How long do carbon clincher rims last?

londoncommuter

Of course there are endless debates on here and elsewhere about whether carbon clinchers will delaminate as soon as you look at them or else if they're as sensible as Radio 4.

Putting the catastrophic failures to one side though, assuming you only use nice soft carbon specific brake blocks, what sort of life do you get out of them? Has anyone worn a modern set out or seen some data on this? Obviously this is all dependent on rider weight, terrain, braking style, maintenance and climate etc etc but are they much worse than aluminium rims in the same scenario?

Does it vary massively between your Farports at one end and say Reynolds/Zipp etc at the other?

Is this too early to ask as they've not been around that long and quite a lot of users only use them for summer best?

I see Reynolds have brake wear indicators on their rims which sounds good but most don't seem to.

Some of these rims are works of art and it just seems a shame to slow your bike down by rubbing things against them! I guess that's why the sensible person goes for serviceable hand builts or even disc brakes....

cycleclinic

Many thousands of miles. Mine have done over 3000 miles with no visible wear so not sure how long it going to take me to wear them out.

ugo.santalucia

They should last less, but they do last more, as people have more care and only ride them in decent weather. I would expect them to wear very rapidly if you used them over a wet and cold winter

ugo.santalucia

On a different note, we got the message: you want to buy a new set of wheels, you have already opened 4-5 threads about it. It would make sense to merge them all in one, even if they are slightly different, instead of opening a new one every time you want to ask something.

Now locked