300+ pound rider, ~40lbs groceries, 50lbs dog food. The rear axle weight was too high.
These are the first wheels I haven't built in a while -- they were the factory wheels at factory tension. If anything, they were under-tensioned. There are a lot of us at the C+A forum that build our own wheels and are pretty good at making high mileage x high axle weight wheels by keeping inside the margin between static failure and flex failure. I rebuilt the wheel with another alex, at a tension proportional to rider size this time. I doubt the alex is a bad rim if used with standard touring loads.
Originally Posted by
Squeezebox
A lot of tandems now a days are running on 28 spokes with 350 lb teams. What are you doing that's more severe than that?
I still have not heard from anyone with a list of the 100 lbs of stuff they carry on a heavy tour. There are a few places in the world where 20 L of water might make sense, along with enough food. But a good water filter weighs less than 3 oz. in most places.