View Single Post
Old 08-02-10, 06:04 PM
  #14  
dedhed
SE Wis
 
dedhed's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Milwaukee, WI
Posts: 10,509

Bikes: '68 Raleigh Sprite, '02 Raleigh C500, '84 Raleigh Gran Prix, '91 Trek 400, 2013 Novara Randonee, 1990 Trek 970

Mentioned: 40 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 2746 Post(s)
Liked 3,390 Times in 2,053 Posts
If it's anything like my '87 400 those are 36 hole Matrix Titan on Maillard 500 hubs, decent spokes and eyeletted. I have over 12K miles of potholed urban commuting on my
'88 Trek 1000 with the same wheels and they have been absolutely bulletproof. That said, I'm about half your advertised weight. I have heard rumors of cracking along the spoke eyelets, but have never actually seen it, at least on my 2 sets.

I'm with FB - run'em until they need work, then pay a competent wheel builder to properly tension & true them.

You stole that bike for $30 - I paid $150 for mine last spring and I bought it only for the frame - that should be a nice Reynolds 531 frame.

You should probably regrease the wheel bearings minimum, better yet the bottom bracket & headset too. Unless someone has done it, your running 20+ year old dryed out grease in those areas.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...t=matrix+crack

Last edited by dedhed; 08-02-10 at 06:13 PM.
dedhed is offline