Another Broken Spoke Repair

Repairing another broken spoke on the cross bike and setting up a new Schwalbe Marathon Mondial tire tubeless.

This was filmed in Sept. 2020. Had planned on running the existing tires until the winter rains started here in Nov/Dec. But with needing to remove the tire to repair the spoke, it was just not worth the effort and sealant to re-install the tire for a few months, so I decided to put the new rear tire on now.

Since I had run the tire that's now on the front for about 4 years on the rear of the bike, it had worn down until almost no tread remained. Since I had just topped up the sealant in August, I decided to run the front tire until the sealant was out before swapping it out.

This will slightly change my tire management plan. I still plan on running the tires for 3 years on one end of the bike. After that time, I'll just swap the front and rear tires and run that way for another 3 years and then finally replace both tires with new ones.

I've used these tires for about 8-1/2 years now and have a good idea how long they last, both in terms of tread wear and of rubber aging due to time and environmental conditions. For example, I find that ~4 years on the rear of the bike will pretty much wear out the tread. However, the tread on the front tire hardly wears at all in that same time. After ~7 years, the rubber starts to show surface cracks then deepen and cause sealant leaks. So the plan is to run a given tire 3 years on the rear of the bike and then replace the tires after 6 years. This should maximize the tread wear and ensure tires are replaced before they start leaking.

I still really like these tires and I do plan on sticking with them. I find these tires are good for my type of riding. On a typical ride, about 75% of the distance is on pavement. The rest of the ride will be on gravel, dirt or rocky MTB single track. These tires ride decently on pavement, they have decent traction off the pavement and are very durable. Knock on wood, but so far have only had one flat in nearly 12K miles.

Glad I had a collection of spokes and nipples salvaged off old wheels that I've ridden over the years. Just dug though those parts and found all I needed to make the repair. If I run into any more breakage on these wheels, I think I'll pick up a new set of spokes and nipples and re-lace the wheels. I've done that on almost all my previous bikes and never had a problem with broken spokes when I lace up the wheels myself.

Stans ArchEX wheels for the tubeless conversion. Outside width is 24.5mm, inside is 21mm. Tires are 700x40C Schwalbe Marathon Mondial folding bead, 40.3mm actual width mounted on these rims. Yes, these are not tubeless ready tires but they work fantastic tubeless. They are a totally different tire than with an inner tube.