesson.

Since then, I have learned that the number one thing worth doing is to get your wheels spoke tensions and trueness checked and corrected by a reliable, know good wheel mechanic.
Getting the spokes tensioned properly and trued goes a huge way towards avoiding a broken spoke issue--as does not using too high pressures that will transmit a lot more impacts into the wheelset, and of course the easy one---using common sense and not bashing your bike into potholes, over curbs, whatever, when you have an extra touring load on it.

I now carry spare spokes on long trips, so if I need to go to a store, I have the right length spokes (got spares from a reliable shop where they can figure out the drive and non drive side length. My front spokes are the same length of one of the rear spokes, dont recall which.

I also finally bought one of those kevlar rope fixit kits, it cost around 20 or 25 shipped from the states and is very small and light, so stays in my repair kit. Havent used it yet, but read the instructions when I got it, so have a vague memory of how it works, but will follow instructions when I do need to use it one day.

but remember, get your wheelset checked out by a very reliable bike store, where they can use an expensive spoke tension meter and get things as good as they can and should be, this will go a long way to avoiding issues, along with being careful riding.
Totally worth spending the 25 or 40 bucks or whatever BEFORE a trip (not RIGHT before mind you) just from the aspect of not losing time and the hassle of dealing with broken spokes during a trip.

also, be sure that your wheelset is appropriate for your weight, your bike and load total weight etc, some people have problems simply because they are abusing a wheelset made for unloaded riding, or have way too much weight on a bike (rider and load) that the wheelset is overwhelmed and can keep having recurring broken spoke issues. A good mechanic should be able to tell you if you are being unrealistic with a given setup.
It would help if you can give these details to the mechanic and hopefully get an informed and honest answer if you let them know you are touring , and that the mechanic is not a young, new one with no experience of touring realities.

cyccommute 

This is a myth that just won’t die! Everyone seems to assume that all wheel builders except for the one that they use is incompetent. Spoke tension and the trueness of the wheel have very little to do with spoke breakage simply because most wheels have reasonably tensioned and generally true. If spoke tension were all that there was to making a study wheel for a heavy load, you could use a 16 spoke wheel for loaded touring. Obviously, that is not true. Generally, more spokes are added to decrease loading and stress on individual spokes on heavily loaded wheels for a good reason. The more spokes the wheel has, the lower the stresses on an individual spoke.

The Hjertberg article I linked to above does a very good job of explaining why stronger spokes go a long way to making a wheel more durable. No where in that article does he mention spoke tension because I’m sure he assumes that the tension has already been addressed.

Tire pressure has a different effect on spoke tension but transmitting impacts isn’t all that important. Impacts cause the spoke tension to go down at the spokes closest to the impact because the rim deflects upward momentarily. The rim slides up the spoke because it isn’t fastened to the spoke which detensions the spoke. As the spoke retensions the head can undergo stress that can cause it to eventually fail but the impact itself doesn’t transmit force through the spoke. Below is a simplified illustration of what happens.



On impact the rim slides up on the spoke and the tension decreases slightly. The fact that the rim isn’t attached to the spoke is also the reason that I argue that rim strength has little to do with wheel strength. If the spoke were attached to the rim and under compression like a wagon wheel or a car wheel, the rim strength would be important. But when it is free to move, it provides very little strength. If we use stronger spokes, we can use lighter rims.




The other effect that tire pressure has on spoke tension is that it reduces overall spoke tension by squeezing the rim all the way around. There is a limit to how much the tension decreases but it is a measurable amount of tension decrease. However, if you increase the tension to compensate, you risk cracking the rim if it is aluminum.

Generally, spoke tension should be consistent but that isn’t the problem that many people make it out to be. Stronger spokes do a whole lot more for wheel strength and durability than any other factor.

djb

hi Cycco,
You and others here who build wheels are sources whose comments and opinions I always take seriously.
I still feel that lots of people who never get their wheels checked and go eons riding them, and then put a bunch of weight on them, will still benefit from getting at least the spokes tensioned properly--that is the extent of my comment.
Ive always found your explanations interesting, about the rim moving up on impact, and how the strength of the spoke is a big factor. Unfortunately, I just don't have the experience you guys do with building wheels, Im just a regular joe blow who can sort of true a wheel, but just tend to leave doing a really good job to mechanics that do this all the time--knowing that I will probably make things worse if I get into things too much, and thats ok, Im fine with paying once in a while to get things checked out.
In general, in my household, our wheels stand up really well for years and years, but we are all lightweights and we dont have small spoke count wheels anyway.

