Originally Posted by
palm_ak
Hi all, I am new to these posts and new to touring. I have however used these forums in getting prepped for our trip (obviously not enough!). So I need some advice.
My wife and I started our tour at the end of the pavement on the Steese Hwy north-east of Fairbanks AK. Yesterday we left Beaver Creek YT (just inside the border) on our way to the one of the next campgrounds down the road. 36 miles down the road and KABOOOM!! My rim exploded so loudly it hurt our ears like a gunshot. I have been pulling a Bob for the entire trip plus have very loaded front and rear panniers. For the heck of it Molly and I traded bikes only 20 minutes earlier, so she had the unfortunate experience of being on the bike when it happened. I brought spare tubes and tires, tools, and almost everything else I could think of, but I can't bring an extra wheel! So dragged our bikes off the road and sat in our raingear contemplating our situation. We brought a SPOT so if it got too desperate we could get some help, but it wasn't near that bad yet. We could camp on the side of the road for a week if we had to. And we didn't want to go back to AK. We have lived there all our life and this was our excuse to get out of there (for a little while anyways). I knew there was a bike shop in Whitehorse so we wondered if there was a way to get a ride there. What do you know, after only 30 minutes of sitting on the shoulder came a truck with a flatbed trailer on his way way to Whitehorse! Very happy to give us a ride...Sweet!
So now we are in Whitehorse. Bike shop doesn't open til Monday.
I have two theories why it may have exploded. Let me know if these are plausible. 1. With all the braking going down tons of hills with a massive load (and in the rain with grit getting on the wheel) the wheel got too hot warped somehow and split. 2. Our wheels were slightly out of true so a couple days ago I adjusted the spokes while there was still pressure in the tires maybe abraded the tube where it goes against the rim. When the tube finally blew the air had nowhere to go except outwards blowing the rim.
So what should I do? Just replace the one rim and continue down the road? Replace all 4 rims on both bikes and get cooler brake pads so it doesn't happen again? Is there a braking technique we should use so they don't get so hot? I'm all ears! Thanks in advance!
Here's an album with some of our pics.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?ai...4&l=99478c04f6
-Chris
This has happened to me also. The explosion was surprisingly sharp and loud. High air pressure and heat contributed. The rim was worn, but not terribly so. There may have been a weak spot -- engineers like James Papadapoulos have mentioned that metals can vary widely in structural integrity, and there can be flaws. It could have been a combination of factors.
My solution has been to go with ceramic rims. Mine are Mavics. The walls wear *much* more slowly on these rims. They also do not overheat as quickly, but the difference is not tremendous (maybe on the order of 30% better or so). The braking power is a bit better than with standard rims.
Ceramic rims do eat up brake pads more quickly. Even the special, harder pads that are made to go with ceramic rims do not last as long, in my experience. So you have to replace them more often (maybe three times as often, unless you find some that last longer than the ones I have been using).
They are also a bit harder to find. Some small shops that carry standard brake pads don't carry the ceramic pads. One way of solving this is by stocking up, though, or arranging something through the mail, or finding well-stocked shops, etc.
Discs are another approach, though they have their downsides too.