You are reading a single comment by @Regal and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@Regal
Most spoke failures are fatigue failures due to normal stress cycles (riding over bumps etc.). One day they eventually just go 'ping'.
How long it takes depends on things like the thickness of the spokes, their quality, whether they're butted, overall spoke tension, evenness of spoke tension, etc. etc.
However a sharp sideways impact can break a spoke fairly easily so it could have been either.