Testing Garbaruk RS Spokes

Lab tests of Garbaruk spokes vs other spokes on the market

Testing Garbaruk RS Spokes

At Garbaruk, we value real-world testing and physics-supported performance in every product we develop. During the creation of our RS spokes, our goal was clear: to engineer a spoke that outperforms the competition in every aspect. This article explains what we find important in spokes, and compares our spokes to other options on the market using our lab tests

What's important in a high-performance spoke?

In our view, here are several key factors that matter the most:

1. Strength & Durability
Strength is the material’s ability to withstand forces without breaking or permanently deforming. For spokes, this means handling extreme loads and impacts without failure. This includes scenarios like riding fast over rough terrain, jumps and landings, or even unexpected challenges like a tree branch trying to jam your wheel.

2. Stiffness
Stiffness measures how much a material stretches under load, which directly impacts wheel performance:

Acceleration: When you press the pedals, your effort transfers from the drivetrain to the hub, and then the spokes transfer that energy to the rim. Stiff spokes minimize power loss caused by material stretch, ensuring more efficient acceleration.
Handling: Stiff spokes contribute to lateral wheel stiffness, providing better handling in extreme situations such as high-speed turns, rough terrain, and heavy landings. They keep the bike on track, no matter the surface.

3. Weight
Weight is critical in performance cycling. It’s easy to make a spoke that’s strong and stiff—but if it’s too heavy, it becomes impractical for high-performance use. The real challenge lies in achieving the perfect balance of strength, stiffness, and lightness to ensure the spoke performs exceptionally without weighing you down.

High-performance spokes excel when all three factors—strength, stiffness, and weight—are perfectly balanced

Test Methodology

To measure and compare the performance of our RS spokes against steel spokes, we designed a controlled testing setup:

Each spoke was placed in one of our CNC machines, equipped with instruments to measure the applied load (in kilograms) and the resulting travel (in millimeters).
By collecting data on load and travel, we calculated stiffness in simple terms: kilograms per millimeter (kg/mm)
All spokes were tested at the same typical for 29" wheels 290mm length. That also means we can compare the weights easily

Conclusions

Based on the tests available below, here are the charts showcasing strength and stiffness tests

strength

(Applied load in KG needed to break the spoke)

In our strength test, the Garbaruk RS spoke delivers outstanding results, outperforming the nearest competitor—a 2 mm steel spoke—by 18-19%, while being 28% lighter. For a more detailed comparison, refer to the strength-to-weight ratio chart below.

It’s also worth noting the impressive strength of some bladed spokes. However, strength alone doesn't provide the full picture when evaluating how a spoke affects overall bike performance. Stiffness plays a crucial role as well. Continue reading to see the stiffness chart

Strength to weight ratio

(Strength measured as applied load per gram of spoke weight)

This chart highlights the exceptional strength-to-weight advantage of our Garbaruk RS spokes. With a ratio of 65.34, the RS spoke significantly outperforms all competitors, offering the highest strength relative to its weight.

It’s also worth noting that most steel spokes display similar strength-to-weight properties, however one bladed spoke stands out with a noticeably better ratio compared to other steel options.

Stiffness

(applied load in KG needed to stretch the spoke by 3mm)

When analyzing stiffness, our Garbaruk RS spoke demonstrates outstanding performance, offering a 27% increase in stiffness compared to a bladed steel spoke, while being only 9% heavier.

In comparison to the heaviest competitor in this chart, the RS spoke shows similar or slightly superior stiffness at a significantly lower weight.

Another important aspect is the behavior of spokes once stretched beyond 3 mm. This threshold is close to the yield point, where spokes begin to deform plastically—stretching disproportionately without a linear increase in applied load. Garbaruk RS and certain steel spokes can stretch significantly (over 10 mm) before failure, while others fail around 5 mm of elongation. In practice, this could mean the difference between a spoke simply becoming loose versus completely breaking under stress.