Lifespan of Easton EA 70 wheels

waltdinghy

Hope that there is someone who can answer my query . I am currently into the second year of owning a Vitus Venon vrs and have notched up 8500 kms since November 2014 and am running on Michelin pro 4 Endurance 25 mm tyres. Tyres are good and minimal wear on Ultegra brake pads fore and aft. What can I expect as a life span dor the Easton rims ? I do not ride in any competitive events and usually get out on the bike about 3 times per week with average runs of around 60 kms. Live in
the Midi_Pyrennes area of France so a good variety of variable routes with quite a bit of climbing .Braking sufaces on wheell
rims at present seem o.k. to me.

Bobbinogs

I can quite specific here...it depends.

Rim wear is dependent on a whole range of factors not least weather, roads, braking technique, brake pads (make/model and maintenance), cleaning of the rims, etc. The best, and safest, way is to learn to gauge wear yourself. The guidance is less than 1mm of brake track on the rim needs to be watched cautiously (time to start putting "Wheels" into the Road Buying Advice search tool), less than 0.7mm and it is new wheels time. However, measuring rim thickness accurately can be tricky; I have some sprung calipers that give a good guide but they do not provide an accurate measurement across the whole brake track. Using wear indicators that are stamped on the brake track is much easier but many manufacturers don't have them and they don't always tell the whole story.

If in doubt, rub your thumb across the brake track and if it feels tangibly and deeply concave then it is very likely that the rim is on its way out. Don't be tempted to eeek too many miles out of a worn rim, the results of a blown rim can be very ugly.

keef66

I have Shimano rims with wear indicators that will disappear as the rim is worn down. My oldest and in theory most worn front RS10 has done about 12,000 miles and is still apparently OK, but it's now on the summer bike so it doesn't get the grinding paste that the winter wheels do. Also I do relatively little braking on my gently undulating rural routes round here. And I weigh only 63kg.

As a double check I have also invested a fiver in the little sprung dental caliper that allows me to quickly measure the actual thickness of the brake track whenever the tyre is off the rim. I can't imagine why bike shops don't sell them.

waltdinghy

Thanks for the very helpful comments so far . I have a Dutch friend who worked in Dental instrument business so he may be able go oraganise one of the measuring calipers . Help much appreciated.

keef66

https://www.amazon.com/Stainless-Iwanso ... B0087HKWCO

This kind of thing; the little nipper type jaws go round the bead hook so can accurately measure brake track thickness

Bobbinogs

yes, those are similar to the ones I use but they really are not that accurate, so use them as a guide to thickness rather than an absolute. The problem is in the design of most rims, to get the calipers close to halfway across the braking track one needs to get them at a slight angle...and this can vary the reading massively. The rim design will then stop anything reading rim depth more than halfway across the braking track (it is the internal cross section that will stop the calipers) and so one then also has to guesstimate the remaining using the measurements gained so far as a guide.

In other words, try not to make it too scientific but if you measure one bit accurately as 0.7...and the track is then concave from there, you know that it is under 0.7 at some point and therefore getting dangerous.

keef66

When I got mine I measured the thickness of various things and compared the readings with those from my digital calipers and found them to be very accurate. So as long as the jaws are perpendicular to the brake track I think it's close enough for a quick check.

rolf_f

Bobbinogs wrote:

If in doubt, rub your thumb across the brake track and if it feels tangibly and deeply concave then it is very likely that the rim is on its way out. Don't be tempted to eeek too many miles out of a worn rim, the results of a blown rim can be very ugly.

Except that a rim can be visibly very concave for 10,000 miles and still be fine. That a braking surface is concave isn't really an indication that it is on its way out.

keef66

Rolf F wrote:

Bobbinogs wrote:

If in doubt, rub your thumb across the brake track and if it feels tangibly and deeply concave then it is very likely that the rim is on its way out. Don't be tempted to eeek too many miles out of a worn rim, the results of a blown rim can be very ugly.

Except that a rim can be visibly very concave for 10,000 miles and still be fine. That a braking surface is concave isn't really an indication that it is on its way out.

He did say deeply concave..

If in doubt, and you can't be arsed to measure it, mount a decent tyre and pump it up to 150psi and see what happens

Bobbinogs

Rolf F wrote:

Bobbinogs wrote:

If in doubt, rub your thumb across the brake track and if it feels tangibly and deeply concave then it is very likely that the rim is on its way out. Don't be tempted to eeek too many miles out of a worn rim, the results of a blown rim can be very ugly.

Except that a rim can be visibly very concave for 10,000 miles and still be fine. That a braking surface is concave isn't really an indication that it is on its way out.

Not sure I agree with that Rolf. Most rims do not have very thick braking tracks so a tangible and deep concavity must indicate that the rim is worn to a fair degree. If a rim started at, say, 1.5mm and is distinctly concave then I think it is fair to say that one would need to mindful that even just 1mm worn away at its thinnest point, would take it down to the 0.5mm 'danger' area. I have sawn an old wheel up just to check how worn a rim was when it was noticeable concave which did prove two things:
1. That a distinctly concave rim track did need to be considered with some caution
2. That the wheel was not fit for riding after I went at it with the saw :-)

rolf_f

Depends what you define as 'distinctly' or 'deeply' - though a lot of the time this discussion arises the suggestions seems to be that you bin a rim with any concavity which is clearly excessive. My Campag rims I'd say don't take that long to look distinctly concave. Nor the Rigidas on my Tourer after only a 4000 mile tour. But they are a long way from worn out. There are two kinds of concavity - that caused by the brake blocks wearing the rim away. That starts as soon as you start using a rim in the wet. A rim will always wear more in the middle of the track so it has to develop a concavity before it is worn out. The second form of concavity is caused by the rim weakening and the tyre causing the rim to bow out. Campag recommend replacing the rim when this form of convavity occurs - this is based on measuring the width of the rim which, obviously, stays the same until the rim starts to bow.
This is the method I have used - so far I have worn two Campag rims out this way. As soon as the rim starts to bow even slightly, you feel it very obviously in the braking.
I think a lot of people probably bin wheels long before they need to - keefs point about 150psi is probably worth considering if in doubt!