Nigal

I have a Trek 700 multitrack hybrid with 700X38 wheels. My back wheel needed trued up so I took it in and my regular mechanic said he would do what he could. After a few weeks it's out of true again. Should I try to save it or should I just replace the wheel?

I'm 250lbs, and I do carry up to 30lbs in the panniers. Is this enough to knock the wheel out of true? I've also been doing less shifting and more standing peddling.

Thanks in advance.

blamp28

You should either rebuild, that is completely re-spoke and properly tension that wheel or replace it with another. I'm also a heavy rider and have some experience with this. A professionally built and properly tensioned 36 spoke wheel should do the job for you. Factory built wheels are not commonly tensioned properly so if you buy a new one, have a qualified wheel man tension it.

Nigal

Thanks. That was my other follow up question; how do I keep it from happening again? As I am not a wheel builder (I don't even tune) I'm thinking a new wheel would be cheaper than a rebuild.

operator

Tension or not, factory wheels usually come with subpar rims - an important part in wheel strength.

+1 on the rest of your post, a good handbuilt wheel with relevant parts (think A719 or Deep V+ rims) 32/36h with double butted spokes will serve the OP very well.

Think about it this way, even if the labour is the same (it probably only differs by $5/$10 for a *re* build) do you really want to be building on crappy OEM parts (assuming that's what they are). At your weight and your application you really should be looking at a decent quality shimano rear hub and a strong rim. You're pretty much looking for a touring rear wheel build except it ain't for touring. Here's one possible build -

Deore LX Shimano 32h Rear hub
32 x DT competition 1.8/2.0 spokes
Mavic A719

Competently built this wheel should withstand direct hits from nuclear bombs.

LarDasse74

The 700 is an entry level bike and I am sure it comes with basic entry level rims. Stronger rims are available and a good wheelbuilder can help you make the most of it. There is no reason you should have to true your wheels regularily unless you are riding very rough roads with very narrow tires. I weigh ~260 lbs and regularily carry 15 lbs of stuff and I ride on rough dirt roads and rougher paved roads and I have trued the wheels on my touring bike once in the last 4 years.

So I would reccomend a new wheel built to your specs... Probably an LX hub and a good rim like a deep V or others mentioned above. Browse through the Clydesdales/Athenas forum for reccomendations on wheels. A good wheel should cost around $150, and will make your bike infinitely more robust.

You might be able to save a few $$ by having your old hub built into a new rim, but only if the old hub is a cassette type (not a freewheel) and the bearings are still very smooth. Come to think of it, you can get a Deore hub for ~$30 so this might not be the best advice.

dabac

The time to give up on a wheel is when there is considerable damage or wear to the rim. Merely JRA, even if you're heavy shouldn't be enough to put a wheel permanently out of true - that sounds more like a spoke tension issue. Getting a full respoke is usualy recommended when you've had a sequence of spokes breaking, but isn't immediately called for for a wheel going out of true. OTOH having a dished wheel respoked with thinner spokes on the NDS will help keep the tension up, which in turn can help keep the nipples from unscrewing and keep the wheel true.

blamp28

Good catch Operator. I should not post in the morning before coffee. A strong rim and decent hub are a must for this. You may find a pre-built wheel with a component mix like the one Operator sugested but make sure it is properly tensioned once it reaches the shop. If you do so, you will be rewarded with a dependable wheel. This is definitely a time when a few extra dollars on the right stuff will actually cost you less over time.

You might also try the Velocity Dyad rim which comes in 700C size and is strong enough to use for touring and tandems but sells for about $30 less than the A719. The Shimano XT hub costs a little more than the LX but has coated cups which when properly maintained, can last for decades.

mrrabbit 

My advice...avoid Velocity...they have literally become crap. Their QC has become non-existent with their joints consistently offset, poorly cut, flared out as much as 3mm to one side, and now at times flared away from the vertical line at much as 2mm.

This has been going on since roughly about last Aug/Sept. Someone at Velocity has approved the cutting of corners QC wise and it's showing up in roughly about 9 out of 10 rims in the last 50 or so rims I have done.

Also I end up with piles of shavings, grindings and dust when spinning these things on the truing stand - they are not even cleaning their rims - and probably getting greedy trying to extend the life of their bits, punches and the like on their manufacturing line.

And their cold-forming control has dropped to about the quality of that of H+Son rims - where you end up with several holes at which you simply cannot tension the spokes unless you want a wheel with nasty easily visible hops.

