Safe load for Rhyno Lite Rims?
 

One day I fully intend touring on my '95 Trek 800 Sport. Within reasonable sanity, what weight will the rims handle without busting spokes?

Known:
(to the best of my search fu)
Pilot/Driver (me) 180 lbs
Bike 32 lbs
Rims Sun Rhyno Lite
Front hub Shimano HB RM-40
Rear Hub Shimano Nexave
Spoke brand (no idea)
Front rack Generic <=20lbs capacity
​​​​​​Low Riders (generic w/single bottom bidon attach + significant U-clamp support to upper fork)
Rear rack Topeak Explorer

I intend to go as light as possible, but when should the warning bells sound?

Thanks for insights, fore-sights and opinions!

I have a Miyata 1000 on which I put 32h hubs with Rhyno Lite rims -- wheels that I built. I've weighed from 220 to 240 while riding the bike a couple thousand miles so far and I discern no spoke loosening or rim deviation from true. Building the wheels: these rims were not as flat and round as other rims I have built wheels out of, but typical, I suppose of Sun rims like CR18 and M13II. They obviously can be made round and true, but it takes more fiddling than Open Pro, in my limited experience.

So, the answer is that with 32 or 36 spokes (I don't know what you have), you are in no danger at all of hurting these rims, which are pretty darn stout. Sssuming reasonable care with curbs etc. Also assuming that you have reasonably high and uniform spoke tensions.

RhinoLites aren’t particularly lightweight...not that rim weight nor rim strength makes much difference. I off-road tour on mountain passes on a bike that is equipped with Mavic XC717 which are 130 g lighter than the Rhino Lites. That’s not gravel touring. It’s rock touring with a 30 to 40 lb load and a heavy, aggressive rider. I don’t break spokes because I use strong spokes. I don’t worry about the rim weight.

On the other hand, you should carry the greatest weight over the front wheel because the bike is more stable and the wheel is stronger. 60% front/ 40% rear is about ideal.

Thanks, desconhecido, good to hear that! Do you concur with a 60/40 percent weighting (front/back) on touring load, or am I just overthinking this?

We were writing at same time....

Encouraging thoughts, as I hope to stay 30lbs/less on equipment. More room for more veggies, if necessary :)

How about tires and air? Since I commute mostly, I dropped from 26 x 1.95 to 1.75. I can fit up to 2.1's without problems. I do keep my tires at 65 lbs (max). How should width and pressure adjust with load?

(Really wish I did know about the spokes.... Just have to hope good wires went on a good hub & rim).

I built a large guy 6'1" and 320ish lbs a set of 36spoke son rhino lights with DT butted spokes, brass nipples. He rode 3k miles the first year and a couple thousand more each year over the next several and the wheels took 4 years before they needed the first truing so I'm going to guess it's a high load. For my own touring bike I used Velocity Dyads which are lighter then the Suns but not light and built it with 32 Wheelsmith HD 13/14g single butted spokes. I weigh 270lbs and carry a 35lb load with a 26lb bike. Only done one year on them but they haven't needed a truing either.

For off-roading, I use a 2.1 knobbed tire at 45 psi rear/50 to 55 front. For road touring, I use a 32 to 35mm tire at around 90 psi. the pressure I inflate to is based on whether I need the suspension (off-road) or speed (road). The other consideration is weight. 1.75” is probably wide enough for any conceivable road application. Any wider is just heavier.

Got a pair hand built last year. Forget which spokes, but they were something Cyco recommended. I am a big guy, don't go ultralight and ride relatively aggressively. This was my load back in June. Did a fair amount of hilly/mountainous gravel during the trip. Aside from a slight truing of the front shortly after the build, the wheels have required no maintenance.


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...52e4a39ca8.jpg

Rhyno Lite are more rhino than lite. It probably would take running into a large rock at high speed to taco a well-built wheel with one, regardless of the load.

OTOH, while a 60/40 front/rear load ratio may be optimal for the wheels, your bike will steer like a tank with that weight distribution.

They may be a little heavy but are nearly indestructable. Once, after loading my 29er on a rear car deck, in a senior moment I left the front wheel on the ground. Then I backed the rear of an Xterra completely over the wheel. The only damage was a bent and broken skewer. A 32 h Rhynolite on an XT disc hub lived to roll on!

Not that I've found. The front isn't light by any means but it's not unresponsive. I regularly do fast downhills with this kind of load and have never had problems negotiating tight turns. It's better than the "tail wagging of the dog" I've experienced in the past due to having too much weight on the rear.

Though theoretically ideal, over the decades I have seen very few bike tourists, even those that are well seasoned, who adhere to this ratio. Why ? Because most rear panniers are significantly larger than front panniers and most of us like to throw all sorts of crap on top of the rear rack platform. Many don't have a front fork that can accept a front rack and even fewer have one with a platform on top in order to carry stuff. Is this ideal ? Heck no ! but don't let that get in the way of playing the game.

Btw, I've only built on one set of Rhino's for a heavy friend of mine and though they were more work to get trued initially, they held up well for him and that was with standard 14g spokes, as he didn't want to spend the money on butted spokes.

