Small rim cracks

[ronwalf]

@bikesnick 91254 wrote:

Mileage: 4530

Ugh, that’s less than I expect out of a tire!

@bikesnick 91254 wrote:

Should I purchase both rear and front?

In my not-a-professional opinion, only purchase the front if you have a burning desire to have a matching wheel set, or if you are starting to wear down the brake surface on the rim (unlikely at 4.5k). I’m glad you’re bumping the rear spoke count to 32 – hopefully it’ll last longer this time.

[Harry Meatmotor]

@bikesnick 91254 wrote:

I assume it is time for a new wheel.

Yes-sir-ee-Bob – though if you’re spendthrifty, you could just re-lace the hub to a new rim. One thing you can keep in mind when choosing a new rim is to look for an eyeletted rim – the Mavic Open Sport has eyelettes, as well as most other low-ish profile aluminum Mavics (like the CXP22 and the A319, which is nice and wide). It might also be good to look at H+Son’s TB14 – I built a pair of TB14’s laced to 105 hubs for my commuter and they came together quite nicely.

[hozn]

Yeah, if you’re looking for a pre-built wheelset the ones you linked look fine — if heavy. I’ve had great luck with Open Pro rims, from a builder perspective they are nice and easy to build up too, though doesn’t sound like you want to build your own wheels. I’d also recommend Mavic Aksiums which are roughly the same price and have known lots of folks to have them. Also, have had good experience with buying an Easton EA50 wheelset — I think those are hand-built. I build my wheels as a rule now, though; quality is better. Personally, I’d relace the rear to a Kinlin XR270 rim; it’s not eyeleted, but it’s inexpensive and well respected and I’d use nipple washers so doesn’t matter too much. I also like H+ Son rims; I have a set of the Archetypes with 12k miles on them; those are awesome wheels.

[Powerful Pete]

Let me respectfully disagree with Aksiums. They are poopy in my humble opinion. Poor reliability and the hubs are nothing special.

Having said that, you could not go wrong on an Open Pro rim and if you want luxury I would heartily recommend an Archetype!

[hozn]

I’m happy to be wrong about Aksiums I would never buy them myself, but they seem to come stock on lots of low/mid-range road bikes, and the people that I’ve known that had them never complained (and put lots of hard miles on them). So I just assumed they’re reasonable. Anyway, I am not a fan of Mavic’s “wheel systems” since they tend to involve all manner of proprietary spokes/nipples/hubs. The Open Pro is a well-proven choice. Of course, it’s also the benchmark for a “non-aero” rim, so if this is something you use on recreational road rides you might consider something a little faster. E.g. the Flo30 wheels (http://www.flocycling.com/wheels_front_flo_30.php).

[consularrider]

@hozn 91334 wrote:

I’m happy to be wrong about Aksiums I would never buy them myself, but they seem to come stock on lots of low/mid-range road bikes, and the people that I’ve known that had them never complained (and put lots of hard miles on them). So I just assumed they’re reasonable. Anyway, I am not a fan of Mavic’s “wheel systems” since they tend to involve all manner of proprietary spokes/nipples/hubs. The Open Pro is a well-proven choice. Of course, it’s also the benchmark for a “non-aero” rim, so if this is something you use on recreational road rides you might consider something a little faster. E.g. the Flo30 wheels (http://www.flocycling.com/wheels_front_flo_30.php).

The Aksiums came as the stock wheel set on my 2009 Salsa Pistola (bought in August 2010). That bike now has just under 20,000 miles on it and the only issue I’ve had with the wheels was one broken spoke close to the end of this year’s Total 200 in June. Since I know absolutely nothing about wheels, these have been just fine for me. Well, that and the graphics are starting to fade.

[vvill]

I’ve had no issues with my Aksiums that came stock on my 2010 bike (bought in 2011). I do need to true the front wheel but haven’t quite figured out how to adjust the bladed spokes… might just take it into the shop (Performance Bike – they will do it for free, I think).

If I were spec’ing a new wheel I would love to try one of the newer HED wide rims. Ardennes/Belgium+.

[hozn]

@vvill 91340 wrote:

If I were spec’ing a new wheel I would love to try one of the newer HED wide rims. Ardennes/Belgium+.

Yeah, the C2+ is a nice wide rim — but pricey (~$150, I think?). I did recently buy some Flo30 rims for my commuter (at $80/pc they weren’t really more expensive than new Archetype rims); those are somewhere between the C2 and C2+ in terms of width (19.2mm internal width, I believe). I don’t really *need* new rims, but I figured that since I’m replacing hubs w/ thru-axles and need new spokes anyway, I’ll just invest in new rims and sell my current wheelset on CL. The Flo30 rims are comparatively heavy, though; mine weighed in at 550g.

