A customer dropped off the rear wheel from a Ksyrium SLS for me.
One spoke on the non-freewheel side is missing.
As far as I know, there's never been a case of a dural aluminum spoke breaking at the hub end,
and in this case too, the spoke fractured at the inner edge of the nipple end,
and the customer removed the nipple that had the broken spoke jammed in it.
This is apparently a borrowed wheel from a friend,
and the spoke broke over a year ago,
but at the local Mavic-handling shop they said
they couldn't fix it because the spoke was out of manufacturer stock.
I don't know if that's actually true,
but regardless of performance, when it comes to spare spoke supply for Mavic wheels,
in my opinion, there are problems with the manufacturer, distributors, and retailers (shops) alike.
First, the manufacturer's problem: even with steel spokes,
from the budget Aksium onwards, they use special spokes that can't be repaired with standard parts.
Depending on the model, there are special butted spokes where about 2mm below the head is size 13,
and in that case the hub-side slot only matches size 13 spokes.
Since the manufacturer's ownership changed,
they've completely discontinued the Ksyrium line of dural aluminum spokes
and the R-SYS line of round carbon Tracomp spokes,
but naturally there are no replacement spokes for these.
Also, even for discontinued models, they claim
to guarantee spare parts manufacturing for five years,
and depending on inventory status, they might even handle it beyond that—
but I've heard of many cases where parts couldn't be obtained within five years of discontinuation.
Next, the distributor problem: I don't have dealings with them so I don't know for sure,
but they very frequently don't stock spokes at all.
There was a case where a current-model disc-brake Cosmic had a broken spoke,
and it turned out to be the below-head size 13 spec I mentioned earlier,
so our shop couldn't even do a temporary fix.
I told the customer that if they could just source the spoke itself, we could do the replacement work.
I was able to look up just the spare parts number and told the customer,
and eight months later, I was thinking maybe they'd had it repaired somewhere else,
but they came in with the still-unrepaired Cosmic and the spare spoke they'd obtained.
When I asked when they got the spare spoke, they said it was the day before yesterday and they dashed over to bring it in.
In other words, it took eight months to get the spoke in stock.
With just this one case, I'll say it: a Mavic wheel can become unusable for the season if a spoke breaks.
With Campagnolo Fulcrum, the first-generation Shamal Ultra and Racing Zero aluminum spokes
are out of production, but our shop has a decent stock of them,
and the next generation of spokes is still obtainable, and the wholesaler most knowledgeable about Campagnolo in Japan
often stocks them, and even if they don't, they arrive in about three weeks in most cases.
Specifically, the generation after the first would be around the 2009 models,
but wheels from Mavic and Shimano from that same era
can't get spoke replacements.
Finally, the retail shop problem: this isn't an issue at all shops,
though exceptions are extremely rare.
Mavic spare spokes are usually sold one-sided per set—
for an 18-hole front wheel, that's nine spokes,
for a 20-hole rear wheel, either ten spokes on the freewheel side or ten on the non-freewheel side,
plus cosmetic spokes come in a set of around ten.
As I've written many times before, crappy shops force customers
to buy all the spokes they've ordered.
"First, you buy all ten, give me just the one we need for the repair,
and take the other nine home with you"—that's how they operate.
The shops that don't do this are the "exceptions" I mentioned earlier,
but as far as I know, the exceptions are actually rarer.
When a case comes up where replacement spokes are needed for a particular wheel,
you'd expect similar cases to appear in the future, so
I actually feel more comfortable "having spare spokes left in stock."
I actively buy up the excess Mavic spokes that customers get forced to purchase from crappy shops
(I deduct the cost from their repair bill first,
but I usually end up paying out of pocket anyway—
and the reason I write "I" instead of "my shop" is because technically it's a personal transaction, so read between the lines).
Maybe one day I'll be able to save someone with them,
and if not, well, that's fine too.
Through this practice, I happened to have the spoke I needed for today's repair,
which is now unobtainable even from official authorized crappy shops.
Not only the length matched, but both the two types of nipple shapes and all four spoke profiles matched perfectly.
Thank you so much, you crappy shops that force the full purchase of Mavic spokes!
The image above is after the repair. It's not necessarily just one spoke used per repair,
but with five remaining, that means we've done about four to five repairs.
On another note,
my stock of R-SYS Tracomp spokes ran out recently.
The image above shows the replaced spoke—
the part equivalent to the nipple is black-anodized,
but the spokes I had in stock had a different nipple color,
and the customer said "it's fine if the color's different, just fix it if you can
(↑I get told this surprisingly often),"
so I used my last two spokes.
The rear wheel had significant lateral runout,
and when I turned the Tracomp spoke at that location, the threads were stripped—
it just kept spinning.
But loosening it allowed recovery,
and when I checked the rim-side threads,
those weren't stripped.
So replacing just the spoke fixed it.
Rim aluminum is made hard,
but they seem to intentionally create a hardness difference between the rim and spoke aluminum—
whether they do this specifically so the rim doesn't fail in these situations remains unclear.
It's fixed.
The friend who owns this wheel was told honestly about the broken spoke,
and they went around to several Mavic retailers asking about stock and whether they could order it in,
promising they'd get it fixed before returning it.
But looking at the result,
even if they'd kept quiet about the broken spoke,
it never would've been noticed! Bahahaha!