I think it's also the weight shift that would be required to meet that ratio. Most road bikes start off with a 33/67 to 40/60 front/rear weight split. Say the rider plus bike weight is 200 lbs. and use the 40/60 to make the math easier, so that's 80 pounds front, 120 pounds on the rear. To change that to a 60/40 front/rear, you'll have get the front wheel load up to 180 pounds.

First, that's too much of a load to carry (you don't need 100 pounds of luggage unless you're doing some really rugged, really remote, and really long touring). Second, as @robow notes, it's going to be darn tough getting that much onto the front -- I don't know of any commercial front racks or bar bags that can handle that much weight.

The closest I've ever come to a 60/40 split was the time I foolishly tried to carry half a bushel of apples back from the orchard on the front (call it 20 pounds). That was probably still less than 50% of the load on the front wheel, and steering was miserably slow at every stop and start. It wasn't too bad when rolling. But I remembered why I'd nicknamed that bike "Pig" while touring -- it steered like a pig wallowing in the mud.

I'm a bit skeptical of that weight distribution, unless you're talking about a really upright setup that's halfway to a hybrid. For a road bike that's actually being ridden like a road bike, 45/55 is nearer to the mark IMO.

Maybe I'm wrong and being naive here, but I always thought of that recommended weight distribution as considering just the weight of the panniers and the stuff you carried, not the weight of the bike and rider.

It's hard to tell from the outside. This bike looks like the load in the rear is heavier but

https://live.staticflickr.com/4579/3...07cb1438_o.jpg2015-05-03 11.38.54 by Stuart Black, on Flickr

but the rear panniers are loaded with clothes which are lighter but bulkier. The front panniers contain cooking gear and food which is smaller but denser. The tent and sleeping bag are very light but are bulky as well.

The load on my bike packing bike is close to the same ratio or perhaps a little higher.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...0d163cc2_o.jpgUntitled by Stuart Black, on Flickr

The load tends to be rather front heavy which makes off-roading a bit more challenging than an unloaded bike. It really want's to endo on steep downhills. The higher load kind of negates the benefit that is found in low mounted panniers.

Back before bikepacking, I did off-road tours on this rig

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...2b36e85e_o.jpgme old by Stuart Black, on Flickr

Overall it was much heavier...tent and sleeping bag weighed 7 and 5 lbs compared to my 2lb tent and 2 lb sleeping bag. The load split was biased a little more towards an even split because of the height that the panniers were carried at. Even with the greater weight, it was a bit nicer ride than my current bikepacking set up. It didn't work all that well when things got tight, however, and the bags had a tendency to jump ship on rough patches.

Yes, it the baggage load, not the overall bike and rider load.

I have 4 Rhynolite wheels that were picked up last year for cheap from Performance Bike before they went out of business. The are light like a rhinoceros is light, but plenty strong. Paid between $10 and $20 for each wheel, with the original price around $80 each. No concerns about the ability to carry a load. I don’t travel especially light and do plenty of off-road riding with them with no signs of any problems.

My diustribution is along the same lines. Cooking/eating gear (I believe I carry more than most), including my plastic French press and two-week coffee supply, is all up front. So are other more dense/heavier things like my off bike shoes, sleepng pad, Kindle, Road Morph G and toilet items. My tent on the back is only 2.25 lbs. The sleeping bag, which is in the right rear pannier, is around 2 lbs. The tarp is 12 oz. Most of the rear capacity is taken up by relatively light clothes. When I have to carry food to camp, I try to fit the heavier/denser items up front.

Finally stuck my face in the spokes and counted 36.

Digger, find a good bike store and have them go over the spoke tensions.
Then in the meantime, start putting stuff together and putting it all into panniers.
ride, see how it is.
trying tokeep load weight to maybe 40lbs is reasonable, and of course you can go lighter. or heavier, but thats just more work.

in the meantime, yoiu'll see how your wheels handle this.

and as said, dont abuse the wheels when loaded, use common sense and dont crash into potholes etc.

Rims are part of the system. With a good set of wheels that are handbuilt with high quality parts, heavier duty spokes that are properly tensioned and stress relieved they can handle serious weight generally. It doesn't sound like you will be overloading things too much so I wouldn't worry a whole lot. Check the wheels with regularity and make sure they are true and if using rim brakes make sure the brake track isn't worn and you should be decent. Also don't forget about doing maintenance on the hubs every once and while.

all of it. more than you can imagine.

i did a longish tour a while back....20K km or so.....with my 185 pounds and bike 175 pounds. that was fully-fully-fully loaded, 4 bags + trailer, a week's worth of food and 5 gallons of water.

wheels were 700c 48-spoke 4x sun cr18, 700*44(?) tires. spokes began pulling thru the rear rim about halfway thru, managed to source a rhyno lite and finished with no further problems. mostly paved, some light gravel. that wheel went on to do another 50k miles before sold.

have built up some rhyno lites here in china, 26" with sapim spokes, 26*1.95. many thousands of miles on rough dirt in cambodia and laos with 20-25 pounds on the rear.

i suspect a 26" rim 20 years newer would do just as well or better.


don't worry about the front-rear distribution as an exact specification to follow. sure, moving stuff forward will take weight off the rear, in your case not necessary. but do try it out to see how it affects handling. some prefer front-only loading.

I've had Rhyno Lite rims on my touring tandem for years and they are still going strong. So, they have held up well with 450 pounds +/- between riders, tandem, and front/rear panniers over all kinds of terrain.