A customer brought in the rear wheel of a WH-RS010 for repair.
A spoke on the freewheel side is broken.
This rear wheel is the cheapest Shimano wheel with an 11-speed freewheel body specification,
and since it's also sold individually as just a rear wheel,
it's popular as a wheel for stationary trainer use.
This one is currently being used that way, but,
Based on the damage marks from chain drops on the hub flange and spokes toward the cassette side,
it looks like it was used for actual riding at some point, and
the particularly gouged-out spoke snapped during trainer practice.
I repaired it with a Sapim Leader 14-gauge plain spoke,
and by adjusting just the nipple of the broken spoke I was able to dial in most of the lateral runout
(the wheel in the image above is spinning)
The fact that there was this much lateral drift
means the wheel had an original center offset.
And not in the direction it would drift from age-related use.
Fixed.
Since it will only be used on the trainer from now on,
I didn't replace the remaining 5 spokes on the cassette side that have damage marks.
With Shimano wheels like the WH-R501 and this one,
the spokes appear to be standard size, but
they're specially designed with spoke neck dimensions matched to the flange thickness,
so they're different from universal spokes.
However, DT Champion and Sapim Leader spokes are clearly less prone to breaking,
and in my experience, replaced spokes don't tend to break again right away.
(The original spoke has a history of holding up while others broke,
and aside from that, being used rather than new puts it at a disadvantage fatigue-wise,
even accounting for that)
So I've decided it's better to repair with better universal spokes from Sapim or DT,
which is what I'm doing.
A spoke on the freewheel side is broken.
This rear wheel is the cheapest Shimano wheel with an 11-speed freewheel body specification,
and since it's also sold individually as just a rear wheel,
it's popular as a wheel for stationary trainer use.
This one is currently being used that way, but,
Based on the damage marks from chain drops on the hub flange and spokes toward the cassette side,
it looks like it was used for actual riding at some point, and
the particularly gouged-out spoke snapped during trainer practice.
I repaired it with a Sapim Leader 14-gauge plain spoke,
and by adjusting just the nipple of the broken spoke I was able to dial in most of the lateral runout
(the wheel in the image above is spinning)
The fact that there was this much lateral drift
means the wheel had an original center offset.
And not in the direction it would drift from age-related use.
Fixed.
Since it will only be used on the trainer from now on,
I didn't replace the remaining 5 spokes on the cassette side that have damage marks.
With Shimano wheels like the WH-R501 and this one,
the spokes appear to be standard size, but
they're specially designed with spoke neck dimensions matched to the flange thickness,
so they're different from universal spokes.
However, DT Champion and Sapim Leader spokes are clearly less prone to breaking,
and in my experience, replaced spokes don't tend to break again right away.
(The original spoke has a history of holding up while others broke,
and aside from that, being used rather than new puts it at a disadvantage fatigue-wise,
even accounting for that)
So I've decided it's better to repair with better universal spokes from Sapim or DT,
which is what I'm doing.