Originally Posted by
elcruxio
I’m not entirely sure the added weight isn’t going to additional wall thickness in the rims you outlined. The Atlas for example isn’t particularly tall nor wide but still it is incredibly heavy. That weight must be somewhere. The Cliffhanger is wide for wider tires and that adds weight. But it also seems to have a reinforced spoke bed which allows for higher build tensions. The Atlas seems to have that too, but it’s not as obvious from the profile. The NoBS product description states that it has extra thick sidewalls and 15 % thicker spoke bed, which would account for the extra weight.
Well none of the Velocity rims are heavy when compared to the Ryde Andras. The Atlas and NoBS rims have that extra void running down both sides of the rim which adds significantly to the amount of material used. The Cliffhanger and A23 only have the single void. Yes, there is a thicker spoke bed on the NoBS but I question if that is really necessary or if it contributes anything. Tension might be able to run a little higher but like I said above, aluminum is a soft material and adding a little bit more doesn’t necessarily have a huge effect.
Mind you, different companies have different philosophies regarding how to make a rim durable. The DT Swiss TK540 is not particularly heavy at 540g, but it is one of the most durable touring rims out there. It has a relatively high profile and double eyelets (which DT Swiss seems to believe to work).
What do you mean by “durable”? Again, broken rims isn’t that much of an issue. I’ve cracked a number a number of rims over the years. They are about equally split between supposedly heavy duty rims and supposedly light duty rims. That includes Mavic A119 which cracked around the eyelets. I haven’t noticed a significant issue with the lighter (supposedly weaker) rims as compared to the heavier (supposedly stronger) rims. That’s partly what has lead me to basically ignore the conventional “wisdom” that heavy rims are needed for a durable wheel.
Ryde on the other hand makes some of the heaviest rims on the market and that weight is put directly towards the extra thick spoke bed, allowing for really high build tensions as well as added wall thickness. And of course the wider Andra models are particularly wide. The Andra line is also relatively high profile compared to squat road or MTB rims.
Yea, I was very surprised when I looked at the weight of those rims. Uff! I can’t figure out why the Andra 30 disc rim is about 50g heavier than the already massively heavy 786g rim brake rim. Nor can I figure out why they would need to be that heavy. The Andra 40 disc weighs in at a whopping 935g compared to the already heavy Cliff Hanger at 675g. That a full half a kilogram of weight for a pair of rims and almost a kilogram heavier than the A23. I really don’t see why the extra weight is needed.
The common theme with touring rims is that they are typically both relatively wide to accept wider tires as well as tall for added vertical stiffness. Road rims are often high profile but quite narrow (though with the more common use of wide road tires that’s changing fast). MTB rims are often wide but quite low profile to save weight. You could say touring rims combine the best of both worlds.
Not an idea I subscribe to. People want wide tires for vertical stiffness and then run them flat because the ride is too jarring. I have no problem cornering nor any issues with running my pressures way higher than is the current fashion with wide tires on narrow rims. My mountain bikes all have 17mm rims with 55mm tires. I run narrow rims to save weight
Lateral stiffness is something I don’t consider to be at all important as the spokes are supposed to handle that aspect of the wheel.
And if the spokes are stronger they handle that lateral stiffness far better. They also handle the vertical stiffness better because they can handle the loading/unloading cycle of the spoke as the wheel rolls better.
Deep V probably isn’t a bad rim for touring purposes but as you outlined, it is a bit narrow. That would be an issue for me but then again I like to dabble with the idea of some day mounting 45mm or even 47mm tires on my tourer.
The only…ONLY…reason I use Deep Vs is for vanity reasons. I could get them in red and that matched the color scheme of my bike. As a rim, they are “meh” but that’s the way I feel about most any rim. As long as the rim is light, it really doesn’t matter to me what the profile or supposed strength is. I’ve found it really doesn’t matter.
Now that asymmetric thing should definitely be more common! Sadly there aren’t many asymmetric rims ticking enough boxes. But perhaps that’ll change too in time.
Yes, but like triple butted spokes, people consider them to be too weird. When my Deep Vs are gone, I’ll be using the asymmetric A23…if it is still around
Now if you mean to say that the wheels you have with the Dyads, A23’s or Deep V’s are equally strong as the wheelset I described, they aren’t. The rim does matter. Well, if the A23’s are asymmetric that wheelset might well be stronger for less weight. Actually, maybe the Deep V’s too. But those are narrow so not a good fit for my use case. Dyads? Definitely not.
That’s exactly what I’m saying. I’m living proof. This bike with me, bike, and touring load is around 145 kg (bike, luggage, and me). I’ve had zero issues with the wheels and spokes in thousands of miles of touring.
This one is carrying a load of close to 140 kg but is subjected to far more demanding riding. The other bike gets ridden on most smooth roads. This one is ridden on unpaved roads where the term “road” is somewhat nebulous. It’s using Aeroheats which are similar to the Dyad.
And my point is that a double walled extruded aluminum rim is a homogenous piece of metal with varying thicknesses. Those properties are going to make the rim stiffer than a steel rim which is just folded sheet metal. Those folds move about, and the underlying steel is still very thin. The spoke beds are thin and give more than an aluminum spoke bed in an aluminum rim. If you could extrude steel to a rim shape you could get a stronger stiffer rim, but it would also be far heavier.
Have you ever had to break down a rim for scraping? Without spokes, you can clamp an aluminum rim in a vise and fold it over by hand. You can’t do that with a steel rim. Steel rims have to be cut down with a grinder if you want to reduce the size. You can also push down on an aluminum rim and deform it significantly. A steel rim won’t bend nor deform even with my weight.
While we are at it, one other interesting point about stiffness is that wall thickness matters more than the material. Steel is three times stiffer than aluminum. However, an aluminum sheet that’s three times thicker than a steel sheet is going to be much stiffer than the steel sheet.
That’s not how that works. An aluminum sheet that is 3 times the thickness of a steel sheet is going to have about the same stiffness as the steel sheet. Bicycle frames have been using this difference for years. Aluminum tubing has…and has to have…a thicker wall than steel tubing. There were bicycles made back in the 70s (Alan?) that used the same tube diameter as steel but with thicker walls. They were noodles.
Comparing steel rims to aluminum rims is apples and oranges.
Cheese to chalk, please.
Science has shown that apples and oranges are, indeed, comparable. But for the purposes of rim stiffness, steel rims are significantly stiffer…even in a flat profile…than aluminum ones are. If you want a strong rim, there is nothing quite as strong as a steel rim. A steel wheel built with light spokes isn’t stronger than an aluminum rim built with strong spokes.
Wheel durability has likely increased due to all the relevant factors improving incrementally. There are better spokes, there are better rims and there are better hubs.
I don’t disagree, however, as I pointed out in post 30, far too many people concentrate on the hub and rim and treat spokes as an afterthought. If anything, the rim should be treated as the afterthought. Get a good rim, of course, but you don’t have to get an overly heavy one to build a strong wheel…if you consider the spokes that you are using in addition to the other components.