Originally Posted by diamacleod

Other questions arise: can thermal expansion of an aluminum rim really be enough to cause spoke or nipple breakage? (For a 50deg centigrade increase, I figure the expansion is about a full turn of a spoke wrench.) And is the main breakage risk on steep descents thermal, or mechanical? (I doubt that it’s mechanical, since only very extreme gradients change the magnitude of the forces exerted on the rim by a big factor.)