Roughstuff

I love threads where the ability of on-the-road cyclists to improvise comes shining through. I don't carry a lot of weight anyway when touring, so a chain whip and a footlong 1 inch crescent wrench makes some eyes bug out when I use them to have a close look at my spokes and repair any problems that may arise.

Yan 

I used to carry a Stein portable cassette removal tool, but it scratches the frame paint so I stopped carrying it.

For drive side spokes I carry a fiberspoke, which will take me far enough to reach the next bike shop. Even in the most remote part of the world, you will reach a bike shop after a few thousand miles.

I build my own wheels and have never broken a spoke on a wheel I built, so all of this is just hypothetical.

Tourist in MSN

Several years ago I showed a substitute for a chain whip here:
https://www.bikeforums.net/touring/8...l#post13982584

I just got home from a tour. I carried that chain and cord that I cited above.

I also carried a Unior cassette tool with a vice grip to grip the Unior.
https://www.tradeinn.com/bikeinn/en/...ke-key/1375982

I do not tighten my cassette lock ring as tight as manufacturers cite, I can easily get it off with a 5 or 6 inch long wrench, or for my last tour a Vice Grip on the Unior.

In my case, I do not want to use the Unior tool against the frame or hanger as was intended in the design, as I fear possible damage on my titanium bike with a hanger that looks rather non-robust. Thus, the short Vice Grip.

As noted above, the Fiber Fix is a viable solution if you do not want to remove the cassette. I bought a Fiber Fix for my road bike because I bought that as a complete bike, I do not know the proper spoke length and chose to just buy the Fiber Fix instead of measuring spoke lengths.

Tandem Tom

I made one of those "travel chain whips" because of your post! But now am considering the Stein tool.

grolby

Good post. I don’t agree with this, though - rim strength is clearly very influential in the overall strength of a wheel. The existence of stiffer, more heavily built touring rims back in the day wasn’t merely an exercise in marketing. They really do help. I think this is completely consistent with your explanation of spoke fatigue, above: a stronger, stiffer rim will presumably deflect less on impact and impart less force to the spokes as a result. In the old days of course you basically had to pick: light but weak, or strong but heavy. Modern manufacturing means we can now have our cake and eat it too, at least to an extent. Of course a high spoke count with that strong rim is the best of all worlds. Still, even modern 24 and 28 hole road racing rims are amazingly strong. On sheer reliability per dollar, I’m not sure anything will ever compare to the 36 hole Rhyno Lite wheels I had on my LHT 15 years ago, but I wouldn’t hesitate now to go on the road for a week with the same wheels I ride and race road and cyclocross with.

cyccommute 

The problem is that the “stronger, stiffer” rim doesn’t have anything that makes it stronger nor stiffer. If you look at the profiles of the rims, the rims that are supposedly “stronger” don’t have any thicker material. They are usually wider or taller but they use the same wall thickness as narrower rims. No extra metal is added except that needed for the extra width or height. I’ve done calculations based on the profile and the increased volume of of wider or taller rims and all of the extra metal is accounted for by the change in dimension. A “stronger” rim to me would mean one that has more metal to provide that strength.

Additionally, if you change the metal of the rim from aluminum to steel, the steel rim is significantly stronger and stiffer than an equivalent aluminum rim. It would resist the decrease in tension far better than an aluminum rim will but even the significant increase in strength doesn’t provide any protection against spoke breakage. Spokes still break on steel wheels.

Hjertberg has another, far nerdier, article on spokes in which he posits that the increases in wheel strength are due to better metallurgy of the spokes.

The ability of low spoke count wheels to better withstand the rigors of riding has less to do with the rim than the far better spokes we have available today. I have no problem doing off-road bikepacking trips on some of the lightest, (presumably) weakest rims around…395g Mavic XC717 or 422g Velocity Aeroheats. But I pair them to DT Apline III or Pillar triple butted spokes. I went from regular spoke breakage pre-Alpine III use to no spoke breakage post Alpine III use. I haven’t changed how I build.