↑The broken spoke from today
One spoke on the non-freewheel side is missing.
As far as I know, there's never been a case of a dural aluminum spoke breaking at the hub end,
and in this case too, the spoke fractured at the inner edge of the nipple end,
and the customer removed the nipple that had the broken spoke jammed in it.
This is apparently a borrowed wheel from a friend,
and the spoke broke over a year ago,
but at the local Mavic-handling shop they said
they couldn't fix it because the spoke was out of manufacturer stock.
I don't know if that's actually true,
but regardless of performance, when it comes to spare spoke supply for Mavic wheels,
in my opinion, there are problems with the manufacturer, distributors, and retailers (shops) alike.
First, the manufacturer's problem: even with steel spokes,
from the budget Aksium onwards, they use special spokes that can't be repaired with standard parts.
Depending on the model, there are special butted spokes where about 2mm below the head is size 13,
and in that case the hub-side slot only matches size 13 spokes.
Since the manufacturer's ownership changed,
they've completely discontinued the Ksyrium line of dural aluminum spokes
and the R-SYS line of round carbon Tracomp spokes,
but naturally there are no replacement spokes for these.
Also, even for discontinued models, they claim
to guarantee spare parts manufacturing for five years,
and depending on inventory status, they might even handle it beyond that—
but I've heard of many cases where parts couldn't be obtained within five years of discontinuation.
Next, the distributor problem: I don't have dealings with them so I don't know for sure,
but they very frequently don't stock spokes at all.
There was a case where a current-model disc-brake Cosmic had a broken spoke,
and it turned out to be the below-head size 13 spec I mentioned earlier,
so our shop couldn't even do a temporary fix.
I told the customer that if they could just source the spoke itself, we could do the replacement work.
I was able to look up just the spare parts number and told the customer,
and eight months later, I was thinking maybe they'd had it repaired somewhere else,
but they came in with the still-unrepaired Cosmic and the spare spoke they'd obtained.
When I asked when they got the spare spoke, they said it was the day before yesterday and they dashed over to bring it in.
In other words, it took eight months to get the spoke in stock.
With just this one case, I'll say it: a Mavic wheel can become unusable for the season if a spoke breaks.
With Campagnolo Fulcrum, the first-generation Shamal Ultra and Racing Zero aluminum spokes
are out of production, but our shop has a decent stock of them,
and the next generation of spokes is still obtainable, and the wholesaler most knowledgeable about Campagnolo in Japan
often stocks them, and even if they don't, they arrive in about three weeks in most cases.
Specifically, the generation after the first would be around the 2009 models,
but wheels from Mavic and Shimano from that same era
can't get spoke replacements.
Finally, the retail shop problem: this isn't an issue at all shops,
though exceptions are extremely rare.
Mavic spare spokes are usually sold one-sided per set—
for an 18-hole front wheel, that's nine spokes,
for a 20-hole rear wheel, either ten spokes on the freewheel side or ten on the non-freewheel side,
plus cosmetic spokes come in a set of around ten.
As I've written many times before, crappy shops force customers
to buy all the spokes they've ordered.
"First, you buy all ten, give me just the one we need for the repair,
and take the other nine home with you"—that's how they operate.
The shops that don't do this are the "exceptions" I mentioned earlier,
but as far as I know, the exceptions are actually rarer.
When a case comes up where replacement spokes are needed for a particular wheel,
you'd expect similar cases to appear in the future, so
I actually feel more comfortable "having spare spokes left in stock."
I actively buy up the excess Mavic spokes that customers get forced to purchase from crappy shops
(I deduct the cost from their repair bill first,
but I usually end up paying out of pocket anyway—
and the reason I write "I" instead of "my shop" is because technically it's a personal transaction, so read between the lines).
Maybe one day I'll be able to save someone with them,
and if not, well, that's fine too.
Through this practice, I happened to have the spoke I needed for today's repair,
which is now unobtainable even from official authorized crappy shops.
Not only the length matched, but both the two types of nipple shapes and all four spoke profiles matched perfectly.
Thank you so much, you crappy shops that force the full purchase of Mavic spokes!
The image above is after the repair. It's not necessarily just one spoke used per repair,
but with five remaining, that means we've done about four to five repairs.
On another note,
my stock of R-SYS Tracomp spokes ran out recently.
The image above shows the replaced spoke—
the part equivalent to the nipple is black-anodized,
but the spokes I had in stock had a different nipple color,
and the customer said "it's fine if the color's different, just fix it if you can
(↑I get told this surprisingly often),"
so I used my last two spokes.
The rear wheel had significant lateral runout,
and when I turned the Tracomp spoke at that location, the threads were stripped—
it just kept spinning.
But loosening it allowed recovery,
and when I checked the rim-side threads,
those weren't stripped.
So replacing just the spoke fixed it.
Rim aluminum is made hard,
but they seem to intentionally create a hardness difference between the rim and spoke aluminum—
whether they do this specifically so the rim doesn't fail in these situations remains unclear.
It's fixed.
The friend who owns this wheel was told honestly about the broken spoke,
and they went around to several Mavic retailers asking about stock and whether they could order it in,
promising they'd get it fixed before returning it.
But looking at the result,
even if they'd kept quiet about the broken spoke,
it never would've been noticed! Bahahaha!
↑The broken spoke from today