Dan Burkhart 

I'm not a big fan of Zipp(iddydodah) or any other high zoot wheel designs, but I've been doing some wheel work for a LBS that deals in a lot of Zipp wheels and just wondering if others are encountering the issues they seem to be.
First and biggest problem, shearing of nipple heads. They come with alloy nipples and seem to be universally built with spokes that are too short.
The second problem is spoke head retainer rings that won't stay put on the drive side. As they use straight pull spokes,the ring snaps in place when all the spoke heads are in place, and while they don't really do anything to prevent the spoke heads from slipping out, (proper tension looks after that), the ring apparently is there to serve a structural function.
They have seen these problems surface on numerous wheels, so I'm sure it's not just them.
I rebuilt a set of the shop owner's personal 303s a few months ago with brass nipples, and he says since then, they have never gone out of true. Prior to rebuilding, he had to re-true them frequently.

reptilezs

have had some wheel go out of true. these are bigger riders though. also had some nipple corrosion issues on one zipp wheel but that may have been the stans sealant. personally i am not a fan of them. mavic wheels don't excite me either. i prefer j bend spokes and cross laced wheels with reasonable spoke count for the rider 24 or 28 usually.

ksisler

I won't accept them for back shop repair (outsource from the local LBS's). I consider them a waste of time and energy. I tell the shop to send them back to the OEM if underwarrantee. In not in warrantee, then I tell them to do the customer a favor an install a reliable set of wheels (at cost).

HillRider

I think what you are seeing is wheels intended for race-only use being used as daily riders and they don't have the durability or weather tolerance to take it.

FBinNY 

That may be true, and possibly the wheels do hold up for a limited life expectancy, but Dan is pretty experienced, and would recognize whether a spoke reaches the nipple's head or not.

Dan Burkhart 

As a matter of fact, I have a Zipp 101 front wheel in the stand right now. Just for the heck of it, before I started the teardown, I went around to several points on the wheel and inserted a spoke into the back of the nipples. Each one took either 7 or 8 full turns before bottoming against the spoke.

HillRider

Yeah, that is a bad sign. I'm quite surprised since Zip has wide usage in the racing world and if this is typical it's disturbing.

FastJake

Or using them for cyclocross I can't imagine paying that much for carbon wheels and then destroying them with rim brakes on a muddy cross course.

FBinNY 

Then again can you imagine racing CX on a Richie Sachs?

Decades ago CX was done with stuff that was too beat up for the road, but still too good to toss. Nowadays folks buy expensive stuff just to beat it up.