Rim Failure

I bought a set of brand new Ritchey Zero Comp road wheels, and the rear
developed cracks around the spoke holes within a few months. I did
maybe about 50% of my milage on these wheels.

A photo is here :

http://www.midweekclub.com/temp/rimcrack.jpg

About half the spoke holes for the drive side spokes have cracks like
these. The rims have a thin silver anodizing and there are no rim
eyelets. The rim is an offset design, to reduce the left side/right
side tension difference.

I didn't mess with the spoke tensions until the spokes became very
loose and I had to retension the wheel myself.

Is there an explanation of why this happened ? and what rim should I
replace it with ?

-Amit

In article
.com,
wrote:

I bought a set of brand new Ritchey Zero Comp road wheels, and the rear
developed cracks around the spoke holes within a few months. I did
maybe about 50% of my milage on these wheels.

A photo is here :

http://www.midweekclub.com/temp/rimcrack.jpg

About half the spoke holes for the drive side spokes have cracks like
these. The rims have a thin silver anodizing and there are no rim
eyelets. The rim is an offset design, to reduce the left side/right
side tension difference.

I didn't mess with the spoke tensions until the spokes became very
loose and I had to retension the wheel myself.

Is there an explanation of why this happened ? and what rim should I
replace it with ?

Cracking like that should never happen. All I can say is
that companies with a grip on the market prefer to sell
rims that break. Making a light rim that does not break at
the spoke hole is well understood. Good rims have been
made for decades. There is no manufacturing-engineering
reason for making inferior rims. The reason to make
inferior rims is so that folks buy more rims at inflated
prices.

--
Michael Press

wrote:
I bought a set of brand new Ritchey Zero Comp road wheels, and the rear
developed cracks around the spoke holes within a few months. I did
maybe about 50% of my milage on these wheels.

A photo is here :

http://www.midweekclub.com/temp/rimcrack.jpg

About half the spoke holes for the drive side spokes have cracks like
these. The rims have a thin silver anodizing and there are no rim
eyelets. The rim is an offset design, to reduce the left side/right
side tension difference.

I didn't mess with the spoke tensions until the spokes became very
loose and I had to retension the wheel myself.

Is there an explanation of why this happened ? and what rim should I
replace it with ?

-Amit

when you retensioned, what tension level did you use? did you use a
tensiometer? or "tension as high as the rim will bear"?

bottom line, that looks like classic over-tension. there is no reason
to exceed the spoke tension specified by the rim manufacturer.

I had two rear 32-spoke wheels with Ritchey OCR rims crack at the eyelets
within their first year of use. I replaced the rims with Velocity Aerohead
OC and have not had any similar problems since.

wrote in message
oups.com...
I bought a set of brand new Ritchey Zero Comp road wheels, and the rear
developed cracks around the spoke holes within a few months. I did
maybe about 50% of my milage on these wheels.

jim beam wrote:
wrote:

I bought a set of brand new Ritchey Zero Comp road wheels, and the rear
developed cracks around the spoke holes within a few months. I did
maybe about 50% of my milage on these wheels.

A photo is here :

http://www.midweekclub.com/temp/rimcrack.jpg

About half the spoke holes for the drive side spokes have cracks like
these. The rims have a thin silver anodizing and there are no rim
eyelets. The rim is an offset design, to reduce the left side/right
side tension difference.

I didn't mess with the spoke tensions until the spokes became very
loose and I had to retension the wheel myself.

Is there an explanation of why this happened ? and what rim should I
replace it with ?
-Amit

when you retensioned, what tension level did you use? did you use a
tensiometer? or "tension as high as the rim will bear"?

bottom line, that looks like classic over-tension. there is no reason
to exceed the spoke tension specified by the rim manufacturer.

And just how slack would he have to run his spokes to avoid this? Slack
enough that he would constantly be straightening his wheels due to poor
spoke tension?

Greg

--
"All my time I spent in heaven
Revelries of dance and wine
Waking to the sound of laughter
Up I'd rise and kiss the sky" - The Mekons

Nick Payne wrote:
I had two rear 32-spoke wheels with Ritchey OCR rims crack at the eyelets
within their first year of use.

Me too. Just one though.

I replaced the rims with Velocity Aerohead
OC and have not had any similar problems since.

I've got my Velocity Deep-Vs on order right now... along with a
tensiometer

There is no manufacturing-engineering
reason for making inferior rims. The reason to make
inferior rims is so that folks buy more rims at inflated
prices.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Even the dumbest bicycle component company isn't stupid enough to think that
people are likely to pay $$$ to replace equipment that failed before its
time with more from the same company. Sure, some people may, but a whole lot
of people are going to be buying something from a competing company. The
only people who would benefit from making product that consistently failed
earlier than it should would be those with a near-monopoly, and that doesn't
exist in the wheel-goods section of the marketplace. Lots and lots and lots
of options. And no, there's not a conspiracy among the various companies to
all make shoddy product so they sell more. That's giving them way too much
credit.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com


"Michael Press" wrote in message
...
In article
.com,
wrote:

I bought a set of brand new Ritchey Zero Comp road wheels, and the rear
developed cracks around the spoke holes within a few months. I did
maybe about 50% of my milage on these wheels.

A photo is here :

http://www.midweekclub.com/temp/rimcrack.jpg

About half the spoke holes for the drive side spokes have cracks like
these. The rims have a thin silver anodizing and there are no rim
eyelets. The rim is an offset design, to reduce the left side/right
side tension difference.

I didn't mess with the spoke tensions until the spokes became very
loose and I had to retension the wheel myself.

Is there an explanation of why this happened ? and what rim should I
replace it with ?

Cracking like that should never happen. All I can say is
that companies with a grip on the market prefer to sell
rims that break. Making a light rim that does not break at
the spoke hole is well understood. Good rims have been
made for decades. There is no manufacturing-engineering
reason for making inferior rims. The reason to make
inferior rims is so that folks buy more rims at inflated
prices.

--
Michael Press

Michael Press wrote:

Cracking like that should never happen. All I can say is
that companies with a grip on the market prefer to sell
rims that break. Making a light rim that does not break at
the spoke hole is well understood. Good rims have been
made for decades. There is no manufacturing-engineering
reason for making inferior rims. The reason to make
inferior rims is so that folks buy more rims at inflated
prices.

Applying Occam's Razor, it's more likely to be incompetent design. They
just didn't put enough metal in the right place and/or didn't test
thoroughly.

"Mike Jacoubowsky" wrote: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame
on me. (clip)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Mike, you could also have mentioned how you, as a dealer, would react if a
certain product exhibited a higher than average failure rate. I'm sure you
don't fancy dealing with customers who come in saying, "I haven't had this
very long, and look what happened." You would stop stocking the product.

Leo Lichtman wrote:
"Mike Jacoubowsky" wrote: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame
on me. (clip)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Mike, you could also have mentioned how you, as a dealer, would react if a
certain product exhibited a higher than average failure rate. I'm sure you
don't fancy dealing with customers who come in saying, "I haven't had this
very long, and look what happened." You would stop stocking the product.


But what's a dealer to do if the offending party is a company with a
virtual monopoly (especially as an OEM vendor) or is a 'captive' brand
of the dealer's primary supplier of bicycles? (I'm not naming names,
but it doesn't take much of an imagination to fill in the blanks....)