TXsailor

I finally go to ride my 89 Centurion Ironman today and have changed my mind about it being a bike I occasionally ride. This bike is too sweet to sit. I am wondering if the Araya 370 36 spoke wheels will hold up to every day use or do I need to find another set of wheels to use and put these back. The bike is really nice and I want to keep it as original as possible. And if I do need to have a set of beater wheels what should I look for. Thanks!

T-Mar

The biggest factor for wheel durability is how well the wheels are built. Next is your weight and, local road conditions. Rim weight is actually fairly far down the list. I've had good luck with well built CTL370 and other lightweight rims, despite being a relatively heavy rider, provided I'm careful on rough roads. Running maximum width tyres and slightly lower pressures will help with the latter.

texaspandj

Those wheels are sweet. I'm currently running a pair and I think I have a couple in my shed. The ones I'm running are 7 speed HG cassette While the others are UG, both with tricolor hubs.
Although relatively light for vintage wheels and me relatively heavy for my height, I haven't found any significant differences to my other wheels. Although reportedly they were prone to get out of true with narrow high pressure tires. So depending on your weight and road conditions I might opt for bigger tires as a precautionary measure.

seedsbelize 

I weigh 190, at 6', and have them on both my daily riders, with 25 mm tires. For some years now. And tri-color hubs.

dddd

One concern with these exact older Araya rims is their rounded bead hooks.

I've had both folding and wired-on tires blow off my front CTL370 after extended downhill braking heated up the rim.

Both of my dislodged tires were mounted with care so as not to pinch a tube, but both tires were somewhat aged.
I believe that aged tires do not retain as well under the bead nubs (not quite hooks on these rims), since the rubber coating at the bead is no longer supple or grippy.
They shoud be fine with fresh tires, but do not over-tension the 36 spokes, since this reduces the rim's bead seating diameter slightly.

I raced on these rims and used 28h front and 36h rear mostly. Another pair I had were 32/32h.
Not strong like an Open Pro, that's for sure!
Use NARROW Velox rim tape on these rims.

dailycommute

My 1987 Fuso came with a set of these laced to tri color hubs (7 speed). The rear wheel cracked after about 200 miles (6 ft 190) and now run a sun rim on same hub for rear. The rear started shimmying super bad right after a downhill blast, the spoke had pulled out!. Undid brakes and managed to somehow ride it home 6 or so miles. The rims seem like designed for riders 175 or less.

TXsailor

I should have said that I weigh 175-180. These have Bontrager 23c tires. I might try a 25 and see how they fit and feel. They have Suntour GPX hubs. The whole groupset is GPX. I may try to switch to a 28 tooth big cog this but that's another discussion.

RobbieTunes

I have never had an issue. Just do NOT run 700x18/19 on those, or even Hutchison Fusion Pro 700x20's.
They are so harsh, the wheels go out of true and you end up hating them. Been there, it was awful.

Stick with 23's. Take the wheels to your shop if they've been sitting more than a year.
Get them all "unloaded," then re-trued and re-tensioned. They will come super alive.

Then ride 'em like you stole 'em. They'll handle it.

canklecat

I should have taken this advice and had the shop redo my Araya CTL-370 and Wolber Super Champion Alpine wheels before both cracked this week. I kept thinking about it the past year and kept putting it off. Instead, every time the wheels developed any wobble I just grabbed the spoke wrench and "fixed" them. Probably over-tightened the spokes, got the wheel off balance and poof!