dabac

I've already written that I know it doesn't do much for the overall speed.
But I do claim that light wheels do contribute a lot to the FEEL of the bike.
And no, I don't know if I'd feel the difference in nipples alone, but every little count.
I pick a light rim, I pick light/thin spokes, I use a monofilament tape instead of a rim strip, I go for light, fast-wearing tires, I use thin tubes or run tubeless.
Building light wheels that don't self-destruct in use on a budget do mean that you have to be thorough. If I have maybe 200-300 grams total that I can shave off, I can't afford to give 40 grams away.

dr_lha

As I said, I don't want to get into a weight weenie argument. If you think 40 grams makes your wheels *feel* better, then great, use aluminum nipples!

FBinNY 

+1.

I have no idea of the limits of human sensitivity, but agree that nothing improves the "snappy" feel of a bike as much as lighter wheels. The effect is most pronounced with lighter tire. I suspect the benefit is less related to issues of linear acceleration, as it is to the overall motion of the bike. Bikes depend on all sorts of minor corrections to steering and side to side roll. Lighter wheels have less inertia, and lower precession forces and so disproportionately contribute to light and sporty feel.

Can 40gr lighter nipples alone make a detectable difference? Probably not, but it will contribute to the overall improvement of lighter wheels and tires. For my part, I doubt, I'd bother on mtn bike wheels, but aluminum nipples on light front road wheels makes plenty of sense. On rear road wheels, I try to balance the benefit against the PIA factor of building tight wheels with alloy nipples. The biggest issue with black or colored nipples is cosmetic because it's so easy to scratch a nipple with a tight fitting spoke wrench.

dabac

I'm beginning to think that you are trolling.
You are the one talking about "weight weenie" over and over.
And here you go again with the 40 gram argument, even AFTER I've made a decent effort of explaining that it's the OVERALL result I'm after.
But if you really don't mind or notice 200-300 grams weight difference in your wheels, well congratulations. You'll never have any problems with finding inexpensive wheels to your liking.

dabac

I've used alloys on the NDS and brass on the DS every now and then as a precaution against rounding. And b/c I like the symmetry of the stronger material on the more highly stressed side.
Then I discovered the DT Nylock nipples. Now it became tricky. NDS are more likely to go slack, so bigger benefit to a Nylock nipple there. But they're brass, so they go against the nice symmetry of using the alloys on the lower stressed NDS.
Choices, choices....

Re scratches on black alloys, several dabs of black permanent marker will hide them fairly well.

noglider 

You must not have trued many wheels. It's really annoying when the nipple seizes on a spoke, and it happens a lot, at least with a sufficiently large sample size.

dr_lha

Sorry if you're offended, no troll was intended.

Weight weenie is pretty common parlance in cycling circles for someone who is concerned about the weight of their bike, and picks components based on weight. IMHO if you pick aluminum over brass, the only reason for doing so is for weight reductions. The weight reduction of going from brass to aluminum is, in my opinion, minimal, but weight weenies chase every last gram so for them it's valid. Seems to me that's what you're doing. I don't think there's anything wrong with it, I'd like to be in the position, but as a clyde the strength of my wheels and bike are a primary concern over the weight. I'd like to be a weight weenie some day.

peterw_diy

FBinNY writes "Strength is NOT an issue with properly built wheels whose spokes reach well into the heads of the nipples."

I am skeptical of this claim. My first pair of handbuilt wheels used aluminum nipples. They were mountain bike wheels and one day on the trail a branch flipped up into my rear wheel. It broke half the nipples and I had to walk back to the trailhead -- no way to bang the wheel back into rollable shape if all the spokes on one side are detached. Spoke length was fine, rims had eyelets. I've always believed the problem was the aluminum nipples having little lateral strength, and have speced brass ever since.

hueyhoolihan

may have been a good thing. it the nipples had held your rear wheel would have locked up solid, possibly causing a crash and damaging the frame and/or derailluer (if you had one). you may have been fortunate that they let go.

FBinNY 

To be clear, I don't claim that aluminum nipples are as strong as brass, just that they are strong enough for the job -- if the wheel is built right. There's no way of knowing how brass nipples would have fared in the same event, but losing a number of spokes, or having nipples pull out of rims isn't that rare when something jams a wheel.

