A customer brought in the rear wheel of a Shamal Ultra for repair.

A spoke had suddenly broken.


These are Campagnolo/Fulcrum aluminum spokes, but
they don't just snap from fatigue like that.
I've only ever seen a "textbook" spoke failure once myself.
Every other time there's always been an external cause—
a crash, getting hit, or the derailleur or a shopping bag getting caught in it.


Looking at the fracture surface,
the discolored area shows where the crack was progressing right before failure,
and the clean part is where it snapped all at once.
With this type of spoke failure, I often hear it happens not while riding but when
taking off from a stop—at the moment you push down on the pedals (which is what happened this time too).
Maybe it's that moment when the spoke experiences a sudden load.



All fixed.


↑ Replaced spoke