Chukkers, DeepV, B43 are at the top of the list.

=8-(

operator

+1

I saw this over a year ago on their production rims.

blamp28

I've seen this info in a couple of threads now but not in any actual rims. I'll certainly keep my eyes open. I just bought a rim two weeks ago for a front tandem wheel build but have not opened it yet.

mrrabbit 

Sometimes I feel like I could write a book about the historical path that rim manufacturers commonly take - and it would probably parallel that book on software design written by the Cooper fellow:


Birth

- Basic Materials and Processes
- Quality Construction
- Non-Brand Name
- Low Cost


Growth

- Basic and Advanced Material and Processes
- Quality Construction
- Getting Recognition and Increased Volume
- Still Low Cost


Maturity

- Basic and Advanced Materials and Processes
- Quality Construction
- Brand-Name Recognition with High Volume and >>>Continuos Demand Pressure<<<
- Premium Pricing


It's at this point that we commonly see a critical juncture where three choices are presented:

1. Stick with your current processes and don't get hung up on a few customers who might get impatient waiting for their rim and going to a competitor.

2. Add another assembly line to meet the demand pressure - maintaining quality and the associated cost.

3. Speed up existing assembly processes to meet the excess demand saving money while risking quality control.


I get the impression that many startups that have faded into the dark in the past did so largely because they went with #3. The reaction of wheelsmiths and customers like myself literally is: "I'm paying a premium brand-name price for reduced quality??? Screw this!!!"

...am I preaching to the choir Operator?

=8-)

mrrabbit 

There are three tests - two of which you can do yourself before building the rim. The third requires some machinery or a home built rig of some kind:


Joint Checks #1 and #2

1. Lay the rim flat on a "flat" table. Granite and marble are best...

- Look at the joint. Does it bulge up leaving a 1mm, 2mm or 3mm gap between it and the table surface?
- If not, flip the rim and check again.
- If pressing on the joint at any time causes the other side of the rim to flip up a few millimeters - with most but not all rim profiles you have serious reason to be suspicious.


2. Hold the rim in front of you vertically - with the rim perpendicular to your body and the joint in direct line with your eyes.

- Look at the cut ends that are joined together - are they cut a perfect 90 degrees?
- Does one end seem to be offset a half mm or so in comparison to the other end?
- Does one or both sides bulge?
- Is there a gap at the bead that disappears as the joint progresses to the inner diameter of the rim?


Circumferential Check - #3

KinLin has machinery that effectively is able to determine if each and every point of the rim is in or very close to circumference. When a spot is too far in or out circumference-wise - you get the dreaded severly undertensioned spoke and severely overtensioned spoke that crop up resulting in two types of wheels:

1. A wheel that is true but with several very lose or overly tight spokes.
2. A wheel that is not true but has even tension all around.


Very few rims are perfect - I can live with minor imperfections. But when the imperfections get pretty bad it gets irritating as hell - especially when trying to build radial wheels with decent all around tension WITHOUT prematurely risking the hub.

=8-)

CliftonGK1

Do you mind reposting that, or if I repost it as your quote, over on the Clydesdale forum? Whenever someone is having wheel problems, one of the first rims that gets mentioned is the Velocity Deep V. However, I think the guys suggesting them are unaware of these issues as they've had their VDV rims for over a year, and those might be from stock prior to the QC problems.

noglider 

Wow, good stuff here! I'm glad to know it.

It's nice to see Mavic is still being recommended. I was a mechanic about 125 years ago, and Mavic was my favorite at the time.

mrrabbit 

Feel free to do so...

Don't get me wrong...the statements are obversational and experienced based - not a vendetta. From January thru July of 2009 I built easily 100+ Velocity DeepV's, and a few B43s and Chukkers towards the tail end of that period. The rims were of very good quality - the joints were excellent - tensioning efforts the full circumference of the rims were very satisfactory. Even the 650c's were pretty good considering the increased stresses that occur when rolling a deep section rim even tighter.

Then right around August of 2009 - there seemed to be a one month period where you just couldn't get any Velocity rims except for oddballs that people didn't want and CNCed rims that most single speed folks avoid. It was as though there was a huge backlog or something ordering wise thru various distributors...

..and then boom, all the various DeepV rims were available in the various quantities needed again - but with crappy joints. Saw it repeated in the larger availibility of the B43s and Chukkers as well - and still continues at this time of posting.

I hope they correct the problem....single speeders are still demanding them...I'm still building 'em - but not happily. I don't like what I'm having to work with right now.


