Saturday, November 07, 2009

frustrations


i've got a beef with proprietary wheel systems that incorporate their own spoke/rim/nipple designs and then neglect to offer replacement parts to maintain or repair broken parts. In this case.....a Shimano WH-MT75 29er wheelset that recently came in with a broken spoke. I've never repaired a spoke on this type of wheelset before and figured i could just call Shimano to order one of their fancy straight pull spokes to make the repair. Unfortunately the nice fella on the other end of the telephone line had to inform me that they could not sell me such spokes and he couldn't even offer me a solution and even worse, he had no option of even getting some replacement spokes in the future. So essentially we had ourselves a $250 rear wheel that was now obsolete because of ONE broken spoke ! WTF ! So i'm calling you out Shimano, get your heads outtta yer arses or otherwise leave wheelsets alone. Your hubs are fine, regular steel spokes are just fine, regular nipples work good too. How about trying to build a wheel around those parimeters that allow us greasy fingered mechanics an option to repair. I dunno.....seems too simple to me.

4 comments:

Cris said...

Ummm..that must be a shimano USA thing...my buddy Adrian has managed to order replacement spokes for his XT and XTR system wheels.... they are pricier than standard ones though...

Cris said...

here in Germany...I mean

Chaybo said...

okay....i'll have to order a 2 dollar spoke from Europe and then pay $20 shipping and handling. Sounds better than the alternative. Thanks for the heads up cris !

Cris said...

yeah, it does suck.....oh well... anyhow..if no alternative appears, let me know..maybe I can help source them on this side of the pond...