I have a Salsa Fargo with stock wheels (XT hubs, disc, Salsa rims, 36 spoke) and have about 15,000 miles on them, about 3,000 of which were loaded touring. I ride almost entirely on the road, weigh about 195 lbs, regreased the hubs one time, and had the tension of the spokes redone twice. Never broken a spoke or been out of true. That being said, how long do these things go for? They are aluminum which does fatigue and I don't want to be in the middle of nowhere with a rim cracking or something. Does anyone have any ideas on this?

I know guy who has 20,000 miles on his road bike wheels with cartridge bearings. He put new bearings in and away he went. He's about 125 lbs.

I think the answer is, it depends on weather rider weight and riding style. I have a bike with 11,000 miles on the wheels, one with about 8,000, and a couple with about 6,000.

I don't think there is an accurate method to determine the lifetime of a particular rim. The only rims I've personally rode for 15K miles were in very good condition when I sold the bike. I would expect them to go for another 15K miles, but that's really just a guess.

I picked up a very high mileage touring bike for a beater bike and while at least two of the OEM rear wheel's spokes have been replaced, the hubs and free hub were in pretty good condition, no cracks in the Sun R17 rims, but the braking surface is nearly toast. While I wouldn't hesitate to use them for a 400-500 mile tour, a trans continental would use the wheels from my main touring bike (If I absolutely had to use the beater. )

Brad

Last rim I replaced had about 60 kmiles on it before the braking surface got too thin. With disk brakes I would think wheels could last much longer - probably a few hundred kmiles.

I think most people will wear down the rim braking surface before any other wheel component goes bad, but you said you have disc so that is not going to happen. The Aluminum axle XT rear hubs have had occasional reports of bearing failure but you report that you had it regreased twice, presumably you will continue that. Front Shimano hubs often do not have much grease in them, I have added grease to my new front Shimano hubs. Presumably you greased the front too.

Occasionally you hear of a rim cracking in such a way that it probably was related to high air pressure splitting the sides apart. If you stay reasonable with your air pressures, that should not be a problem as if there was any inherent rim weakness, you would have discovered that already.

Bottom line - your rims and hubs might last forever or they might not.

A friend of mine did a cross country trip (cross USA) and said that many in the group had to replace a rear rim. He said his rear A719 rim cracked, but I am not sure why or how they cracked. I consider this as an erratic failure since there are many with similar mileages that have not had any such problems.

I do not know if corrosion can play a role or not, but the friend of mine that had that rim failure was part of a group that had a photo to start their cross country tour, each in the group had their bike rims in salt water at the beach. I am sure that the winter road salt is bad for my rims, but there is not much that can be done on that.

Mine usually last until I hit something that throws them permanently out of whack. I'll have to work on straightening rims sometime.

I did have a rim that wore through the brake track, but I had bought the rim used, and that was before I knew to look at the brake tracks before building the wheels. But, it was really a year of hard commuting over a steep hill that did me in.

Since a "wheel" is built up of a few components, rarely would hub, spokes and rim go out at the same time so often it means, just replace one component and the wheel rolls on.

I ride all winter and even tour in the winter, so I get about three years on a wheelset before it's time for a new one. Since switching to disk brakes, though, all I need to replace is hub bearings. So far, by the time i'm ready for a replacement wheelset I am also ready for an upgrade or a change in my hubs anyways.

Gee, you guys are lucky, than again I used to be lucky as well until...

My current rear wheel...

New bike as of early June this year. All but 400, give or a take a few, of the miles I have put on the bike, over 7000 right now, have been on tour. I have already replaced the original wheel that came with the bike at around 4500 miles. With less than 2000 miles on the new wheel I already noticed two cracks at the spokes. Total weight on the bike 210 pounds, 180 for me and another 30 in gear.

Yeah, on my other bike, a multi gear converted to fixed gear with a flip flop hub I have over 15k miles on the flip flop hub including 5200 mile touring last summer.

It really depends on how lucky you get. I had a wheel I bought a few years back that got warrantied out. First spoke broke with only around 600 miles on the wheel and then every once every week or two I would brake another spoke. They just kept breaking. The wheel hadn't been built right.

Replacing the wheels is no guarantee against something failing. Inspecting for cracks before a big ride should be standard practice. Chances are, even if you see cracks around the spokes you are not at any immediate danger. I would replace after two spokes break, or cracks show in the rim, not sooner.

Spokes are eternal, if one or two break, and the wheel was properly built, replace them and drive on. Only rims need regular replacement.

Rim wear (Jobst Brandt)

Reusing Spokes by Jobst Brandt

Look at your rims at the spoke nipples and see if you can find little hairline cracks. They will only grow and get worse. Eventually a nipple will pull through. No cracks? Rim is ready to go for more miles. A nipple pulling through is rim ending but not always ride ending.

As posted above, breaking a spoke isn't a big deal. But if it starts to become a pattern, that wheel will not be worth saving.

Ben

Your wheels will last as long as they last. The problem is there are so many factors that go into wheels that there is no real formula or set mileage. As a few folks have said, inspect your wheels before every tour (probably while giving it a good tune up). If you take care of your wheels they will generally take care of you but anything can happen.

You might also want to think about finding an experienced wheel builder and get some quality parts and have them build you up something real nice. Someone like Bill Mould from Spokes Etc. in Virginia or Peter White in New Hampshire knows this stuff well as they have built more wheels than you could shake a stick at. I am sure there are tons of other folks but those were two that come to mind and Peter is so cantankerous and opinionated but so funny you can't help but love him and Bill does all sorts of crazy stuff like putting bike wheels on cars and driving around.

It depends . keep rim clean and pads free of imbedded grit?

+1, I believe Bob's post is a good recipe for rim longevity.

My wife's wheels have the most miles of any of our wheels. She will have 14,000 miles on them by the end of next week. They are a great set of wheels, and have not needed truing since they were built. Universal Cycles in Portland build good wheels. We have their wheels on 3 of our bikes.

I don't see any reason to replace her rims in the near future. All 3 sets of touring wheels were built with Velocity Dyad rims.

Thanks for all the info. I'll give the rims a good inspection.

I just replaced a front wheel that probably had 15,000-20,000 miles on it. My brakes had worn through the rim. If not for the holes in the rim wall, there were no signs that it there was anything else wrong with it. In fact, I took the hub and built it into a new wheel, so we'll see how long that lasts.

I had rim brakes (obviously) and I ride in all kinds of weather. If I were a fair-weather rider, I might have gotten longer life out of that rim.

On the other hand, with my rear wheel over the same amount of time, I went through two or three rims. But no rim ever wore out. I had to rebuild the wheel a few different times, and some of those times I decided to replace the rim. Only once was because I felt like the rim was actually in danger of wearing out. In fact I'm pretty sure there are two former rims that I'm hanging on to for future wheel builds.

I have no idea about mileage, but I last changed wheels on my Miyata 1000 26 years ago, in 1989! However, I have only ridden this bike occasionally during the past 11 years, but 15 years of regular riding is a good record.

I have had a True North touring bike since 2004, and the hubs, rims, spokes are the originals.

I wash rims regularly, repack hubs every few years, etc. I may change the rear rim on the True North eventually due to brake pad wear. Or maybe I'll just switch front and back!

Good wheels, properly maintained, can last years or decades.

Only wheel failures I've had were a couple from under-tensioned spokes. Good rims in properly-built wheels seem to last pretty well, never had a problem w/good wheels despite mega miles over bad roads.