Originally Posted by
old's'cool
Indestructibility...: better corrosion resistance than chromed steel or aluminum alloy, and higher strength than aluminum alloy.
The Peugeot rims I've seen are dimpled, rather than serrated. Dimpling is a clever way to retain water rather than let it drain away.
I'd much rather replace my brake pads regularly (wear item) than, e.g. alloy rims, due to braking wear, or warping. That's just me... I'm not trying to convince you that my way is right for you; but if my info helps others, that would please me.
I've seen the dimpled variety too, but the ones I had were serrated and I as I said, wet weather braking was pretty bad, - not nearly as good as with a machined braking surface on an alloy wheel. If you're using hub or disc brakes that's not a problem though.
Stainless steel will rust. It happens to the brake rotors on my winter bike, yet I've had no corrosion problems with my alloy rims.
As far as strength and durability goes, a good, strong double walled alloy rim with a sufficient number of spokes would be as good or better than a traditional single walled steel rim (imo). Probably one of the biggest factors though is being built and tensioned properly. If the spokes on your wheel are breaking on a regular basis and/or it's constantly going out of true, - it probably has more to do with being poorly built and not being properly tensioned than it has to do with rim or spoke quality.
Agree though that a steel rim would suffer less from brake wear.