Disposable commuting wheels

dav1

So after 18 months the rim wear indicator on my trusty 105/open sport rear wheel is gone.

I because disilussiond with factory wheels after my RS10s lost a spoke after 4 months, then the rear rim lasted just 11 months. At that point i thought a nice handbuilt wheel was the way foward.

Phoned several LBSs this weekend to get a quote for a rerim, and all of them quoted me £90, then proceeded to tell me its a waste of money and not worthwhile.

So I am taking a new approach (given that the front wheel will last another 6-8 months at best), buying the cheapest wheels I can find (Shimano R500s), trashing them and repeating the whole thing again in a year or so time.

In terms of my current wheel, I am tepted to go buy a new open sport rim, and give a rim swap a go at home. Can it be done without a truing stand and tension meters? seems like I have little to lose, and will gain a nice spare wheel from it if it works.

[/rant]

bails87

Yep, assuming you've got the tools and the skills then you can do it yourself.

Next time get a bike with disc brakes though*. they're much cheaper, quicker and easier to replace


*This is an excuse to buy a new bike, in the long run you're saving money....right?

gbsahne001

Dav1 wrote:

So after 18 months the rim wear indicator on my trusty 105/open sport rear wheel is gone.

I because disilussiond with factory wheels after my RS10s lost a spoke after 4 months, then the rear rim lasted just 11 months. At that point i thought a nice handbuilt wheel was the way foward.

Phoned several LBSs this weekend to get a quote for a rerim, and all of them quoted me £90, then proceeded to tell me its a waste of money and not worthwhile.

So I am taking a new approach (given that the front wheel will last another 6-8 months at best), buying the cheapest wheels I can find (Shimano R500s), trashing them and repeating the whole thing again in a year or so time.

[/rant]

The R500 on the front of the wet commuter is coming to the end of it's life and it's done approximately 15,000 miles. I've just replaced the back wheel with a handbuilt wheel from Parker; Rigida Sputnik and Deore LX hub (needed 135) for £60.

Looking at replacing the front with a Rigida Chrina on a 105 hub for £65

dav1

I do hope to grab a new commuter eventually, want a best bike first though.

Most of the reason for getting cheap bits is to help build to new bike(s) fund

fossyant

Re-do the rim yourself. Done it myself with CXP33's, but they are £45 a pop. Open sport should be £25. Re-use the spokes and nipples if in good condition.

Daz555

What, your rim lastest just 18 months? :?

dav1

yeah not long at all! its done about 6000-7000 miles (my durano tyre has actually lasted longer!).

I think its a combination of crap on the roads turing my pads into sandpaper and the fact that I have to brake a lot when riding in traffic. I notice that iI do drag my rear brake a lot when turing right or modulating speed on downhills, which is a big contributor.

Underscore

You can get Open Sports from CRC in silver for £22 (and, if you're getting through them at that rate, you're probably as well going for silver as it's cheaper) and it shouldn't take more than an hour to two to re-rim. However, I would suggest that you would really need a truing stand. Having said that, the rim, truing stand, spoke key and Roger Musson's fine e-book on wheel building may well set you back no more than a replacement wheel!

_

DavidBelcher

Other cheap rim options for a DIY replacement job: DRC ST17s come in sub-£25 whilst Mach1 CFXs are about £18-£19 and a very good, if not well-known (made in France, they play a very minor second fiddle to Mavic), rim - Helmut Berns at Sonic Cycles sells the latter and has built a couple of pairs up into my current race wheels.

David

Jimbo.

The R500s may be a touch less disposable than you think! Yes they're cheap and granted they're not the lightest things on the road (nor the heaviest), but in two years I've ridden mine up/down countless kerbs, down stairs, through some horrible potholes, through the dirt etc with little in the way of care, and they're never so much as needed truing

centimani

Jimbo. wrote:

The R500s may be a touch less disposable than you think! Yes they're cheap and granted they're not the lightest things on the road (nor the heaviest), but in two years I've ridden mine up/down countless kerbs, down stairs, through some horrible potholes, through the dirt etc with little in the way of care, and they're never so much as needed truing

+1.
R500s on my winter commuter for the last 3 or 4 years. Only JUST had to adjust and service the hubs, still as true as the day i brought them, bloomin brilliant wheels for commuting IMO. TBF, my commutes dont require much braking, so the rims are still in very good condition.

jejv

Rims wear because of bits of grit, aluminium, and aluminium oxide embedded in the brake pads. The pads themselves are much softer than the rims.