But I am curious when you say the spoke length was OK. It is extremely rare for a nipple (any nipple) to fail if the spoke is fully engaged in the head (within 1MM of the top). Conversely it's very common for nipples to fail when spokes are not engaged into the head properly. See the sketch below (hopefully courtesy of Wheel Fanatyk)

LesterOfPuppets

Of course, it's hard telling what would've become of your spokes had the nipples not broken

bikemig 

Are you claiming that the weight difference between alloy and brass is as much as 300 grams?

32 brass nipples 30 grams, DT Brass Nipples > Components > Wheels > Spokes & Nipples | Jenson USA

32 alloy nipples 10 grams, DT Swiss Standard Aluminum Nipple - Wheelbuilder.com

So are we talking about 40 grams per wheelset or 300 grams?

LesterOfPuppets

Maybe he's calculating the "rotational weight" penalty

Dan Burkhart 

Not always the case. DT Competition spoke come with ally nipples in the box.

FBinNY 

Do any come with enemy nipples?

Dan Burkhart 

That took me a minute.

Dan Burkhart 

You guys are missing the real benefit of alloy nipples. It's not about the weight savings, it's all about those cool anodized colors.

dabac

I'm saying that the overall weight reduction I can achieve on a reasonably durable budget build is around 200-300 grams. If I want to hit that, I can't give away 40 grams. I have to try to save some weight at every step, hub, spokes, nipples, rim strip, tube, tire.

GravelMN

Does 40g make a difference? Sure, but that difference to a Clyde on a not exactly ultra-light bike, even when sprinting or climbing, is going to be imperceptibly miniscule. If your spokes came with aluminum alloy nipples, you can certainly use them, but I wouldn't worry for a second if they came with brass nipples and certainly wouldn't pay extra to replace them with aluminum (unless as others have noted, it was for style points to get a different color). To put it in perspective, you would gain more weight advantage leaving behind your iPod Nano (Gen 3 = 50g without ear buds) or the change for a bottle of soda ($1.75 in US quarters = 42g).


Clydes like us don't have to ride clunkers of wheelsets, but if you built two wheelsets, identical except that one has brass and one has aluminum nipples, IMHO I doubt you could find a single rider who can tell the difference in performance.

bruin11

I've got a rear wheel that I keep breaking alloy nipples. Two so far and the mechanic told me if anymore break than I should replace them all with brass. The wheel is one i bought online about 2 years ago.

reddog3

Dollars to donuts, the spokes are too short, and not engaging the nipple properly. Pull your tire and inspect. Refer to the illustration FBinNY posted a few posts back. If that's the case, replacing with brass will result in breakage too. It will be cheaper however.

For my purposes there ain't a thing wrong with alloy nips that brass would solve. More than half the wheels coming out of my basement shop are with alloy. No problems whatsoever. Granted we don't have the corrosive environment like some parts of the country.

A note about Enve rims and brass nipples. It ain't about the perceived strength of brass nipples. It's about corrosion. Everyone knows that aluminum in direct contact with carbon fiber is a big no-no.

onbike 1939

Anywhere where salt is used on roads in the winter is a disaster for Alloy nipples.

I this having just had to cut out every spoke from a wheel in which the Alloy nipples were frozen solid with corrosion.

peterw_diy

FBinNY: "I am curious when you say the spoke length was OK. It is extremely rare for a nipple (any nipple) to fail if the spoke is fully engaged in the head (within 1MM of the top)."

Thanks. I didn't measure the distance when I unlaced the remaining spokes, but it looked about right. Granted, it's been many years since that incident and I haven't jammed anything like that in a wheel in a long time.

Dan Burkhart 

OK, can you expand on that? I guess I'm not everybody, because I didn't know that, and apparently Easton, Reynolds, and a whole lot of other wheel companies don't know it either. I almost included Zipp in that list, but they use stainless washers under the nipple heads, but to compensate for a thin rim bed more than corrosion as far as I knew.

FBinNY 

Because of the large difference in electro potential, aluminum and carbon in contact are very prone to galvanic corrosion. Add an electrolyte like salt water and the process starts. In the dark ages of CF, people treated it like plastic and didn't consider the implications, and there were lot of frozen and rotted aluminum posts out there.

The problem is very solvable with proper preparation, but I still wouldn't use aluminum nipples on a CF rim for a bike that will see weather.