shuffles

My trusty Open Pro rims, noticed this on my ride today. So my question is, what are the chances I can ride it tomorrow since I won't be able to get it to the shop until Monday and even then they may not have a replacement in stock?




Thanks!

umd

It's probably been doing that for a while and you just noticed, so the chance is that it won't necessarily fail on the next ride. But I wouldn't ride it.

Fixitman

I would ride it up the grocery store as long as the wife was home to come get me if it failed, but I would not be going fast and sure would not ride it down a hill. This kind of thing is why you should always have a spare set of wheels. A spare bike is not such a bad idea either

dstrong 

My three year old open pro did just about the same thing about a month ago. Hadn't quite progressed as far as yours...hadn't cracked on the side yet...just on either side of the eyelet. Performance just happened to have another at their shop that day.

melanotaenia

Don't ride that rim.

Cygnus67

Ummm, that looks to be some serious looking wear on the brake surface too!

Another vote for not riding on that rim.

Little Darwin

I have two follow up questions.

How is your health insurance?

Do you really want to use it?

That is a definite safety issue. If you hadn't seen it, it might hold, but whenever you see something failing, you need to change it before riding, even if it means missing a nice ride. Maybe you can borrow a wheel from someone...

TVS_SS

if you're feelin lucky...

otherwise i'd say no

pgaulrapp

Eh, just spread some mighty putty on it. It'll be fine...

haimtoeg

I wouldn't ride it.

roadiejorge 

There's no joy in riding with the threat of wheel failure on your mind, time to retire that wheelset.

HigherGround

All of the answers above are correct... except for the one about mighty putty.

If you have one crack like that, I'd wonder if there are more. I would also check your other wheel while you're at it. While changing a flat last year, I discovered about 8 or 9 similar cracks in a Campagnolo Vento wheel. I rode it home very gently (< 5 miles), and never rode it again.

thirdin77

Not riding is difficult but sometimes the most prudent thing is the most difficult.

If you do ride and the wheel fails, resulting in you getting hurt, you might not be able to ride for longer than it will take to replace the wheel, or maybe the bike, for that matter.

If you end up with a cast or crutches, even walking normally might have to be postponed, as might your workplace duties if you need to be mobile to be productive.

Ahhh, it's at times like this that I treasure my ability to think so negatively.

Fugazi Dave

Frankly, people are missing a critical question here. Front wheel or rear?

Front wheel: ride it to the shop rather gingerly and at about 5 mph at most. Better yet, just have someone drop you off and get a new wheel.

Rear wheel: Ride it to the shop, just don't do anything crazy or particularly fast on it.

A rear wheel going funky suddenly doesn't scare me nearly as much as a front wheel going, and for good reason.

Homebrew01

I'll be the contrarian. Go ahead & ride. Loosen that spoke 1 turn, and the spoke on either side 1/2 turn. Bring a spoke wrench. What could happen ? The spoke pulls throught the rim. That's basically the same as having a broken spoke which is no big deal. I'm assuming all the other spokes holes are OK.

Instead of buying a new wheel, get a new rim (same model, or at least same effective diameter). Tape it next to the old rim, lining the holes up properly. Swap each spoke over to the new rim and Presto ! New wheel !

patentcad

+1.

Sweet Mother of Merckx get some new wheels. Those look 10+ years old.

patentcad

Have you ever woken up in an ER hours after your old bike crap detonated? I have.

Don't ride that rim.

socalrider

It's toast, have had that happen twice with the newer open pro rims.. I still have some of the Older Mavic Open 4 CD rims that are solid as a rock..

DrPete 

It's still a time bomb... only difference now is that you've heard the ticking.

Don't ride those, please.

DrPete 

Where should he send the ER bill if your advice lands him in a hospital? I'm assuming that, being a man of your word, you'd be happy to assume responsibility for your advice...

Grasschopper

One of the rims on my Marin did that. As soon as I saw it I stopped riding it but who knows how long I was riding it like that....could have been more than a 6 rides as I remember what tipped me off to the issue (brakes rubbing because the wheel was out of true do to loss of tension at the spoke).

I would never ride a wheel I knew was in that condition.

Fugazi Dave

I don't see that wheel failing catastrophically.

And we still haven't resolved if it's a front wheel or rear. Clearly, one shouldn't just opt to ride a wheel like that if there's an alternative, and it should be replaced ASAP, but it isn't helpful to blow it out of proportion, either.

DrPete 

I don't think anyone's blowing it out of proportion, but to recommend to someone that they continue riding on a rim that's clearly significantly damaged is, at best, irresponsible. It seems that everyone has made it pretty clear that 1. it may never fail, but 2. it's a bad idea to keep riding on it now that the problem's been discovered.

It's like me seeing a patient with an aortic aneurysm and signs of impending rupture and telling them "yeah, we'll fix it next week, because it probably won't rupture tomorrow..." It's probably a true statement, but the fact that it's true doesn't mean it's not malpractice.

rangerdavid

I vote no also. I like having all my teeth, and I really hate going over the handlebars...............

big john

My rear wheels do that about every 10K miles. I always get a new rim as soon as I see it. The last time was on my old bike which I was using as a rain bike and I didn't clean it for a while. I kept hearing noises from the back and I though it was grit in the drive train and when I finally looked at the rim, there were 7 cracks in it. Once again, I felt like a dumbass.