Catastrophic carbon wheel failure.

[Elefantino]

Gianni Moscon of Team Sky hit a hole with his Pro® Tri-Spoke wheel during the TTT at Tirreno-Adriatico today and it exploded. Don't know how to embed this video or I would.

Rule: Don't use anything carbon that you wouldn't want to fail, disastrously. Except frames, of course.

https://video.twimg.com/tweet_video/C6Z0IbTWQAIqzvf.mp4

[mavic1010]

From the video, it looks like he had a puncture or the tyre became unglued and then the carbon hit the manhole/ground causing the failure....

[Elefantino]

From the video, it looks like he had a puncture or the tyre became unglued and then the carbon hit the manhole/ground causing the failure....
He said on TV that he hit a hole. Nothing to do with the tubular.

[Veloo]

Cycling Weekly says Geraint Thomas tweeted about three of the riders having broken wheels.

[David Tollefson]

What hole? Going frame-by-frame through that video, the wheel explodes before he hits anything.

[MattTuck]

Marginal gains. the gift that keeps on giving.

[William]

What hole? Going frame-by-frame through that video, the wheel explodes before he hits anything.

That's what i see as well. Something is going on, and it blows up just before he gets to the manhole cover. Weird.





William

[MattTuck]

Looking at the formation he was riding in (or lack thereof), I think the wheel was in the process of failing, and he pulled out of the line. The hole is not shown in that video clip. The fact it was near a manhole cover is just coincidence.

That's my viewing of it.

[Clean39T]

That's what i see as well. Something is going on, and it blows up just before he gets to the manhole cover. Weird.

William

Magnets? ;)

[tuscanyswe]

Looking at the formation he was riding in (or lack thereof), I think the wheel was in the process of failing, and he pulled out of the line. The hole is not shown in that video clip. The fact it was near a manhole cover is just coincidence.

That's my viewing of it.



Def something like that cause the rider to the right of him is clearly moving away from him on purpose because he knows something is up quite a while before we actually see him go down.

[biker72]

Looks like they need to put anti-explosion guards on all carbon wheels from now on...:p

[sandyrs]

He said on TV that he hit a hole. Nothing to do with the tubular.

Without a video of what actually happened (more than just the second leading up to the crash) it's impossible to know whether or not this is actually what caused the failure. Recent history shows how unreliable riders' accounts of crashes can be.

[chiasticon]

Without a video of what actually happened (more than just the second leading up to the crash) it's impossible to know whether or not this is actually what caused the failure. Recent history shows how unreliable riders' accounts of crashes can be.agreed. also he's prolly not gonna throw the team mechanic under the bus (if tubular came off). never a good idea. and certainly not a sponsor (if wheel failure).

[MattTuck]

Without a video of what actually happened (more than just the second leading up to the crash) it's impossible to know whether or not this is actually what caused the failure. Recent history shows how unreliable riders' accounts of crashes can be.

pff, are you applying for a job as an FAA crash investigator? Our task here is jumping to spurious and unsupported conclusions from 3 seconds of Zapruder-esque footage. :p:D

[sandyrs]

pff, are you applying for a job as an FAA crash investigator? Our task here is jumping to spurious and unsupported conclusions from 3 seconds of Zapruder-esque footage. :p:D

Ah sorry you're right-

er, uh, that wasn't actually a PRO-manufactured wheel, it was a rebranded prototype that Specialized forced Sky (via blackmail related to recent doping allegations, of course) to use in its ploy to make disc brakes mandatory by international law and enforced by Interpol.

[rwsaunders]

From the video, it looks like he had a puncture or the tyre became unglued and then the carbon hit the manhole/ground causing the failure....

Agreed...the manhole cover was just the icing on the cake as it appears like the tire was coming off the rim, the wheel hit the cover and wa-la...carbon fiber confetti. He's a brave lad for getting on the spare bike with the same wheels and tires...

http://video.eurosport.co.uk/cycling/tirreno-adriatico/2017/exploding-wheel-sends-team-sky-rider-gianni-moscon-flying_vid963083/video.shtml

[tourmalet]

Now there's a solid conspiracy theory!

