Ritchey Zero System hubs ... worth building?

[henrypretz]

I was out "all roading" on my Poprad this afternoon when I heard a distinctive "pop" followed by an extremely wobbly rear wheel. I broke a drive side spoke at the bend. The wheels are a pair that came on a bike that I bought. They are Ritchey Zero hubs 32h, Mavic CXP 21 rims with unknown spokes. I have previously broken two other spokes on the same wheel and had my LBS replace each time. The easiest thing to do would probably be to have it replaced or do it myself (I have an interest in learning to build wheels)
Another possibility would be to ditch everything but the hubs and use them to make my initial foray into building a set of wheels.
Any opinions on if this hubset is worth building up? I don't know anything about this particular model, but I do know that they spin very nicely and have never given me any trouble or issues.

Thanks in advance!
Henry

(blurry picture of broken spoke)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17843554/IMG_3057.jpg

[ultraman6970]

NO idea what wheel is that but big chance that the spokes are just bad, I would spend in sapim or dt spokes and relace the whole wheel with new spokes.

As for what type of spoke? what ever you want, straight gauge, bladed or whatever.

I bet the spokes you are snapping are not the new ones, but the told stuff. So if you want to learn to put wheels together, just take one spoke off the driver side, one off the nds, buy the new spokes and replace one spoke at a time. In that way you dont mess with the crossing or anything, Obviously lose the whole wheel 1st.

Good luck.

[Peter P.]

If your hubs have been trouble free so far except for the broken spokes, then there's no reason to not continue to use the hub for a rebuild.

However, sometimes it's the hub that's the source of the broken spokes. Hub alloy, flange thickness; both come into play regarding spoke longevity.

You don't say what the time frame was regarding how long you had the wheels before the first spoke failed or in what span of time all three spokes failed. So you have to perform an experiment-rebuild the wheel with brand name spokes, straight or double butted, gauge doesn't matter, and keep track of the resulting wheel life.

[oldpotatoe]

Broken spokes are a sign of an ill rim, nothing really to so with the spokes or rim. If the hubs are smooth, no reason not to reuse them(ANOTHER advantage to traditional, j bend, non-proprietary wheel stuff).

Bent, deformed or otherwise wacked rims makes for uneven tension, mostly too low, which results in broken spokes(think wire coat hanger, bending back-forth-back-forth-break).

Get a decent rim, some spokes, a book or two and go at it. Very satisfying, this wheelbuilding thing. Even after 30 years, still love to do it.

[binxnyrwarrsoul]

"Broken spokes are a sign of an ill rim,......................."

This. The only time I've ever broken spokes was with a wheelset built with (garbage, imo) lower end Ritchey rims, on Hugi hubs, on my old hardatil. Swapped the rims on a rebuild and never broke another spoke on those wheels. Fwiw, imo CXP21's are pretty low on Mavic's food chain. Ymmv.

[ultraman6970]

THat something says mavic doesnt mean they did not mess up at some point, the same happened with even the mighty campagnolo and shimano for example.