[vvill]

@hozn 91344 wrote:

Yeah, the C2+ is a nice wide rim — but pricey (~$150, I think?). I did recently buy some Flo30 rims for my commuter (at $80/pc they weren’t really more expensive than new Archetype rims); those are somewhere between the C2 and C2+ in terms of width (19.2mm internal width, I believe). I don’t really *need* new rims, but I figured that since I’m replacing hubs w/ thru-axles and need new spokes anyway, I’ll just invest in new rims and sell my current wheelset on CL. The Flo30 rims are comparatively heavy, though; mine weighed in at 550g.

Yeah I think you’re paying a bit of a premium for the HED name, but I feel since it’s one of those brands that helped pioneer a worthy trend (wide rims in this case), they’re worth supporting. Same goes for Stan’s and their tubeless stuff (even though I haven’t tried running tubeless yet!)

[Harry Meatmotor]

@vvill 91364 wrote:

Yeah I think you’re paying a bit of a premium for the HED name, but I feel since it’s one of those brands that helped pioneer a worthy trend (wide rims in this case), they’re worth supporting. Same goes for Stan’s and their tubeless stuff (even though I haven’t tried running tubeless yet!)

Stan’s are a good bet EXCEPT for the 340s – stay away from them, IMHO.

If you’re wanting nearly HED Belgium quality without the price tag, check out the Pacenti SL23s.

[vvill]

@Harry Meatmotor 91368 wrote:

Stan’s are a good bet EXCEPT for the 340s – stay away from them, IMHO.

If you’re wanting nearly HED Belgium quality without the price tag, check out the Pacenti SL23s.

Huh, I’ve been considering the 340s next time I get new wheels (that, and the Grails). What’s so bad about them? I heard they made the 400s to have a higher weight limit equivalent. I have a set of the 2013 Iron Cross wheels and love them.

I have a friend who got the Pacentis for CX/gravel duty – seemed pretty happy with them.

[hozn]

I have heard the Pacentis are hard to mount tires on (too big?) which has scared me away from them hitherto, but they do have an all-black version (disc brakes), so I am sure I will eventually make an excuse to buy some.

For the 340s, maybe HM was referring to the reputation they have for blowing non-tubeless tires off the rims? I don’t know if that is still a thing. I know people that have been very happy with them, though. And there are an increasing number of road tubeless options.

[Harry Meatmotor]

@vvill 91374 wrote:

Huh, I’ve been considering the 340s next time I get new wheels (that, and the Grails). What’s so bad about them? I heard they made the 400s to have a higher weight limit equivalent. I have a set of the 2013 Iron Cross wheels and love them.

I have a friend who got the Pacentis for CX/gravel duty – seemed pretty happy with them.

the 340’s are just not stiff enough to take tension + pressure in the tire. if you build them up to 115 – 120 kg/f, then mount a tire and inflate it, you’ll see the spoke tension decrease by 20+%. If you try and compensate for this by building the wheel with 130-145 kg/f, you’re getting beyond what Stan considers a “properly” built wheel (read: not covered by warranty). Bill Mould did some interesting tests and found that the diameter of the 340’s shrank considerably (compared to other rims) when a tire was mounted and inflated to 120 psi – i don’t recall the actual measurement, but it was equivalent to something like 2-2.5 whole turns of a spoke nipple on all the spokes. This is also decreasing the BSD (tires won’t fit as tightly as they should), and theoretically, if you were to compensate for the loss in ERD by running 130-145 kg/f, you’re also running a risk if there’s a rapid decompression of the tire, of possibly ripping spoke nipples from the spoke bed or breaking the spokes themselves.

All that being said – Stan’s other rims build up to be some great wheels.

[hozn]

That’s very interesting about the 340s. I wonder if that shrinking of diameter is what contributes to the tires blowing off the rim? I had seen speculation that it had to do with the lower-profile sockets, but the shrinking diameter seems like it could definitely exacerbate that.

That is the one thing that bothers me about Stans rims: the low tension recommendations. I typically build the MTB rims to 100kgf but that still is a lot less than I’d like. To be fair, though, I haven’t had any problems with MTB wheelsets (breaking spokes) and the last Crest wheels I built were extremely easy to build up — almost perfectly even tensions for a round/true wheel. I have had to retension one of the spokes after it lost tension on a hard impact (probably something that would have been less likely a problem if I could have build these to 120-130kgf), but otherwise they’ve remained true etc. I have switched to using nipple washers for all my wheels; this seems to help. And I know Stans recommends them for their 340/400 rims. I haven’t looked into it, but am hoping that the Grail recommendations allow for higher spoke tension.

[vvill]

Interesting info on the 340s. I didn’t really want something with a brake track anyway!

The Stan’s Grail “Team” build is listed as 125KgF
http://www.notubes.com/ZTR-Grail-700c-Team-Wheelset-P1469.aspx

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