MaxPlanck

My bike is a 2004 Trek 5200 and I got rolled over by a car at a stoplight a few weeks back. I walked away unscathed and only the front wheel of the bike was damaged. The wheel is a Bontrager Race Lite 18h w/ paired radial lacing. I took it apart over the weekend and the hub is still good so I'd simply like to lace all the old hardware to a new rim. Does anyone know what this rim is and if it is available a la carte? Google has not turned up any results...

Craptastic cell photo of the post collision bike to follow.

Thanks.

MrCjolsen

Velocity makes a few rims that come in 18h drillings. Aeroheads and Fusions.

Note that wheel builds get tricky the lower the spoke count due to much higher tension.

MaxPlanck

Yes indeed, an 18h Velocity fusion is the fall back plan if I'm unable to locate this precise rim. I'm not sure I'd be able to reuse the spokes though as the Velocity rims do not have paired hole drillings. Would this change the spoke length enough to force me to buy another set of spokes?

davidad

Best to check with a Trek dealer or a Rolf dealer.
Isn't that a 20 spoke rim?

Wordbiker

According to https://www.bikepedia.com/quickbike/BikeSpecs.aspx?Year=2004&Brand=Trek&Model=5200&Type=bike :

My Trek account shows there are '03/'04 Race Lite rims available in 20 hole.

MaxPlanck

Well, looking at the photos on bikepedia, it looks like I have a 2006 model (https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/bikes/2006/archive/5200). I'm 98% sure that it is a 18h wheel dispite printed evidence otherwise. I've counted it thrice before, but will do so again today after work.

Thanks for the responses so far.

Steve Katzman

It sure looks like a 20 spoke count from your picture. Most wheels have a spoke count that is divisible by 4.

blamp28

Wether or not you get a Bontrager rim, I would highly recommend getting new spokes to go with the build. Your spokes have been stressed and therefore weakened. IMHO it would be foolish to save a few bucks and assemble another wheel using those spokes. Did the driver pay for your damage if they were at fault?

MaxPlanck

So apparently I can not count... it is indeed a 20 hole wheel. I called the local Trek dealer and they can no longer get the 20 hole rim, so I'm just going to go with a 20h Fusion and new spokes to boot.

The driver did pay for the damage, so the cost is not that big of a deal... I would simply prefer to hold onto my money. It seems to be a moot point now though.

Thanks for all the help.

cycle_maven

I hope you took the bike into a shop for them to inspect for frame damage- a crack in the carbon fiber of the frame or fork and it could fail catastrophically without any warning. If the rim is that twisted from being run over by a car, I would at least replace the fork- I would feel pretty scared riding on a fork that held a wheel that sustained that amount of damage.

caloso

Concur.

MaxPlanck

The bike was given a thorough inspection by my LBS and they deemed everything rideable. I'll check into new forks though. Is this sort of failure one that would first show up as a crack which could be caught by regular inspection, or could everything look fine and then suddenly the fork explodes going over a bump?

cycle_maven

Don't know... I've never had any of my carbon frames or forks explode, so my information is purely anecdotal. But I've never crashed badly enough to twist up a wheel on one either. I believe your LBS, though- they are the pro's and know more about your bike better than me! If they've gone over it and said it's rideable, then I wouldn't worry too much- they would know the failure modes of your particular frame. Maybe the whole carbon explosion thing is a secret plot by the steel-is-real crowd to get everybody to be scared of their bikes.

Good luck, and hope your new wheel turns out fast and smooth.

fietsbob

Hub's hole drilling equally spaced? a rim that is equally spaced, all holes equidistant from each other, will be reasonable to build up as radially spoked .
as opposed to trying to figure out the paired spoke scheme again..

Tunnelrat81

AFAIK, the Bontrager front hubs have equally spaced flange drillings, and the rears are set up in pairs.... HOWEVER, that doesn't mean that you'll be able to lace it radially to any rim, because the holes in the two flanges wont' have standard offset. I would assume that with a paired spoke, radial front wheel the drillings from the left and right sides would be only very slightly offset to each other (the radial distance between the paired spokes), rather than being half offset. For example, with the wheel unbuilt, a spoke placed perpendicularly through one flange hole toward the opposite flange would likely (on your hub) hit JUST next to the opposing flange hole, rather than exactly between two of them. This would create a problem with lacing to a standard rim. I'd look hard for a stock rim (through a LBS) or try to find another company who does paired drilling and order a rim and spokes (since with a non stock rim the spoke length will likely be different).

I did some similar research a few years ago with regards to a rear bontrager paired spoke rim. Although I decided to scrap the idea since rebuilding would still cost ~$100 and I would still have a rear wheel with too few spokes (IMO), I do vaguely remember someone telling me that Velocity does offer paired spoke options in some of their standard rims. Some of the wheel builders on here may be able to confirm or deny this option.

-Jeremy

MaxPlanck

Good call on the flange offset Jeremy. I checked it out last night and indeed the hub is designed to be laced with paired spokes. Looks like the easiest thing to do at this point would be just to buy a new front wheel.

bjoerges

The paired spoke scheme is fairly easy. The spokes that pair at the hub have holes directly across from each other on the hub so that they are slightly offset at the rim but equal on the hub.


From the picture, you can only count 18 spokes, but there are 2 hidden behind the brakeset, that is definitely a 20H rim. The Trek Dealer site shows 53 rims available that match your original (or 9 or the RaceXLite if you want to take this opportunity to upgrade)