=8-)

mrrabbit 

Ditto...when I get inquiries for building wheelsets for heavier 700c riders - Mavic A719's are at the top of my list. CXP-33s are still my light-weight preference. I had issues back in the day with the Open 4 CD and the M261s, but overall - Mavic is still right up there when making recommendations with DT Swiss, Sun and KinLin rounding out my list.

=8-)

Mr. Beanz

Been done, you guys are too slow.. my finding between a Mavic rim and Deep V, including the new one. Just waiting for you to bash me down with an ugly stick!


I just read a thread in the bike mechanics forum about the quality problems with Velocity Deep V's. Poster mentioned problems with the weld but I being a strong believer in the Deep V checked out the rim I just bought about a month or two ago. That and I was wondering if my wheel was junk.

I believe Clifton wanted to post the thread claims here.


So I did a little investigating and comparison myself being a quality control inspector.

I took my calipers and gripped the weld/seam with th flat edges of the jaws, no gaps as claimed in the poor quality post. I checked the ends of the cuts along the extrusion, everything is perpendicular, no gap, no uneven cuts. I also checked the flatness at the weld/seam on a flat surface, no gaps as claimed. I even looked at the seam/weld at teh braking surface in the bright sunlight to see if I could find any low points, voids, deformities etc. NOTHING!

I looked at the seam along the braking surface and what I could see on the rim, no gaps, nice and smooth, very even. I looked at the inside of the rim at the weld, very nice and nothing out of the ordinary comapared to several other rims I've seen. Actually much better than the Mavic rim I inspected along with teh Deep V. You will see th pics below and agree the Velocity Deep V is much nicer at the seam than the Mavic rim. Imagine what the inside of the Mavic rim looks like compared to the V as at this point, the V look that much better on the inside also. IMO, the Mavic looks like junk compared to the Deep V and Mavic is/was the standard in rims atone point.


First off, the MAVIC RIM so taht you get an idea of how good the Deep V really looks. This is the seam/weld, looks like poop! I tried to get eh pics inside of another rim , which also looks just as bad but the camera didn't pick it up well enough to show.


The Deep V seam/weld on the rim I wore out after 20,000 miles. Nice even seam, no big ugly gaps like the Mavic. THis is after 20,000 miles.


But claims are being made against new Deep V which I happen to have. Looking at the rim from the side (not good picture but) in the sunlight, you can see the seam on the braking surface is very nice and smooth, no high edges, raised edges, bumps gap or inconsistencies like made in the post claiming poor quality.

I placed arrows so that you would know where the seam is otherwise, you wouln't have known it was there.



I also took my calipers and placed the flat edges and saw none of the discrepancies the other poster mentioned. I also placed it on a flat surface, nothing! If the pic looks a little crooked, there were no gaps, maybe cause I was trying to hold the rim and calipers with my left and shooting the pic with my right, hehe!

Believe me, the cuts were straight/ perpendicular and even, no long sides or edges on the extrusion as claimed. Nothing more than a couple little weld beads ground down which is evident on most rims.

I wish I could have gotten a clear pic of the Mavic rim from the inside, clearly junk compared to the Deep V, just look at the outside picture of the Mavic above!


My advice is to get a good look at the rim if you are buying anew V. I see no problems and never had any but like with an other rim, inspect it along the seam/weld. But that's any rim purchased or built.

Otherwise, I'll keep my faith in the V till I see otherwise. Every company has problems at one point or another. It's how they handle their customers' issues that makes a difference. I haven't seen anything yet or had problems with Velocity. Asa matter of fac, I've emailed reps beofre asking for dealer locations and stock, They responded very quickly which leads me to believe me that if I do ever have aproblem, I'll be able to contact them on the issue.

No, I don't work for Velocity, just had great results with their product while so many others have failed.

Note: Remember, the durabilty of a rim alo has to do with the builder, I actually paid a builder $100 to build a wheel that failed after 40 miles. I rebuilt it myself "for free" and it's also got over 20,000 miles!

mrrabbit 

No ugly stick really...

However, larger sample is needed...did 200+ wheels myself in 2009...most of which were Velocity. As I mentioned the problem began in the last quarter of 2009 - everything was absolutely fine until then - and is still ongoing.

Couple points...

1. Better to check on non-machined rims. Machining is used to hide joint defects - Mavic and others are guilty of this as well whether intentionally or unintentionally.

2. Won't know if circumferentially the rim is good until you build it - only then will you know if you have spokes that will be way off tension-wise - unless of course you have a rig or method to test the rim before building.

