Clydes and Wheels,
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Clydes and Wheels,
A couple of weeks ago when I took my bike out for the first ride of the spring riding season, I noticed a tiny crack around one of the spoke holes. Sadly, the crack has worsened, and so now I am building a new wheel around my Velo Orange hub. My mechanic just ordered a new Velocity rim which hopefully will last at least as long as the cheaper Alex rim I was using.
Check your wheels folks. Though it is a huge bummer to be buying another wheel, or at least rim, it would have been much worse had the wheel failed in the middle of a big ride, or had I discovered the problem the day of a big ride.
Check your wheels folks. Though it is a huge bummer to be buying another wheel, or at least rim, it would have been much worse had the wheel failed in the middle of a big ride, or had I discovered the problem the day of a big ride.
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Which Velocity rim are you going to use? Deep V's have worked flawlessly for me over 20+ years.
I'm to the point where I will not use a cheap rim like Alex or stock Bontrager. Last couple of bikes I bought, the rims didn't even see pavement. I built wheels for the new bikes and never look back. Sometimes use the Fusion for the front as it is 5 mm less on the profile but yet, still very strong.
I myself have not had problems on a big ride but friends have. I carry my spoke wrench and make needed adjustments for them to finish the ride or head for safety. Pretty easy process to straighten up the wheel enough to make it back.
I'm to the point where I will not use a cheap rim like Alex or stock Bontrager. Last couple of bikes I bought, the rims didn't even see pavement. I built wheels for the new bikes and never look back. Sometimes use the Fusion for the front as it is 5 mm less on the profile but yet, still very strong.
I myself have not had problems on a big ride but friends have. I carry my spoke wrench and make needed adjustments for them to finish the ride or head for safety. Pretty easy process to straighten up the wheel enough to make it back.
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Alex rims, while they're inexpensive, are usually built stouter than higher-priced rims. This is where a spoke tensiometer can help, or failing that, a musical tuner. Unless you've ridden over curbs or canyon-sized potholes, you've exceeded the upper limit on spoke tension, which cracked the rim. As a fellow clyde, I can appreciate your need to increase spoke tension to prevent spoke breakage from cyclic stressing, but as you've found out, too much is just as bad as too little.
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Alex rims, while they're inexpensive, are usually built stouter than higher-priced rims. This is where a spoke tensiometer can help, or failing that, a musical tuner. Unless you've ridden over curbs or canyon-sized potholes, you've exceeded the upper limit on spoke tension, which cracked the rim. As a fellow clyde, I can appreciate your need to increase spoke tension to prevent spoke breakage from cyclic stressing, but as you've found out, too much is just as bad as too little.
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I got mine in silver with machined side walls and use cantilever brakes. The maker/model name decals were a bit large, but they came right off. Two years now and still good and still perfectly true..
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A couple of weeks ago when I took my bike out for the first ride of the spring riding season, I noticed a tiny crack around one of the spoke holes. Sadly, the crack has worsened, and so now I am building a new wheel around my Velo Orange hub. My mechanic just ordered a new Velocity rim which hopefully will last at least as long as the cheaper Alex rim I was using.
Check your wheels folks. Though it is a huge bummer to be buying another wheel, or at least rim, it would have been much worse had the wheel failed in the middle of a big ride, or had I discovered the problem the day of a big ride.
Check your wheels folks. Though it is a huge bummer to be buying another wheel, or at least rim, it would have been much worse had the wheel failed in the middle of a big ride, or had I discovered the problem the day of a big ride.
Cracking of a rim can occur with either tight spokes or loose spokes and both have a similar cause. Spokes are constantly undergoing tensioning and detensioning. Aluminum is a soft material and doesn’t really undergo constant flexing well but that constant tension/detension cycle is exactly what the rim is undergoing. There’s a pseudo Goldilocks tension level but the rim is still going to flex with each rotation. We big guys happen to make the rim flex more than smaller people so we (probably) tend to crack more rims.
You are also making a mistake in thinking that a cracked rim will result in a catastrophic failure. The wheel is not likely to collapse in the middle of a ride. The wheel may not stay true but it’s not going to fail in a mode that would result in a crash.
Dropping off curbs and hitting potholes aren’t going to cause the cracks. Cracks are more of a chronic problem. A localized impact...even a large one...will flex the rim but the rest of the wheel structure absorbs that impact. The aluminum, being soft, will likely absorb a lot of the energy of a single impact. The constant flexing during the tension/detension cycle is what does the damage to the aluminum.
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I just run Gravel Wheels. Mavic Allroad and Shimano GRX. Double bonus is running very fat tires.
40mm Yksion on the Mavics
38mm GravelKing + on the GRX.
They're no Zipp 353 NSWs, but the tubeless are mounted, they hold air and can take a hit.
As all things Clydesdale / Athena your mileage may very (I guess literally in this case)
40mm Yksion on the Mavics
38mm GravelKing + on the GRX.
They're no Zipp 353 NSWs, but the tubeless are mounted, they hold air and can take a hit.
As all things Clydesdale / Athena your mileage may very (I guess literally in this case)
Last edited by SCTinkering; 04-25-21 at 07:40 PM.
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I recently found a brake track crack on a Velocity Chukker 700c rim on the back of one of my bikes. The rim is 15 years old, has 36 spokes, running on a Velo Orange hub. The brake track has quite a bit of wear. This bike was used on gravel roads a lot. I assume that the brake track wear plus all the rotational tensioning cycles over the years caused this failure. Probably buy another Chukker rim at this point. The rim failure was spotted by pulsing in the rim brake lever. This led me to inspect and find this problem. This rim had been installed on four different hubs over the years. Sorry to see it go.