IPassGas

Is the line from the spoke hole (at yellow arrow) an indication that the the rim cannot sustain the spoke tension and is damaged?

Andrew R Stewart 

Sure looks to be the start of a crack to me. Rims crack not just from spoke tension alone but can also be weakened by corrosion. Is that white stuff I see dirt, wax or corrosion? Andy

cpach

Rim is dead and requires replacement.

IPassGas

It is dirt/dust, the rim is ~1 yr old. I found 2 such lines in the rim. It appears to be more visible (hard to tell) when I increase tension with hands on spokes. Thanks...new rim time.

DiabloScott

Yeaah, that's a crack. Sometimes that happens when the rim gets tweaked laterally from an impact and then you try to untweak it with spoke tension, otherwise a one year old rim shouldn't see this problem.

dedhed

1 year old I'd check if you had any warranty recourse depending on how you acquired the bike/rims

canklecat

Yup, I ignored that on a couple of 1980s hard anodized rims. Both cracked the past week. Fortunately not a catastrophic failure -- I noticed a ticking/clicking sound with every wheel rotation, and when I looked down I could see a new slight wheel wobble. That was a late 1980s Wolber Super Champion Alpine rim, rear wheel. Sure nuff, when I got home and checked my nearly identical Araya CTL-370 "SuperHard" rim, same thing.

Good while they lasted. I already knew that style rim was considered a bit fragile. I got more than 8,000 miles out of the Araya and 3,000 from the Wolber. No idea how much they were used before I bought them.

Might have been some operator error as well. Whenever a wheel developed a slight wobble I trued it just by tightening spokes. Never bothered to use a spoke tension gauge, and I'm too tone deaf to use the plucking trick. I'd just squeeze the spoke pairs to roughly guesstimate tension. Or maybe those rims were going to fail after 30 years regardless. Who knows. Just an odd coincidence that both failed the same week.

IPassGas

The wheel was built by the bike maker. This is the 3rd wheel failure in 2 years. They have previously said they would take care of me, but I cannot trust them any longer. I should have walked away earlier. Time to move on.

fietsbob

Might get better durability with a heavier rim.. double wall ferruled spoke holes.. Hub & rim with more spokes.. not fewer..









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Crankycrank

What make, model and spoke number is the rim? Might give us a clue as to whether this is normally a crack prone rim.

dedhed

I would talk to the shop you're dealing with. Maybe propose warranty from mfg on this wheel, LBS keep replacement wheel having $X value, credit you that $X toward a wheel build you can trust.

jaws7

My rear rim looked just like that about 500 miles ago. Last week it looked like this.

Your crack will only get worse.

davidad

Heavy anodizing is a brittle fracture waiting to happen.

trailangel

I don't think wheels are made by the bike manufacture... could be they buy ready made, machine made wheels in bulk.
I have purchased machine made wheels at good prices, but the tension is all over the place, some spokes really high and some really low on the same side.
I always slack all the spokes, and redo the wheels. They last longer this way.

IPassGas

They are likely to be made by bike builder on a custom bike as ours were. They have consistently chosen to use inferior rims which they claim have worked for them on 100/1000's of bikes, even after my concerns were explicitly stated. Sometimes long time bike experts just get things wrong and are slow to change.

trailangel

I don't buy into "consistently chosen to use inferior rims"..... it's the builder that is inferior.

IPassGas

The wheel builder of the company has built 1000's of wheels. They have been, unfortunately, slow to accept that their rims of choice, which they are very familiar with, are simply not sufficient for the needs of the bike. It took 3 failed wheels to convince me, and I have deferred to their much greater experience in the past, but no longer. These little forum blurbs cannot capture the context of interactions over 2 years. The shop is otherwise outstanding at most other things, but needless to say, wheels are really important.

trailangel

One day, maybe you will tell us what rim this is and what custom bike you have.