Tandem Cycling - Rolf Hub failure

Tried to see if there was a thread on this, but came up empty on the search function.

Yesterday we had a spoke pull through at the hub on the front wheel. The eyelet cracked, and the outside of the flange just bent up releasing the spoke.

A number of people have had spokes pull through at the rim I know. Anyone else had the hub flange fail?

The wheel is 2 1/2 years old. Rolf's warranty is 1 year, so I'm figuring a crash replacement price is likely the best I'll get.

Anyone else deal with Rolf on a similar failure?

We had the same failure 2 years ago on an 05 version of the wheel. Rolf replaced the hub and re-laced the wheel at no charge, even though it was out of warranty.

As sprinter noted, there were a bunch of flange failures on the 1st or 2nd generation Rolf Vigor Tandem front wheels... the ones where 'weight reducing voids' were drilled into the flanges between each spoke hole. They changed the flange design and warranteed just about every failure I knew about.

It will be interesting to see if you're failure is on the leading edge of a second round of systemic failures at the front hub.

Couple of lousy cellphone pics:

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i165/bobstewart/rolfhub-1.jpg

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i165/bobstewart/rolfwheel.jpg

Bummer. Then we should feel good about our recent WI wheel build?

http://share.ovi.com/media/currentresident.bicycle/currentresident.10228 here is one I dug out of a recycle bin I have seen 3 failures of Bontrager rear hubs 1 front specialized sealed bearing front one radial spoked XT front with 3 failures at the holes 1 campagnolo nuevo record large flange rear and 1 syncros front. 2 failures of the Rolf means Rolf dosen't know what he is doing. Shimano hubs are 1000 times as common as rolf hubs and the one broken one I saw was radial spoked which is well known for breaking hubs. It is not unusual for campagnolo users to put 100000 miles on a set of hubs. http://www.bikebrothers.co.uk/ih_grubb.htm here is a set of campagnolo record hubs with 100000 touring miles on them.

Bummer. Then we should feel good about our recent WI wheel build?

Doesn't Rolf use WI hubs?

Doesn't Rolf use WI hubs?

Yes....

But, mkane77g's build probably didn't use a radially-laced front wheel AND uses a more conventional WI hub body/flange vs. the uber-svelte hub bodies/flanges spec'd for Rolf.

We have a set of Rolf Vigors, probably about 2005 vintage. Maybe 15k on them. No problems yet, but, seeing your post Merlin makes me look a little more carefully at the wheels and hubs after each ride. Thanks for the heads up

2 1/2 yrs old . . . but approximately how many miles?

WI hub is a high flange, 36h design. Much stiffer than the Rolf design. You notice this stiffness when standing or on screaming decent's.

2 1/2 yrs old . . . but approximately how many miles?

Somewhere around 8,000-10,000 miles.

The conclusion of the story is We got a new front wheel from Rolf for $299.

We had a similar failure on our 1st Gen Rolf wheels after ~ 10 years & 20,000 miles. Front hub flange cracked, releasing tension on two spokes. Noted the front wheel was out of true during a ride and nursed the bike the last 5 miles back to the car, had a CHP friend flying wingman so he could pick up the pieces if the wheel folded - LOL (we had descended on this wheel @ 40+ MPH earlier in the ride).

Wheel was shipped to Rolf for inspection, they said due to the degree of wear on the rim they recommended replacement of the entire wheel. They did so for a discounted price, so I have no complaints.