Tunnelrat81

To you wheel guys.

This front wheel belongs to a friend of mine, has years of use/abuse on it and recently broke a spoke. He handed it to me to take care of the replacement, and I did just that, asking the LBS to contact Cane Creek who happily sent a few spokes for free. After bringing that spoke back up to tension, I noted that the wheel was true, but that the spoke tension was WAY off in multiple areas around the wheel. It didn't take much loosening (all around in order to relax and re-tension more evenly) to see that the wheel had been put through previous "retruing" after sustaining rim damage. There is a notably crooked section of the rim that is nearly impossible to straighten short of extremely uneven tension...unevenness that I'm not comfortable returning his wheel to him with. He's been out of town and before he's back I'd like to at least have some options for him besides buying a new front wheel.

The problem that I have is that although the rim in question is a Velocity Aerohead rim, It's got non standard drilling for the Cane Creek straight pull spokes that use nipples on the hub side (see picture) and on the rim end, the drillings are very small, allowing only the width of the spoke through, with the spokes straight (non elbowed) head resting on this rim where a nipple would seat on a normal rim.

This rim is very popular and widely available, just not in the "cane creek" drillings, at least that I've found.

Have any of you ever worked on these wheels, replaced rims, or even ordered them from anywhere? I've emailed a few places including Cane Creek, Velocity and others about tracking down availability info and pricing, but haven't yet heard back. I'd appreciate any help you could give me so that I can get by friend back on the road. Thanks.

-Jeremy

Kimmo

Maye you could use a normal Aerohead and some extra cut down, countersunk nipples to seat those spokes?

urbanknight

That would require the spokes to be threaded at both ends. I was thinking maybe a normal Aerohead with spokehead washers, but I'm not sure it would work.

As a side note, this is one of the things I love about riding only traditionally built wheels.

dabac

It is often entirely possible to unlace a rim, manually bend it back into true, lace it up again and end up with a serviceable wheel, both in trueness and spoke tension balance. Should be a couple of threads about it.

If such a wheel would be tested to destruction it would probably not do as well as one that hadn't been manually straightened, but no one has been able to quantify how much strength/durability that would
be lost.
I've got a few wheels resurrected like this, and while I haven't taken them touring they seem to be doing just fine for the everyday riding they get.

DannoXYZ 

Yes, I've repaired quite a few bent rims via the "door-frame" method as well and they definitely built back up with much more even tension and fewer S-bends than before. Not quite as good as brand-new rim, but very usable. Still have one of these repaired Mavic MA-40 20-years later with over 40,000k-miles on it.

Tunnelrat81

Is that repair something that you would feel comfortable doing for someone else? On a FRONT wheel? There are definitely things that I'm comfortable doing on my own bike that I probably wouldn't do for others, especially with a front wheel that often accompanies me down 50+ mph descents. Hmm. I guess I'll wait to hear back from Cane Creek and Velocity and consider this method only if it's our last option. It is good to know that it's at least possible.

-Jeremy

Tunnelrat81

Actually this sounds interesting. It would add about 25 gr. to the wheel, but if I shaved off the slotted end of a brass nipple....and drilled out the threads to the spoke diameter...I could probably get it all to seat properly and lace up exactly the way it does on this rim.

*edit* Not sure if it would increase the ERD, but with the two rims side by side I'd be able to measure that easily enough. I'd want to leave as much nipple material in place as possible for strength.

-Jeremy

Tunnelrat81

I agree, its one of the reasons why I plan to build my own set rather than buy the more affordable Neuvations that so many friends have had excellent luck with. I'm light enough that most any wheel will work for me, I just don't like having my hands tied when something goes wrong.

-Jeremy

urbanknight

I thought Neuvations were built with traditional parts. My Forte Titans (I believe the same as the M28) and they have J-bend spokes with standard brass nipples.

Tunnelrat81

I could be thinking about the Aero line...that have the thickly bladed spokes. The SL series probably does use standard spokes.

-Jeremy

Tunnelrat81

Anybody else have any other ideas/suggestions? Are these wheels so uncommon that nobody has ever had to replace a rim on one?

-Jeremy

Kimmo

I was thinking it'd be a good use for ally nipples - besides being much easier to work, the disadvantages of ally don't seem to apply here since they're only being asked to be stepped washers. As for spoke length, I'd say it shouldn't need to use more than what's protruding from the nipples in your pic.

Front wheels have a lot more strength in reserve (if the same rim and spoke count); they only have 40% of the total weight on them most of the time, tend to miss some of the worst hits the back wheel cops, and have much greater lateral spoke angle and no dish.

FuryUs1

True, but I think he was probably referring to the bad things that happen after a failure in the front.

DannoXYZ 

Also under braking, the front wheel experiences higher loads than anything the rear-wheel would ever endure. If I had a choice of which wheel to have crumple under me, I'd pick the rear.

Kimmo

Yeah, you wouldn't want a lot of tension discrepancy, I guess

Tunnelrat81

Follow up here.

Contacted Cane Creek, They no longer have access to those replacement rims. They haven't sold the wheelset in 8 yrs. so the best they could offer was nipple spacers (similar to what Kimmo suggested) at the tune of $1 per spacer....Hmm.

I also heard back from Velocity, the man I spoke with ran out to the warehouse to see if they had any with that special drilling left over, and was able to find a couple of the last rims in silver, not black. Said the price should be fairly close to the regular Aerohead rim, but I'll have to order it through my LBS.

Thanks for the advice. I should be able to talk to the wheel's owner soon and find out if he even wants to bother with a repair, then decide whether he wants to buy the silver rim or buy a regular aerohead rim in black and make the spacers ourselves (probably out of brass nipples). Time will tell, and I'll post what we end up doing in case anyone cares. =)

-Jeremy