Brady writes:
I thought I'd tell you about my, somewhat postponed, inevitable spokes issue on my Gomoto. Some time ago I noticed one or two broken, only through inspection, as I didn't hit a big bump or anything. I tightened them now and again, but while I casually shopped around for spokes, I had time. Then, after a long trip, along a fair mixture of roads, I noticed a slight wheel wobble going home on the Friday. The weekend was a bit blurry, as beginning of month weekends can be, but on Monday I knew I had to at least check and tighten the spokes. Many were loose, and many were broken, fifteen in fact, but Dylan (fellow Gomoto rider) had told me he had done some km with fifteen missing, so I tightened up the rest and went to work. I also started looking more urgently for more spokes.
I was phoning and asking around, waiting for responses etc. until the following Friday, when the remaining spokes had enough. On the way to work my back wheel felt like a marshmallow. This was quite close to work, so I rode (almost just pushed) along at the side of the road to work, and got the local Gomoto agents on the phone. I told them to just order a full set, and I borrowed money from work to cover whatever cost. Come Monday, there was no word from the distributor, in fact only by the next Friday there was there word: they had sent the agent a fully laced new rim. I asked the agent if I was obliged to buy the whole new rim, and he grudgingly conceded that he could de-lace it and sell me spokes at R10 a spoke, but I would have to do my own lacing, or pay his three hours of labour for lacing. He wanted R550 for the whole rim, which I jumped at.
Today I fetched it on the way to work with my lift. When I got to work it took me less than five minutes to remove the back wheel and ready it for swapping the tyre. I planned on taking it in to a nearby bike shop to have them swap it, but they couldn't do "while-I-wait", and I couldn't get two lifts there, to drop off and fetch, and still be sure I finished today, so I phone my dad and asked him to bring some tyre leavers. He only had one, so he brought a crowbar as well, and it took the two of use about ten minutes to swap the tyre to the new rim. Then it took about the same for me to replace the back wheel and have the bike functioning again. In fact I'll probably never consider using a shop again for a job like this.
Regards
Brady Kelly
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5 comments:
If the spokes keep on breaking, what is the possibility of replacing the rim with one from another bike? Say, one with a more solid rim?
Hi David, that is an intriguing possibility that has crossed my mind once or twice.
I wonder if a person will find a wheel of the same size. I am just not technical enough to give an informed opinion on this.
I wonder if others have a perspective on this.
Lol, well, I was handed a MotoMia leaflet this morning, and saw that they use solid rims. I wonder if they'd be compatible... :p
Hi,
Perhaps David has noticed since his last posting, but the new Gomoto Freedom 125 has a spoked alloy rim. So he could replace his spoked rim with a new one meant for this very bike. -Alistair
I also have a gomoto 125, and yep the spokes were breaking all the time. Then started replacing them with a fatter guage, which looks really cool. Unfortunately lack of finance put paid to the plan of replacing the entire spoke set with fatties, so I ended up with another round of broken spokes. This time, I got the entire set replaced and haven't had any problems since.
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