Bent wheel... advice neeeded

scottyjohn

Hi all,
Was out yesterday and had a fantastic ride on lovely AE Forest dusty trails! However, had just got to the bottom part of "The Edge" on the red route and was doing medium speed, with no notification that anything was wrong, no rocks on the trail, when BAM, over the handlebars. When I gathered myself together I saw that my front wheel was literally folded in half, with the front half sitting at 90 degrees to the back half!
The wheel was a recent purchase, DTSwiss D400 (I think) with a normal Deore hub. Hub is intact, and no spokes have popped or snapped at all, and Im thinking that there was no undue force going through the wheel to cause the fold. The stem has not turned on the steering tube, and the stem is torqued correctly, so if something had caused a sideways impact on the wheel, and I was holding the handlebars, then Im thinking the stem would have swung round, right?
Im going to take the wheel back to my LBS and see what they have to say about it, but wanted some opinions here? Im hoping that they will discount a new rim, and build it for free, but also wanted a bit of advice as to what wheel I should go for, as Im not impressed with the DTSwiss. Im a heavy rider, and ride quite aggressively on trails, not really big hits but do kick slightly on any bumps on the trails. Im just worried about what would have happened if I had this happen at the top of the edge, where there appears to be a roughly 30 foot drop down a cliff, a few inches from the front wheel!!

Cheers!

supersonic

Could be that a hit had loosened some spokes off and another folded the wheel. Or could be inidicative of a badly built wheel.

Any flat spots or dents in the rim? And wat is the rim?

Also what spokes?

scottyjohn

Erm it was a DTSwiss X450 XC. There werent any other dent or marks on the rim, just the bend and fracture where it had bent

supersonic

I would contact the shop, but I would recommend a tougher rim for your riding than that.

Chaz.Harding

I like the DT Swiss 5.1D

Never bent one. They aren't the lightest around, but not the heaviest. If you get a good build, it'll be super strong on 32 or more spokes.

Or Sun Singletrack rims, Uber strong. Only 80g/pair heavier than the 5.1D's.

Plenty of stuff from Mavic too, but all they're similar numbers confuse me :oops:

Personally, I'd go the 5.1 route 8)

scottyjohn

So went back to the shop (Dales in Glasgow), and they wouldnt really help me out at all. So looked at what they could do, and the cheapest rim they had was £44, then 32 spokes at £1.60 each, and then the wheel build at £15! So I said screw it, and went across to another bike shop and they had a Mavic 717 rim on a Shimano hub, for £60, so I just went with that. Problem is that Im looking at the rim and it says max PSI is 45?? I didnt know that rims had max PSI ratings, I thought it was only the tyre? Im a heavy rider so need a bit of tyre pressure, whats the deal with this 45? It seems a bit low?

Any advice appreciated!

mikeage

First shop (Dales) sound like a bunch of cowboys to me mate, that works out at £51.20 for spokes alone?! And even with that ridiculous pricing they want the £15 build charge on top, you have a few wheel options within that price, and thats a full wheel, rim, spokes, hub and building!

You were right in saying 'screw it', hope you said it out loud to the muppet that quoted you.

Dirtydog11

Im a heavy rider so need a bit of tyre pressure, whats the deal with this 45? It seems a bit low?

45 PSI a bit Low?

What pressures where you running when the wheel folded?

45 psi is high for an MTB tyre. I'm 13.5 stone and run around 34psi on the back and 29psi on the front.