Spoke seized in nipple

[mangid]

One of the bladed spokes on my rear Mavic Ellipse was quite loose, and the wheel required a tad of truing. Held spoke in place using blade holder, and tightened it up ... Or so I thought, but no, the spoke twisted and and now looks like some sort of fancy pasta.

The wheel has done pretty good service, 48K+ miles in 2.5 years, zero maintenance, original bearings, and has taken the worse that Cambridgeshire County Council can throw at it, so not too disappointed, but do wonder if there is something I should be doing to stop them seizing ?

Spare wheel on, old Ellipse which had done similar service, and new one ordered

 

[screenman]

A squirt of oil every so often may help.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

You should be disappointed. Had that nipple been brass, it would still turn, even after 200 000 kms.

There's no use pouring oil onto it. Oil does not penetrate a tensioned screw thread. Your wheel did not fail from a lack of maintenance, but through the choice of inappropriate materials.

Further, no amount of bouncing off potholes makes one iota of difference to wheel life. If one hit doesn't do any damage, a million of the same will do nothing either. Wheels are destroyed in single events, not from cumulative events.

 

[midlife]

You should be disappointed. Had that nipple been brass, it would still turn, even after 200 000 kms.

There's no use pouring oil onto it. Oil does not penetrate a tensioned screw thread. Your wheel did not fail from a lack of maintenance, but through the choice of inappropriate materials.

Further, no amount of bouncing off potholes makes one iota of difference to wheel life. If one hit doesn't do any damage, a million of the same will do nothing either. Wheels are destroyed in single events, not from cumulative events.

I thought aluminium (rim) had a property whereby it underwent fatigue failure even if subjected to repeated stresses way below the elastic limit, mind you I seem to recall it needed many millions of stress cycles lol

 

[raleighnut]

Ally nipples were invented by Satan.