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Spoke keys

by Yorkshie Whippet
Wed, Oct 02, 2013 15:34
4

After quite a while of abuse I've decide my spoke key needs replacing but have hit on a problem.

It's quite an old round jobby with the guage on eg 15-11. As most of my spokes are ether 14 or 15 guage i decided to look for something simpler. Now the only ones I can find are metric, eg 3mm.

Which metric size do I need or what is the conversion process?

Many thanks.

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4 comments

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Yorkshie Whippet | 11 years ago
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Cheers.

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chokofingrz | 11 years ago
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FWIW, those Spokey one-size-doesn't-fit-all ones are meant to be superior to the ring-shaped multi-size ones.

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drfabulous0 | 11 years ago
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Sheldon Brown says

"The diameter of spokes is sometimes expressed in terms of wire gauges. There are several different national systems of gauge sizes, and this has been a great cause of confusion. A particular problem is that French gauge numbers get smaller for thinner wires, while the U.S./British gauge numbers get larger for thinner wires. The crossover point is right in the popular range of sizes used for bicycle spokes:

U.S./British 14 gauge is the same as French 13 gauge
U.S./British 13 gauge is the same as French 15 gauge

Newer I.S.O. practice is to ignore gauge numbers, and refer to spokes by their diameter in millimeters:

U.S./British 13 gauge is 2.3 mm
U.S./British 14 gauge is 2.0 mm
U.S./British 15 gauge is 1.8 mm
U.S./British 16 gauge is 1.6 mm"

Personally I would just go to the bike shop and see what fits good.

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Marauder | 11 years ago
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I needed to use one of my mates a few months ago and it was in the shape of a cross with a different size on each end, 1-4mm IIRC.

Not sure where he got it from though.

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