bent a campy eurus wheel - ok to reuse spokes???

[vqdriver]

must have hit a rock or something yesterday when i heard a pop/bang and a what sounded like shattering glass. stopped to find the tire torn and a section of the rim bent in. spokes were fine and the wheel is still true. i walked in circles looking for what i hit but there wasn't anything out of the ordinary, just some debris washed down by the recent rains, but i'd been riding thru that stuff all day. just can't avoid it all.

fyi, it's the aluminum spoked eurus rear wheel that's damaged, pre-2way fit.
i don't know the total mileage on the wheelset cuz i got em used.
the tire was a open corsa 25c with about 200 miles on it, what a waste. it doesn't look like it put up much of a fight.

anyway, i called my lbs to get a cost on repair, and the dude said it's cool to only replace the rim if the spokes are ok and hold tension. sounds logical to me, but there's a part of me that says "don't reuse spokes."

what's the collective experience on something like this?

[weiwentg]

I wouldn't reuse even steel spokes. reusing alloy spokes is asking for trouble imo.

[AndrewS]

If the structural part of the wheel was not affected by the accident (the rim edge bent, but the rim is still round and true), I can't see a difference between replacing the rim and periodic truing of the wheel.

If the wheel was no longer straight, then I'd start wondering if the spokes were strained beyond their useful life - especially with aluminum spokes. But if the aluminum spokes were strong enough to ride on in the first place, I don't see anything in your story to make me assume they aren't just as strong as before the incident.

If I was doing the work I would be careful to let the rim tension down in increments, rather than just unscrew each nipple completely one at a time. That will prevent any one spoke, flange or nipple bearing an undue load.


If my advice is truly stupid, then I don't see how this wheel could have ever been considered safe to ride on in the first place. Wheel building is never as stressful to a spoke as actually riding on it is.

[oldpotatoe]

must have hit a rock or something yesterday when i heard a pop/bang and a what sounded like shattering glass. stopped to find the tire torn and a section of the rim bent in. spokes were fine and the wheel is still true. i walked in circles looking for what i hit but there wasn't anything out of the ordinary, just some debris washed down by the recent rains, but i'd been riding thru that stuff all day. just can't avoid it all.

fyi, it's the aluminum spoked eurus rear wheel that's damaged, pre-2way fit.
i don't know the total mileage on the wheelset cuz i got em used.
the tire was a open corsa 25c with about 200 miles on it, what a waste. it doesn't look like it put up much of a fight.

anyway, i called my lbs to get a cost on repair, and the dude said it's cool to only replace the rim if the spokes are ok and hold tension. sounds logical to me, but there's a part of me that says "don't reuse spokes."

what's the collective experience on something like this?

If it's still true, try to massage the rim edge back out, gently. Then see if braking bugs you. Otherwise have the rim replaced. If the wheel is still true then the aluminum spokes haven't been compromised. If the rim was way bent, I wouldn't reuse aluminum spokes.