How many licks to the center of a Bontrager Race rim?
 

Or, actually, who many miles until you pull a spoke through the rim.

Answer: 5765.3 miles.

The wheel is on the rear of my 2014 Domane that I bought in October 2013.
About a month ago the wheel was a bit out of true and a local shop put it back straight.
Since then I've done rides of 64, 80, 103 and 71 (plus shorter weekday rides). After the 71 this past weekend I noticed it was out of true again and just grazing brake pads. I set it up to put it back in true tonight and noticed it was even worse -- which was strange since the bike had just been hanging on the wall for the past five days. Once I sat down to figure out which spokes I needed to tweak it became real obvious what the problem was.

Funny, I have never busted a road wheel. I have a set of Neuvations I bought in summer 2008 that probably have over 10,000 miles including a number of CX races, light single-track and loaded commuting. Most I've had to do with them was maybe a quarter to half turn on a couple of spokes after CX season last fall. A set of Mavic Open Pro/Ultegra wheels have been flawless with similar type of use.

Oh, well. Crap happens. I was definitely putting some miles in on some winter-ravaged roads this spring full of potholes and patches.


https://farm1.staticflickr.com/267/1...db306fb4_z.jpg

My Bontrager wheelset lasted almost two rear tires (Pro 4 Endurance). I bought them with my Project One bike and didn't really expect them to last very long, but I was surprised by the short lifespan.

I'd ask the bike shop you purchased the Domane from to see if they can warranty the wheel as a rim should be able to last longer than 5,500 miles. I had a similar issue with the RLs that came with my Domane; I got about 5,000 out of the rear and 8,000 out of the front before the eyelets started cracking. After five warranty wheels (yes, five, I ride a lot), Bontrager finally just upgraded me to the RXLs which have lasted nearly 20,000 miles now.

The truing process at the LBS may have caused the failure. If a ham-fisted mechanic just cranked down on the one spoke and took it to stupid, high tension, that could have done it.

Maybe, but if it was just one spoke, over tightening would have caused the rim to be out of true. If it was several in a group it would have flat spotted. Probably a pot hole cause a fracture and truing may have helped the splitting process along.

I goat about a thousand miles out of the same rim on my Madone and it did the same exact thing. It was the second warranty replacement wheel as the first one also did the same thing to me after approx a thousand miles as well. I got a third warranty replacement at no cost and after maybe 200 miles the bearings make a god-awful grinding noise....I gave up on Bontrager wheels.

Known issue with cheap Bontrager aluminum wheels.

fify.

What's your weight?

Answer #1 : That's not a polite thing to ask a girl.

Answer #2 : I'm too fat for this sport.

Answer #3 : It depends.

Answer #4 : It has ranged between 180 and 200 while riding this bike.

nahhh.


aha. That is one problem with athena-style racers: spoke count.

No, I had it right the first time.

I did the same thing with my Race X Lites, except with mine the eyelet pulled out.

Does Bontrager manufacture mavic open pro rims?

I was not aware. Thank you for clarifying.

OK, so you're not a light-weight, but 180 to 200 isn't a heavy weight. Any wheelset should be able to support you problem free. I'm in the same weight range as you and have no problems with my wheelsets. With a bike as nice as yours, I'd invest in a nice wheelset. I'm biased because I've had great luck with Mavic Ksyrium wheels. However, they are strong, light and hold a true under punishment (lots of chipseal here on NC backroads). Others will add their favorite brands.

If you got the bike in October of 2013, then the wheels are still covered under the Trek Care warranty, which includes two years on original Bontrager components. Take it to your dealer and have them submit a warranty claim.

The exact same thing happened on my cousin's 2013 Domane. It started with a few blown out spokes and not after than, the rim gave way. He had them replaced under warranty, then landed up replacing the anyway. LOL.

My personal experience: I'm way too fat (like 230+ pounds as of late...) and have thrashed my Domane 5.9 on some rough roads, including a metric century with pavement/gravel mix and some of the roughest Texas chip and seal known to man. I haven't even had a wheel go out of true. These are the RL (Race Lite) rims that came with the bike.

