am I the worlds toughest on rear wheels?

[TmcDet]

I having been fighting problems with my rear wheel for about a yr now. When the wheel was brand new it lasted about 400 miles before it stripped a nipple out and then for one reason or another the wheel would have to be trued every 400-500 miles after that, till finally one of the eyelets came off of it and I had to send it back to Wheelsmith for them to replace the rim and rebuild it....I just knew this would be the end of the problem of this wheel but now that I finally have the wheel back with less than 400 miles on it and all of a sudden it is out of true again.....there is one spoke that is real lose and several others that seam to be loose, Wheelsmith wants me to send the wheel back to them again and let them what they can do about it. I really don't want to be without a wheel again, and honestly don't have much faith in them if they haven't gotten it right in two attempts....one of the things that I am thinking of is to have someone local rebuild it and see if they can get it right (this way will cost me more but would be worth it if the problem is solved).

The wheel in question here is a Mavic Open Pro rim laced to a Chorus hub (32 spokes). I weigh 190-195 and would think that this should be a very reliable wheel for me but for some reason it hasn't been.

[Kevan]

spokes and lacing? Soldering might be old fashioned and deemed by some as ineffective, but maybe... just maybe, it would help you in your fight for a better wheel. :D

[e-RICHIE]

call joe young in fredricksburg.
he's without peer.
e-RICHIE

[bostondrunk]

BUy a spoke wrench and tighten the wheel yourself, or take it to the LBS. There is no need to ship a standard wheel away for truing..

[weisan]

call joe young in fredricksburg.
he's without peer.
e-RICHIE

Interesting, I should pay Joe a visit the next time I drive up to that area.

[christian]

First, at 195 lbs, I'd seriously think about a 36h hub.

Additionally, the Campy hubs have extremely severe dish, which doesn't help matters. Basically, the entire radial load of the wheel is carried by the non-drive side spokes. I'd definitely recommend an offset rim (Velocity O/C), to help counteract this.

I think if you build the wheel well with an O/C rim, you should be ok with your existing 32h hub, but for future purchases, I'd definitely think about getting a 36h hub.

Regards,
- Christian

[toaster]

In your post you might have mentioned if you are, admittedly, really hard on wheels or if you just are good at hitting potholes.

It's a good bet that the rim is the problem. The only reason to send it back is if they are absolutely going to use a new rim. Did they really replace the rim the last time or did they just say so?

That combination should be entirely bulletproof. I'm about that same weight and 32 holes is fine and is strongest with a custom, not machine build.

[William]

Watch it there TmcDet, your coming mighty close to copywrite infringment. Cease & desist now and change your thread title. "I am the worlds toughest on rear wheels" TM is my slogan (=rant). Along with:

YOOU SON OF A *****!! (TM)

WHAT THE!!! (TM)

NOT AGAIN DA***!! (TM)

NOT AGAIN YOU MUTHA *****!! (TM)

WHOSE YOUR DADDY!!! (TM)

(rising in crescendo as I wind up and huck the wheel into the woods) lets see how you liKE LIVING WITH THE FRIGGIN SQUIRRLES!!! (TM)

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE...ah, sorry, wrong thread. :rolleyes:

ANY WAY :rolleyes: , you will find lots of good info on strong wheels here:

http://forums.thepaceline.net/showthread.php?t=2777

William :rolleyes: :)

[csb]

funny you should mention woods/bike parts/furry-tailed rodentia...
squirrels love bike parts, they build RECUMBENTS with them.

[Tom Robison]

I second the 36 hole. I'm riding an Open Pro with a 36 hole, 3x lacing Campy hub and I've got 13,000 miles on it. Bombproof. Built by Peter Chisholm at Vecchios. It has stayed true since birth. I weigh 183 lbs and Peter recommended the 36h. A good handbuilt wheel shouldn't be acting like yours. :crap:

Peter's building me new wheels and I'm going with a Velocity Aerohead OC rear to help mitigate the severe dish Campy hubs present.

Good luck,

Tom

[oracle]

Originally Posted by e-RICHIE
call joe young in fredricksburg.
he's without peer.
e-RICHIE


i'm with e-r
but then again, every wheel builder i have ever known has considered himself to be without peer.

vote early, vote often
oracle

[e-RICHIE]

"but then again, every wheel builder i have ever
known has considered himself to be without peer."




oracle-issimo...
i was making the qualifier, not joe!
e-RICHIE

[BigMac]

At your mass, assuming of course you are not hitting every pothole and rock in sight or using these wheels to double for 'cross duty, 32H should be fine if built correctly. Yes Campy 9/10 has worse dish than Shimano, but not THAT much worse...heck they both build with terrible dish. There are better rim choices, but I know plenty of folks bigger than you using same setup getting much better results. BTW: unlike a previous poster, its the drive-side that takes bulk of load, not non-drive due to the terrible dish. I would NEVER send wheels off to be built elsewhere, but that's just me. I have nothing against the mail order guys, its just a local guy who can service any problems that may arise such as in your case is a far better choice. Joe does build fine wheels but w/o peer? Not hardly. He wasn't even the best in town when he was shlepping his wares in Bay Area several years back...no offense but there are LOTS of skilled wheelsmiths throughout US, simply no reason to send mailorder. If you do live near Joe, then he would be a wonderful choice for a fine wheel. otherwise call around to local bike clubs, there should be 1 or 2 local wheelsmiths to serve your needs.

To deal with the problems you are experiencing, much more info is needed. You do not mention spoke breakage, only trueing, nipple and rim eyelet issues, true?. Are these alloy nipples by chance? If so, this is your primary culprit, ALWAYS use brass in rear. Alloy nipples loosen, stretch, strip, corrode, sheer..... What is respective lacing l/r(drive, non-drive). What spoke choice? Same throughout or differential l/r? If you rebuild wheel w/14g straight laced 3x on drive and butted 14g laced 2x on left using only brass nipples and properly tensioned, you should eliminate any problems you are experiencing. Tension should be rechecked at first 100-200 miles, otherwise they should be fine for at least 2500 miles before any trueing issues.

If you are interested in the ultimate bomb-proof setup, get a Bontrager Aurora OSB rim in rear. Assymetrically drilled, MUCH better quality than the Velocity/Ritchey rim at a bargain $39USD retail. These are available in 32 and 36H drillings. Choose 32H to retain existing hub, same lacing, spoke guage and brass nipples as above. You will however have a noticably stiffer wheel torsionally, in fact the left spoke tension will be nearly identical to right side. Good luck.

Ride on! :banana: :banana: :banana:

[OldDog]

I had the same problem. I weigh 190 - 200 depending on current indulgences.
Same set up as you, but record hub. Two different builders too. Switched to the Velocity Aerohead OC, no more worries.

Pig out - often. :beer:

[e-RICHIE]

BigMac-issimo wrote (snipped):
"Joe does build fine wheels but w/o peer? Not hardly. He wasn't even the best in town when he was shlepping his wares in Bay Area several years back..."



sorry for giving my opinion.
e-RICHIE

[flydhest]

OK, so e-richie, BigMac . . . doesn't matter. Suppose Joe is the best . . . it doesn't matter. For a feller the size of the original poster (like me, or perhaps a touch smaller--I couldn't resist the cheese course) a 32-hole Open Pro with those hubs should have held up. Heck, I know, I mean KNOW, that I'm no where near as good a wheel builder as Joe Young and yet I've had wheels I've built to those same specs hold up. Someone suggested you got a bum rim. I think that sounds likely. Others have suggested 36 holes. Seriously couldn't hurt, although my experience leads me to believe that it oughtn't be necessary. A fully competent builder should be able to give you what you need. I would find out if Wheelsmith gave you a new rim and new spokes and new nipples. If not, they can rebuild it, but you could be in for a repeat performance. My advice, worth roughly twice what you're paying for it (that is to say, zero) would be to get someone who is both local and competent to build you a set of wheels with Centaur hubs and 36 hole, offset Bontrager rims regardless. This will set you back a couple hundred bucks, literally like $300 at most. Then you will have a set of rims that will never, ever, fail. Really. I'm reasonably smart, not too talented, but if I pay attention, I can build wheels that will hold up to my 200 pound, sprinter-wannabe-commute on DC streets-self. If I can do that, then someone who does it regularly can do it at least as well if not better. Once you have that, keep experimenting with other wheels, get Wheelsmith to hook you up. But have a set of bombproof wheels that will ALWAYS work.

[e-RICHIE]

flydhest-issimo wrote (snipped):
" My advice...would be to get someone who is both local
and competent to build you a set of wheels"




the original query came from texas.
in addition to my built-in prejudices, i thought recommending
a wheelbuilder in texas was, er, a good thing.

[saab2000]

Originally Posted by e-RICHIE
call joe young in fredricksburg.
he's without peer.
e-RICHIE


i'm with e-r
but then again, every wheel builder i have ever known has considered himself to be without peer.

vote early, vote often
oracle

Hi Kids,

I have built dozens of wheels. Yes, only dozens. Not hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands. I consider myself to be pretty darn good, but not without peer. Surely there are superiors out there. But there are also inferiors.

This spring I had a wheel built at an LBS where my folks live. I simply had no time as I was starting the new job and it would only cost me about $35 more than doing it myself. In the end it was a disaster. I kept wondering why I had to retrue it over and over. And the spokes didn't feel all that tight. It was a rear built with a Bontrager offset rear rim and a Mavic hub.

Finally, I removed the tape and discovered the problem. Many, if not most, of the drive-side spokes protruded so far from the nipple that the nipple was bottoming out on the spoke. And this was from a seemingly knowledgeable mechanic. I could not believe that I had been taken for a ride.

I personally know the manager of the shop and since I did not want an argument with a guy I consider a friend I swallowed the whole thing and fixed it myself. I found, in my vast collection of stuff, some spokes which were nearly the right length and proceeded to replace all the drive-side spokes. It is better since the repair, though still not perfect.

But my wheelbuilding is a process which requires a number of rides to finalise and since that bike has literally only been ridden maybe 10 times since the rebuild it is too early to give a final judgement.

Moral of this story.

1. Use the right length spokes. Too short and the nipple can break. To long and you will bottom out. Best to be about 1 mm too long.

2. Use enough spokes, 4 extra spokes don't weigh that much and a broken spoke on a ride sucks. Wheels that go out of true suck.

3. The jury is still out in my house about the offset rim, but from a purely analytical point of view they must be better. Campy Neutrons have them and they have a stellar reputation.

4. Last and most important, if you don't do it yourself and you don't go with a pre-built, DEFINITELY go with a "name" builder. If e-RICHIE says someone is good enough I believe him. There are several out there, Joe Young and Peter White come immediately to mind.

I build my own wheels and am still learning. I have build wheels for paying customers in shops at times, but I have a queasy feeling about it sometimes. I am definitely WITH peer, though I consider myself to be not too bad and certainly better than some shop hacks, as my own experience showed me.

[csb]

flydhest, 200#s?!!

[TmcDet]

first off I did not mail order these wheels...they were ordered by my LBS as part of the build kit for my bike. I am not sure what gauge spokes they have but I do know they are double butted and they are laced 3 across. I am pretty sure that the nipples on them are alloy and that could be alot of the problem....Wheelsmith wants me to send the wheel back to them to rebuild for the 2nd time now which means another 2 weeks without a rear wheel

[Ahneida Ride]

I'm running CXP's, 36by3x, on White Racer X hubs, 14 straight guage spokes.

Brass Nipples !!!!

Even Uncle William could not destroy these, as hard as he may try.

I don't care what pothole I run into, I'm making it back.

[dsimon]

:beer: Christian i dont knowi thought that i was tough on wheels but i finially found someone who knew how to build them im 200-210 and i ride a 28 hole
dura ace laced radial non drive and 3x drive 14 gage to an sup rim and no problems i think that some people are just getting away from the art of building wheels and useing partial equipment for example i live in hawaii theres no way in h@ll i should be useing alluminum nipples . i think that 36 hole are abit to much 32 built right should last forever.

[Dekonick]

Being a 185-190 or so lb rider, I can tell you that 32hole chorus hubs with aerohead OC hubs work just fine. I had a friend build mine and have had no issues. He did some interesting things:

1) he built the wheels and gave em to me to ride for 100 miles (something about helping the tension - I dont know)

2) he then used locktite or (some similar substance) and trued the wheels - had me ride em - its been about 2000 miles on them now, and there is a really really really minor 'wobble' that doesnt even come close to the brakes. Ask anyone who rides with me - I torture my wheels.
From this limited experience, I find 32H rims are just fine for me.

I just got a set of record hubs to 32H open pro's that were machine built - It will be interesting to see how they hold up. It was cheaper to buy these completely built with the knowledge that I can re-build them if they dont hold up. Ill let yall know how they do compared to the OC rims.

[William]

funny you should mention woods/bike parts/furry-tailed rodentia...
squirrels love bike parts, they build RECUMBENTS with them.

Ahhh! That would explain why all the rodents were trying to take me out on the decents a few weeks ago. :confused:

Really, what you had should have held up. Bad build, or bad parts? If they're just going to true it up for you, I wouldn't bother. If they are going to replace the parts, that could solve the problem...unless it was a bad build to start with which might get repeated.
Some good advice has been passed here. As far as having another set of wheels built, follow the link and see the copious amounts of detailed and correct info that was posted by Big Mac and others. If I can follow this advice and get almost bomb-proof wheels for my arse, you won't have any problems at all. :)
If you don't know already, get a spoke wrench and learn how to use it. Having destroyed as many rear wheels as I have. The ability to true up a wheel has saved me many, many trips to the LBS, and has gotten me home on many an occasion when spokes and/or nipples have failed.

Ahneida Ride posted:
I'm running CXP's, 36by3x, on White Racer X hubs, 14 straight guage spokes.

Brass Nipples !!!!

Even Uncle William could not destroy these, as hard as he may try.

:D :D :D It wouldn't be for lack of trying. :D :D :D

William

[Too Tall]

Is your riding style something that is a factor? No offense ment, heck I like to ride my road bike offroad whenever I get the chance and that's a bit hard on wheels.

Macman, you take back what you said about Joe. That man is salt of the earth.

[William]

Is your riding style something that is a factor? No offense ment

Good point.
I do have to admit that as my riding style got smoother over the years, the incidents of destruction did go down.

William

[flydhest]

e-richie,

yeah, we were in agreement about that part. I just meant that quibbling over who the best is doesn't matter. Joe is clearly a great wheel builder. But to build a standard set of wheels for this guy, you only need competent (which, for me, is still a reasonably high bar).

Plus, I just like scolding people :no: it makes me feel all giggly inside.

:banana:

[William]

Too Tall,
I tried to PM you but it says that your box is full you popular guy you. :)

William