Right now I have 6 Chukkers...4 "seem" to be okay joint wise. Won't know how they work out tension wise until I build 'em. Two however have naked eye - free of tools - visible defects.

- One has a side flare of about 1mm - visible both while holding upright and flipping on a table. Since it's non-machined and intended for a single-speed bike - it's not fatal. One end cut is clearly not 90 degrees.

- One has the same side flare noted above - but also the flare is split - a fingernail drag picks up a 1/2 mm split. Once again rim is non-machined and intended for single speed use - it's not fatal.

However, both wheels when built will have one spoke overly tight at the joint - and one overly loose. However since these wheels will be non-offset wheels - I should still be able to get the loose spokes up to about 80-90 kgf while the rest of the wheel rounds out in the 107-110 kgf range.

These are some of the better Velocity rims I have had in the past few months.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

=8-)

canopus 

Looking at all this is why I still really like welded seam rims, not pressed and crimped. I'll stick with my Mavic A719's thank you.

Mr. Beanz

I wonder what it looks like under the label? You did see the weld on the Mavic rim above ? That was under the label.

Mr. Beanz

Good point, I can only afford one at a time though!

I'm curious, how many Kinlins have you built? I hear they are better quality but I myself never heard of them till posters in the road forum started selling wheels to the others.




Treu, the final test!

mrrabbit 

Several hundred...I'm an importer of KinLin...primarily the entry level stuff...I don't do anything from their high-end lightweight catalog.

They do their own smelting, shaping, extrusion, finishing, punching, side treatments, anodizing,...literally they do everything from the drop of molten metal to the landing of the last particle of powder coat paint on a surface.

Their joints are superbe, even with their bottom line rims. As you work your way up to the MX series rims - MX2G, MX3T, MX4, MX5...the overall quality is superbe including the finishing treatments. In my honest opinion KinLin's best rim overall is the MX4 and just so happens to be the one that they will not produce in quantities less than 300.

However I have experienced three things that do occur with their entry level rims:

1. The hole punching machinery is a little heavy handed when bracing the rim at the valve stem hole when punching the valve hole. The result is a slight rise and fall in the rim between the valve hole and the next spoke hole. It is minor and has little effect on tensioning - however you do see a minor quick hop and drop at one point in the wheel near the valve hole when the wheel is completed.

2. The same occurs near the joint with the same effect. Overall wheel is just fine - you just see another quick rise and fall just like what occurs near the valve hole.

Basically for 1 and 2, something in the machinery is getting a little heavy handed when punching holes.

3. They tend in my honest opinion to go overboard on the heat treatment of their rims. I really don't mind - their rims are very strong - even as single wall rims. However when I build 126mm rear 27 x 1 1/4 wheels with the ridiculous offset we've all experienced building those wheels - their 5ALM in 27 x 1 1/4 seems a tad too hard or stiff and starts getting a little snappy in it's response to tensioning toward the drive side. I'm literally fighting to get that drive side up to 110-115 kgf in order to insure the opposite side spokes get the minimum tension they need to avoid breakage from under-tension caused fatigue.

I often spend the last 20 minutes on those wheels spending the majority of the time just stress relieving - they are a pain - but I have to build 'em cause lots of bike are getting dusted off that require 27 x 1 1/4 wheels. 27 x 1 1/4 just refuses to die...

I wouldn't mind if the 5ALM was a tad softer more along the line of classic Araya, Sun and Weinmann 27 x 1 1/4 alloy rims.


=8-)

Mr. Beanz

Cool! Thanks for taking the time. If Velocity ever lets me down..........

une_vitesse

if you don't want to get a new wheel, you may get the wheel retrued and have the mechanic put a drop of wicking threadlocker in the nipples. alternately, crimping the nipples may keep them from turning.
the latter is something you do if you're sure the wheel is done for, and you're just trying to eek out every last bit of mileage. once a wheel's nipples are crimped, you will no longer be able to true the wheel.

blamp28

Thanks for those details.

The rim I am using is a 406 20" Aeroheat. I'll have a look before I build it up. Are you aware of any problems with the Aeroheats? I just bought it out of the Warehouse in Grand Rapids through my Grand Rapids LBS about a month ago. Last spring, I built up a 26" rear using an Aeroheat and used it briefly on my last tandem. It sounds like this was before the issues you mentioned but I do remember taking a lot of shavings out of that rim while building the wheel. They appeared to be material left over from the drillings.