Ah sorry you're right-

er, uh, that wasn't actually a PRO-manufactured wheel, it was a rebranded prototype that Specialized forced Sky (via blackmail related to recent doping allegations, of course) to use in its ploy to make disc brakes mandatory by international law and enforced by Interpol.

[Elefantino]

Looking at the formation he was riding in (or lack thereof), I think the wheel was in the process of failing, and he pulled out of the line. The hole is not shown in that video clip. The fact it was near a manhole cover is just coincidence.

That's my viewing of it.
Yes. He said he hit the hole earlier, not at the point of failure.

[cdn_bacon]

Magnets? ;)

nailed it

[MattTuck]

Not sure if any of you listen to the recon ride podcast, but Dane Cash has been critical of team time trials in the past. His main objections are that it favors the bigger teams, and is just not very exciting racing. In general I agree with him, and think that team TTs should be limited in length such that time gaps don't get out of hand, but I don't think they should be eliminated completely because it is a distinct discipline of the sport, and forces teams, manufacturers and mechanics to demonstrate competency, if not excellence, in the discipline.

Some of the first bike races were organized so that manufacturers could show that their equipment was durable/functional. If you extend that to today, manufacturers still need to show their products performing at the highest level.

Whatever the real cause, whether it be defective product, accident, poor gluing by the mechanic, etc., I do think this is why a team time trial has some value. It puts all these stakeholders under a microscope and exposes any flaws.

[DRietz]

He knew what was coming, as did his teammates - you can see him unclip before everything explodes and then there's not even a sideways glance from the guy who pulled way out right.

[torquer]

My "crack" network security at work prevents me from seeing the video, but does anyone else suspect that the disc brakes Cannondale/Drapac were running are the real culprits here?

[colker]

It breaks before the man hole. And... the hole is covered. I can roll by that thing everyday on my wheels and nothing will happen.
The wheel failed.

[seanile]

From the video, it looks like he had a puncture or the tyre became unglued and then the carbon hit the manhole/ground causing the failure....

manhole is after the shadow. wheel exploded before the shadow

Looking at the formation he was riding in (or lack thereof), I think the wheel was in the process of failing, and he pulled out of the line. The hole is not shown in that video clip. The fact it was near a manhole cover is just coincidence.

That's my viewing of it.

this seems right given how the other riders looked to be in the process of distancing themselves from him

[berserk87]

Judging by the rider's reaction before the wheel failure, he knew something was afoot. He was coasting and had pulled out of line. It does not seem that it failed without warning. It's important to note that we are only seeing a few seconds of video on this. The damaging impact could have happened minutes before. It could have caused damage that was allowing the wheel to come undone before the video that was shown.

It's impossible to see what really happened without watching a video of the entire event up to the crash, and even then, video might not reveal anything extraordinary.

As the Shimano spokesman said, BMC rode the same wheels and nothing happened (other than a victory). It's hard to make a sweeping condemnation of the wheels based on 6 seconds of video. I'm sure that there will be a more detailed autopsy pending.

[weisan]

http://alicehui.com/bike/sky/sky.jpg

[DRZRM]

Goddam*ed rim brakes, they will be the death of us all. They should be banned from pro racing!! If only we'd never given up drum brakes!!

[oldpotatoe]

http://alicehui.com/bike/sky/sky.jpg

Actually 3 wheel failures..

Shimano have said that they are investigating how as many as three of their wheels failed dramatically during the team time trial on the opening stage of Tirreno-Adriatico. The incidents saw Team Sky lose time and essentially drop out of the general classification battle. BMC’s winning time was over 58km/h for the 22.7km course.

[fignon's barber]

Actually 3 wheel failures..


Three wheel explosions over a 23km course. That's not very good durability:rolleyes:

[EDS]

Three wheel explosions over a 23km course. That's not very good durability:rolleyes:

Not Shimano's best day for sure.

[alembical]

It will be interesting to find out more about why they had 3 failures and BMC had none. These wheels have had lots of testing without this happening before. It does make you wonder what went wrong and why it just affected them and this time. Different glue, storage, etc.. something has to have caused this. The course was not overly difficult, very little braking, heat, etc..

[FL_MarkD]

Bad magnet glue, happens to everybody :D

[charliedid]

Stupid wheels, I blame Russia.

[steelbikerider]

Conspiracy theory here. Maybe the lead rider didn't point out a pot hole(heads down, aero bars, etc.) and 3 following riders hit it while BMC missed it.