There are Race, Race Lite and Race X Lite wheels in the Bontrager lineup. From what I can tell, the R and the RL rims are the same, but with different hubs. The RXL rims are thinned a bit, with more material at the eyelets. I worked at a Trek dealer for 2.5 years and the only cracked Bontrager rim I saw was like 10+ years old on my FIL's bike. And we had some hard riding customers.

In the past, Bontrager rims were infamous for hub issues, but a while back they switched over to DT Swiss internals for the RL and RXL rims.

I'm just one guy and I only worked at one shop, but I thought I'd mention these things so that people aren't under the impression their Bontrager rims will asplode at any second.

Standard YMMV rules apply.

Opinions of this BFer are his own and do not represent Trek Bicycle Corporation, Bontrager, or other subsidiaries.

Side note: in general, BF folks tend to have way more issues with rims than any other cyclist I personally know. Someone mentioned Open Pro rims. If you read BF, they fail like once a year. I have a set of rims I have put several thousand miles on over 4 years and I have had zero issues. They rarely go out of true and I haven't had a cracked eyelet yet. And I've always been over 200 pounds. What the hell are you people doing to your wheels?

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

One of the rare times one of our customers had repeated failures, it was on an MTB with hydraulic brakes. I mean, he blew out the stock brakes, as in blew out the pistons on the caliper itself. It had mid-grade Avid hydraulics. I forget which ones. We upgraded them with XTR hydraulic discs and he blew those out in short order as well. He was always in for a brake bleed. Like every other week. We tried to please him and ate a lot of dollars, but it was clear that it was user error. I bought the same exact bike myself around that time and I did plenty of trail miles with ZERO brake issues. Some people just tear **** up.

10,814 miles on mine since July 2013. I also got Trek Care+ so if anything happens I'm covered through Dec 2016. Have them check with the local Trek rep, they should be able to do a good will warranty replacement as that's too soon.

Nope. No way. Common weight limits for "fast" wheels are anywhere from 180 to 250. Zipps are 250, American Classics are 200-240, Rolf doesn't get a number but steers heavier riders away from their light wheels, which makes sense- Vigors have 14 spokes. RT's chart starts saying "no" at 190lbs and begins discouraging use at 165lbs. Reynolds says 175lbs. Boyd says "We like to build like a custom wheel builder would, and if you are 190 pounds there's not a single custom wheel builder in the country who would recommend a 16/20 spoke count."

http://amclassic.com/download/manuals/wheel_chart.pdf
FAQ ? Rolf Prima Wheel Systems
RT WheelCraft : Premium Hand Built Custom Bicyle Wheels : Choosing the Right Custom Wheels
Spoke Count
Reynolds Cycling

It's not a judgement against weight- but let's be honest, it's probably better to have more spokes than the minimum available.

Thanks for the comments.

The Bontrager Race has 24 spokes on the rear and no rider weight limit (Race TLR - | Bontrager). I'm no lightweight but, as tedder has listed out, I am still within spec/recommendations for a lot of typical road wheels. If I were to build some wheels up from parts I'd probably go for 28 spokes but even that would be based on input and recommendations from the builder.

Regardless, the wheel is getting replaced under warranty. Less than two years since I bought the bike so it was covered. No questions asked.

Even better, the shop has lent me a wheel to use over the holiday weekend. They had a set of new Bontrager Race Lites set up tubeless they had gotten from Trek to use as demos. So they switched my cassette onto that rear wheel and I rolled the bike out the door. No charge for the loaner (I did tip the guys in the back that did the switch). So kudos to Spokes, etc. in Vienna VA!

Some companies apparently engineer each nipple hole for extra strength when building a reduced spoke rim.
Others apparently simply start with a round rim and drill it to the number of holes needed.

I'm wondering if Bontrager is in this later camp. And, if they are competing with other manufactures for weight, they may well be cutting corners.

The new wheel was in the shop in two days. I just picked it up this morning. And not only was it a quick, painless, no-questions-asked warranty claim, but they upgraded me to the Bontrager Race X Light wheel. That saves almost a half pound over the the Bontrager Race that came with the bike. And I did check -- Bontrager/Trek lists the wheel as having no weight restrictions. So I'm going to have an extra scoop of ice cream with my strawberry shortcake while watching the 4th of July fireworks tonight.

Now I just have a bit over three months to crack the front wheel rim so I can get that upgraded under warranty, too! :thumb: