Anyone ever have the sixe of your rim blowout?

ouch! What make & model rim?

It's a Mavic Open Pro with, probably, just over 15000 miles of all season commuting.

It's possible that the brake just wore through the rim enough to cause this failure. Rims usually last longer than 15,000 miles, but of course it depends on the conditions that you ride in. I've myself have never been able to fully wear through a rim.

Wow! Never happened to me.

I have had two rims wear out like that, but in both cases the rim started rubbing on the brake and when I went to true the wheel I found the rim cracked. Both were rear wheels with 5000-7000 miles on them. One was a folding bike with 16" wheels, the other a folding bike with 20" wheels; smaller wheels wear out faster. In your case, as in mine, I believe the rims had worn out.

I know a guy who had his front wheel blow out just as you describe. In his case, it was not wear, but rather a defective rim. That was on a comparatively new Trek 26" rim. He was going pretty fast, did an endo, wound up unconscious, woke up in the hospital. He's okay but Trek was not helpful, trying to blame the customer, claiming tire was overinflated and so on.

That's not a blowout, that's rim failure. Hard to tell from the photo, but the rim looks pretty old. Check the other wheel carefully. Time for new wheels, which can be a good thing.

I have had a couple of my own rims wear through at the brake track, and seen many others. I think the most catastrophic looking damage I have seen was on my father in law's bike.

Gotta keep an eye on the rims, they wear through. I've replaced only one rim due to it being worn too far. The previous rim that had that kind of mileage on it, I broke the axle before it got too thin and I just replaced the whole wheel.

Yup. Not so drastic, but same result. It means your rim is worn out. 15k miles on an open pro is about right if you ride in the grit.

Happened to me once.
Modern rims have a wear indicator.
You can proof test rims by over-inflating, but wear goggles and leather loves.

I have had a tyre sidewall blowout downhill, very discombobulating.

Time for a new rim. If the hub is good, there's no reason you can't get another rim, of the same model, match the holes, tape them togther, and move the spokes over to the new one.

Yes and glad your OK and was not going down a steep hill
V

I was going about 18mph on a flat. The hub cones are pitted on these wheels, too. So, it's just time for new wheels completely.

Some small cracks due to rim wear, not quite like that though.

I bought one of these last year for checking rim thickness, but I haven't ridden enough since then to warrant using it yet:



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Happened to me once while inflating, another time the rim bulged out while riding but did not tear off. Both were well worn rims with a lot of miles on them.

I've assembled wheels from used parts. A couple of years back in the late 90's, I was commuting over a big hill rain or shine, and wore the rest of the way through the brake track on one wheel.

Now I check any rim before purchase/assembly for brake track wear.

I can't remember whether I had a blowout, or just discovered the fully cracked rim.

I was wearing through commuter rims every ~7k until I switched to disc brakes. Rim brakes are a menace for PNW commutes, IMO.

And to the OP, I've had this happen twice and I also fragmented a rim when changing a tire.

I've worn through 7 rims since I moved to the PNW 23 years ago. (Of course, the fact that I've never had a commute that does not involve more than 800-1000 feet of descent probably had something to do with this.)

Imbedded grit in the pads will scour through rim brake tracks sooner.

Inspecting the Pads, removing the grit regularly and washing the wheels, to clean abrasive dirt off them , will lengthen the wear-Life.