The following numbers are from a theoretical wheel with 36 14 gauge spokes. They are number of miles you can expect for the first 6 broken spokes. 10000 11930 13391 14637 15771 16812 Now you can multiply or divide this set of numbers by any other number and get a realistic wheel. If your first spoke broke at 1000 miles simply divide all of them by 10. Also you can change the scale to kilometers or wheel rotations. Pulstar advertised their spokes were 22 percent stronger and lasted 5 times as long. This agrees with fatigue curves for steel with cycles greater than 1000000 that can be found in mechanical engineering books. DT advertised their spokes were 20 percent stronger than regular spokes. So if you switch to top quality spokes such as DT Wheelsmith Sapim or Piller you can expect your spokes to last 5 times as long. If you go to a 13 gauge spoke you can expect your spokes to last 11 times as long. I always get accused of dumping too much information on people at once so tomorrow I will tell you where the numbers come from.