masi61

That's right! 12 of the 36 spoke holes have cracks around them. I told my wheel builder about the cracks 2 years ago when there were 4 or 5 of them. Well now there are freaking 1/3 of the spoke holes failing? My God, I overbuilt this wheel with 36 spokes to avoid this type of issue. My other bike has the DT Swiss 1.2 (slight aero profile) rims in 28 hole with no issues whatsoever!
Now one of my favorite LBS mechanics had recommended these rims to me 5 or 6 years ago, but then after I told him about my wheel build he later told me to avoid those rims because they were notorious for cracking. I suspect that there was some kind of manufacturer's defect involved as my wheel builder is very experienced and he is on the conservative side when it comes to spoke tension and he always does the tension relieving and follow up truing in what appears to be the proper way.
Can anyone speak to what happened with the earlier DT Swiss 1.1 rims having this issue?
Thanks, I'm pondering my next move as I do like the wheels overall, having put over 5,000 miles on them.

3alarmer 

...cracking around the spoke holes on aero rims with no reinforcing eyelets is pretty commonly encountered on almost all such rims, IME. My own opinion (wrong or right) is that this is probably a bad design for a wheel rim made of aluminum....whoever makes it.

It's not really a problem until one of the spokes pulls through, which eventually one or more will. This is not usually a catastrophic failure, if the spoke stays more or less in place (which they usually do), and you can put off rebuilding until then if you want. If you want to continue riding them and are worried that a spoke might pull through while riding them and jam you up, the most common old school answer was to tie the spokes at their crossing with fine wire and solder it.

I've gotten some nice hubs at the bike co-op because the aero alloy rims started cracking at the holes. The branding does not seem to matter.

shelbyfv

You probably should not ride those any more. How much do you weigh? If you weigh too much you can break anything.

DiabloScott

1.1 rims weren't really aero, just kind of a tall box; and at some point in their production they added the double eyelets presumably because of the cracking issue.



They haven't made the 1.1s for at least 7 years. I've got close to 10,000 miles on my RR465s which are essentially the same rim and no problems. I don't think they make them in 36° though.

tarwheel 

Sounds to me like your wheel failed due to a faulty rim and/or improper build. Have you talked to the builder? If you are convinced the build was OK, have you considered a warranty claim?

I've had one wheel set develop cracks near the eyelets in 10s of thousands of miles of cycling and multiple wheel sets. The store where I bought that particular wheel replaced the rims under warranty. I had to pay someone else to rebuild the wheel and I've had no problems since. The rim that failed was a Mavic Open Pro, but I've had about 5-6 sets of OPs and this was the only one that ever had problems. The rebuilt wheel is still going strong after thousands of miles.

I've had one wheel set built with DT Swiss 540 rims and it has been trouble free over thousands of miles.

masi61

Well I inquired about having it replaced under warranty, no go unfortunately. I would have gotten the newer version of the 1.1, the 540 (or 465?) but they stopped making these in 36 spoke for some reason. My Dura Ace 7700 hubs are 36.

And in response to:
...cracking around the spoke holes on aero rims with no reinforcing eyelets is pretty commonly encountered on almost all such rims, IME. My own opinion (wrong or right) is that this is probably a bad design for a wheel rim made of aluminum....whoever makes it.

These rims are not aero, and they also were double eyelet. My ones with no eyelets have no cracks, go figure.

masi61

Currently I am at ~ 193#. Over the past few years my weight has varied in the range of 255 (at my worst ) and 179# when I was really working my fitness program to the hilt. I am on track right now and feel good about everything. Even at my heaviest, I was always fairly gentle on my equipment.

maddog34

you stated that the wheel builder was "conservative on tension"... THAT can cause cracking... the spokes are loaded in TENSION, and if too loose, they OVER-TENSION the topmost spoke repeatedly when you ride... when tensioned correctly, the load is more devenly distributed to other spokes, not just the top spoke... other than that, i'd say the rim material was too hard, and BRITTLE.... Anodizing was used to harden the aluminum rim... if not annealed slightly after hardening, cracks will result under stress.

masi61

I wondered about that. Nice, evenly tight spoke tension sounds better than "slightly loose". When he first built the wheel, I had to take it back after 100 miles when some of the spokes were loose & making squeaking noises.

davidad

Spokes that are not properly tensioned break because of fatigue. The rims crack because of overload or poor quality.
Try Mavic Open Sport. They make a 36 hole rim and I have a friend who was over 250 and had no problems.