[adub]

A TUE will definitely be required to recover from that crash

[Dead Man]

"There I was, just riding along with my mates..."

[dgauthier]

It will be interesting to find out more about why they had 3 failures and BMC had none.

Each team would conceivably get its wheels all at once, but at different times for each team. So a spike of failures with one team might indicate a bad manufacturing run.

Those wheels remind me of the Spinergy's that were spontaneously blowing up a while back.

[BobO]

It will be interesting to find out more about why they had 3 failures and BMC had none. These wheels have had lots of testing without this happening before. It does make you wonder what went wrong and why it just affected them and this time. Different glue, storage, etc.. something has to have caused this. The course was not overly difficult, very little braking, heat, etc..

It seems very likely that BMC did not hit the hole in the road that Sky did. Outside of that, we will never know if the Sky wheels had a defect, or if there was a design or manufacturing flaw in all of the wheels and BMC got lucky.

[cnighbor1]

With 3 spokes a lot of load goes to those three areas of contact with the rim

1.Direct impact which could weaken the attachment point at the rim

2.Side loads Going around corners would tend to impose loads from different directions (see 1 above)

And you saw results failure

Charles Nighbor BS Architectural Engineering LTU 58

[nooneline]

With 3 spokes a lot of load goes to those three areas of contact with the rim

1.Direct impact which could weaken the attachment point at the rim

2.Side loads Going around corners would tend to impose loads from different directions (see 1 above)

And you saw results failure

Charles Nighbor BS Architectural Engineering LTU 58

The thing is, though, with the exception of this one incident - which is extremely strange given the reported failure of 3 wheels - trispokes are not known for failing. Specialized and then HED have produced trispokes for close to 30 years. They're widely used in time trials, TTTs, tri, ironman, and track racing. So it's hard to conclude that the failure stems from something inherent to trispokes without a liberal dose of selection bias.

[oldpotatoe]

The thing is, though, with the exception of this one incident - which is extremely strange given the reported failure of 3 wheels - trispokes are not known for failing. Specialized and then HED have produced trispokes for close to 30 years. They're widely used in time trials, TTTs, tri, ironman, and track racing. So it's hard to conclude that the failure stems from something inherent to trispokes without a liberal dose of selection bias.

Pro statement..in other words, we don't know what happened.

"PRO is continuing its investigation into the issue we saw with Team Sky at the team time trial of Tirreno-Adriatico. We are continuing to look closely into all factors that could cause the incident.

AdTech Ad
During production the three-spoke wheel passed PRO's extremely high internal quality control and ISO/UCI standards. PRO's three-spoke wheel was introduced in 2014 and has a flawless record, achieving countless time trial victories since, including BMC's team time trial win in the same stage.

In the meantime we wish Gianni Moscon the best of luck in the remaining stages of Tirreno-Adriatico."

[stephenmarklay]

And this is why I ride aluminum. After I discovered I was riding a failed Specialized Roval wheel I switched back.

[cmbicycles]

It was interesting watching the UCI race in Richmond last year. Where I was standing watching the TT there was a sunken manhole cover. One rider hit it and it sounded like a sledge hammer hitting concrete, bounced him around pretty good. There was no lifting up on the bike at all as his head was down so I guess he never saw it. His bottle ejected but he kept going...team car stopped to pick it up. No idea what the pothole here looked like that Sky hit, but based on how hard the guy at the WC hit that manhole cover I wouldn't doubt that could be the death knell for many a wheel.

[kevinvc]

Inserting a micro-motor into the hub weakens the wheels overall structural integrity.

[MaraudingWalrus]

.

[kevinvc]

.

Your reason for editing may be the best thing posted on the internet today. Well done. And for your child:
:banana::banana::banana::banana:

[MaraudingWalrus]

Your reason for editing may be the best thing posted on the internet today. Well done. And for your child:

:banana::banana::banana::banana:


Oh it wasn't an actual toddler.....it was the boss at the shop!


I'll pass on your banana well-wishes, though.

[bikingshearer]

Your various theories are interesting, but you are all missing the obvious. Bernard Hinault secretly swapped in a sabotaged wheel thinking that Greg Lemond would be riding that bike . . . .