Old Zipp Wheelset, and I mean old!

[Powerfibers]

Just came into an old set of 404s with the ballistic gold carbon hubs. Do these have any value? Can they be rebuilt with different hubs and spokes? They seem remarkably well kept, and the tires even held air. Any info is appreciated. Thanks, Bob

[berserk87]

I would not think that they would be all that in demand as a collectible.

Those hubs were not the best. I bought a zillion of them at a local swap meet from Zipp years ago, new, for $5 per hub. I remember them being gritty, out of the box. They did look cool, though.

Zipp is located in Indy, and they used to come to the Central Indiana Bicycling Association swap meet to sell prototypes, demos and seconds. They don't come to the swap meet anymore, but old 404's often find their way there. They generally sell for about $250 or less, per set.

Wheels are a tough item as a collectible, particularly carbon wheels, because most folks that are buying them are doing so to use them. For most of the market older wheels like this may be less 'vintage' and more 'just old'.

When I think of vintage wheels, I think of old Campy stuff, or Ambrosia, and even then, these are generally aluminum box-section rims.

Are you looking to sell these or use them, or just trying to figure out what to do?

[Powerfibers]

Are you looking to sell these or use them, or just trying to figure out what to do?

I figured I would ask. Would they be safe to take a spin on? Might just hang on the wall!

[weisan]

Here's what I would do if you are worried about personal safety. I would perform some pre-ride "stress tests" - squeeze parallel spokes hard between your thumb and four fingers, listen for creaking sound and if one or more spokes broke under your eagle claw, then there you have it. If it passed the first test, then I would proceed on with the second test. Put a towel on the ground, place the wheel vertically with both hands grabbed hold of the top section of the wheel , then pressed down and let it momentarily support your weight. Go round the rim, do the same thing. If nothing breaks, then you are ready to perform test no.3. Send your irritating sibling or cousin down the road with the wheels on a bike, ask them to jump off the curb or hop around a bit, see what happens. If they survived, then what you want to do is ride around the parking lot for a couple of rounds or up and down your street, before you venture too far, make sure you have someone with you close by in case the wheels suddenly collapsed or imploded, they can call the ambulance. If everything else fails, you can always hang it back on the wall, be sure to attach a note for your descendants or anyone who might inherit this piece of art that says, "Do not ride. For display purposes only."

[Powerfibers]

I hate to think what you edited or cut out! Yeesh!

Question is...does carbon degrade to a point where it is unsafe even when it looks in good condition?

[rustychisel]

I hate to think what you edited or cut out! Yeesh!

Question is...does carbon degrade to a point where it is unsafe even when it looks in good condition?


Oh!!

http://simonstratford.com/wp-content/uploads/can-of-worms.jpg

[Saint Vitus]

Packed in awesome sauce. For reals.

Oh!!

http://simonstratford.com/wp-content/uploads/can-of-worms.jpg

[weisan]

I hate to think what you edited or cut out! Yeesh!

Question is...does carbon degrade to a point where it is unsafe even when it looks in good condition?

Meh, you didn't miss anything. I just forgot to post this picture of a bent carbon wheel that happened during a crash at the recent Milan SanRemo... :D

http://forums.thepaceline.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=1697916923&stc=1&d=1458422809


sorry fibres pal, I didn't mean to be crass. I don't think anyone can tell you 100% for sure. It all depends on the history of that wheel and what was done to it beforehand. You probably know better than anyone else. As far as just sitting there for a while unused, I doubt it will degrade significantly in the real sense of the word. But I have had bikes that I have hung up on the wall sustained more damage than riding them just because of one senior moment of dropping them while moving them around the different hooks.

I still think the "pre-ride stress tests" and parking-lot-easy-spin is a good starting place if you are really worried about its integrity.

[Powerfibers]

You're right, no one really could really say without knowing the history, etc... I might just mess with them a little. I'm definitely going to save the Warhol Can o Worms!
Thanks. I might use them on my L'Eroica time trial bike. LOL.

[carpediemracing]

Just came into an old set of 404s with the ballistic gold carbon hubs. Do these have any value? Can they be rebuilt with different hubs and spokes? They seem remarkably well kept, and the tires even held air. Any info is appreciated. Thanks, Bob

Unless someone laced over new rims onto the gold hubs, the rims will be the older 440s.

The 440s respond very poorly to excess spoke tension, with early versions splitting in half if you have anything close to moderately high spoke tension. Don't ask me how I learned this, over and over, on 440s and their smaller brethren 340s.

Zipp made running changes to their 440 rims during production, as one of their people told me when I was warrantying yet another rim. I think in just one year they'd made something like 20 or 30 changes (anyone who knows more about this feel free to pitch in; I only heard this while being a dissatisfied customer). I'm pretty sure later 440s will withstand more tension than early ones. I'd assume that any rim still in existence is a later version.

Long before Zipp went to 404s they also had silver/black hubs, their second gen hub.

In 2009 I finally unlaced an early model 440 off its silver/black hub (second or third build of that rim, originally on a Ballistic rear hub), laced it onto a front hub (Campy NR 24H, believe it or not), and raced it for a season. Pretty flexible so it was a last resort wheel, meaning a spare. In 2010 I went to wide rims so that wheel is no longer used.

Zipp hub timeline:
http://www.zipp.com/support/identify/hub_timeline.php

Zipp wheel timeline:
http://www.zipp.com/support/identify/wheel_timeline.php

[phutterman]

I have a set of 440s - front is silver/carbon shell, rear has been relaced (not by me) to a track hub - of that era, though the rear's rim shape is a hair newer - that I got used a couple years ago that have so far been solid and stood up to track racing but I didn't really realize when I got them how old they must be (front hub dates them to mid-90s) and have been starting to think they're too old to trust...and this talk seems to confirm that.

Does anyone think that continuing to use (race) them is anything but a Bad Idea?

[Powerfibers]

Thank you CarpeDiemRacing for the info. These are the early gold 1990's ones. First year, yikes!

[deechee]

440's. Yeah, my tri friends and I had a set of those that we borrowed between each other since not many of us 650c wheels. I think they ended up in the trash more than 5 years ago though, as none of us had much confidence in them, and finding 650c tires was hard enough...

[carpediemracing]

I did some stress tests, if you will, on the rims. I knew they were raceable - the last time they were raced before I unlaced them was in the Pan Am road race, with long sections of dirt road. They were fine under a much stronger rider than myself.

Also, since many of the multiple 340s and 440s I owned already split, I figured if this 440 didn't split it was because they put too much resin or something in the rim.

The hub... those things are sketchy at best. What the Zipp timeline doesn't say is that the hubs move laterally a decent amount, maybe 3-4 mm, because of the way the bearings aren't really fixed. I can't remember exactly how it worked but suffice it to say that the front hub was basically unrideable for me. The rear wasn't as bad because you can always slide the rear wheel around without problems, but to have the front feel like it was sliding around, not good.

Check the rims, don't tension them a lot (2/3 to 3/4 of normal low tension in a 32H wheel), use a locking compound on the nipples so the nipples don't loosen up due to lack of tension. I can't remember but I'm pretty sure that I went maybe a turn total, maybe 1-1/2 turn, once there was some resistance in the spoke wrench. Normally I'd be going 2-3 turns or more after the resistance, especially on the drive side rear. I didn't dare go beyond just a turn or so, and this is why I relaced to a front hub. When I built it on the rear I tensioned the drive side about that much and used red loctite on the nondriveside.

For me the 440 was okay as a spare front wheel. As a rear, not very good, except maybe in a even-tension situation, like a single speed rear wheel. For sure not a high stress situation, like a tandem.