The rims themselves make a difference, but there is a huge difference between different pad compounds in how much grit and swarf they pick up and retain.

Shimano pads can be particularly bad. Clarks and Tektro also pick up swarf and grit.

The usual answer is Koolstop Salmon or Salmon/Black pads. Which are not incapable of picking up grit and swarf, but in our experience, do not.

Koolstop pads are relatively expensive, but last much better (2-3x better ??) than cheap pads, and will wear your rims much more slowly. Oh, and they're usually recommended for improved braking.

I believe Swiss-Stop are OK too, but I haven't tried them.

It's a good idea to remove the pads from time to time, to check for embedded crud. If you hear a scraping sound, that'll be a bit of swarf cutting a groove in your rim.

Then you can remove bits of grit & swarf with a pointy knife, and/or a clean file. Sandpaper would be bad, because bits of grit from the sandpaper will get stuck in the pads.

jejv

Swarf Link:
http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f ... 82#p147944

gbsahne001

I've been running Clarks 72mm triple on the front and Kool stop on the back. The Clarks are now getting to the end of their life after 6 months (approx 5000 miles) and the Kool stop are also requiring changing after 3 months (approx 2000 mi).

Looking at the pads, both are relatively clean with no trace of swarf in either of them. The kool stops were 12.34 and the Clarks 6.99.

Make sure you clean the rims on a regular basis and both the pads and rims will last a lot longer.

jejv

We had Clarks CP510 pads. Which I liked, because they had a harder feel than any other pads I've tried.

YMMV.

The pictures in the CTC thread reflect our experience.

I like brakes with minimum slack. With the clarks pads I'd be adjusting them every couple of days. Which went to once a week or longer with koolstop. And no swarf. I think the "plough tip" is a bad idea - I think they tend to cause judder, so I cut them off flush.

Can get swarf in koolstop pads, but we don't.

beverick

I'm not sure why they're telling you it's a wast of time. Are they saying it's cheaper to buy 'machine assembled' new wheel of the same spec rathern than to handbuild?

In my experience the cost is related to the condition of the hub as much as anything else - basically, if you have sound, good quality hubs (which 105's are), it's usually better value to rebuild using new rims.

In the last year I've had the rear wheel of the 'hack' rebuilt around a perfectly good XT hub and a failed hub replaced using a nearly new rim (Mavic A719) - both cost £70 and both were cheaper than a new wheel of the same standard.

Regarding building your own, I have done it but there's definately an art in getting the wheel circular, true and with the correct amount of 'dishing'. In my opinion, it's well worth paying for the time of someone who knows what they're doing!

Also, the general advice is to replace the spokes and not reuse. The old ones will have been at a specific tension for so long 'fatigue' is more likely to become and issue so they're more likely to fail if you reuse them. Anyway, the cost is negligible against the hub and rim so it's really a false economy.

Bob

nameinuse

Interesting thread this, particularly as I've just noticed my Shimano RS10s have no wear indicator left despite only having 3000 miles on them (with koolstop salmons). The weather has been miserable but it's not like I've left the bike to rot, I don't think it's had a substantially harder life than any other commuter.

I was thinking of going a slightly different route as I'm not inclined to learn wheel-building at the mo and don't have a good shop locally. Fulcrum Racing 7s are remarkably cheap (€130) in some places and have a reputation for bombproofness, so I was thinking of those, and maybe trying the swiss-stop pads...

passout

You can 'sometimes' get Planet X's A57s for about 100 notes. Nice wheels in many ways but fairly disposable essentially.
Also you might want to look at the Merlin Cycles website - there often have wheel bargains, so to speak.
Agree about fulcrum 7s.

dav1

Picked up my R500s from merlin in the end, just need fresh gear cables and a new tyre now and i can get the bike rebuilt and good as new.

As i said before, I think my old hubs are worth rebuilding, just not for a cost that exceeds a whole new set of wheels! The way I see it the bike has to take a lot of abuse and therefore excessive spending for a high wear machine is not worth it. I'd rather save up for a nice new sunday bike