Wheel Rim Wear

[westofsouth]

My rear rim recently gave up and split after about 6000 miles. Is this a reasonable sort of mileage? (Surly LHT and Mavic A319). The front has about 4000 miles on it.

Could a long term solution be a switch to a disc set up at the front (Disc trucker forks) and a Grizzly CSS rim at the rear?

[andrew_s]

6000 miles isn't that unusual.
Things you can do to improve it are to fit a proper mudflap to the front mudguard to stop the front wheel kicking up gritty stuff onto the back wheel, or to change brake blocks for a more rim-friendly type.
I use to find Shimano blocks particularly bad for getting bits of grit embedded in them, and found my wheels lasted quite a lot better after switching to Koolstop. I had previously been getting 5000-6000 miles, which meant that a front tyre lasted longer than the wheel did.

[irc]

I have around 14k miles on the rims on my bike. Still plenty miles left. My rear rim is a fairly beefy Rigida Sputnik and most of those miles have been in dry weather.


But for other rims used more in wet weather will have a shorter life. With anything over 10k miles I'm happy to treat rims as an expendable.

[Brian73]

I've just refurbed a 2 year old Dawes tourer, the rear brakes had seized on (Tektro Oryx) and the rider had continued to use the bike. The rim was so worn it had started to bend outwards from the pressure in the tyres. I checked it with a vernier caliper and it had defelcted over 1mm each side compared with the front rim. The wear line had gone completely.

New rim was going to be £15 plus another £20-30 to build onto the old Shimano FH-RM70 hub

Wheelies had this for £20 inc free postage http://www.wheelies.co.uk/p24021/Tru-Bu ... Wheel.aspx

I actually received a Mach 1 240 36h rim on a generic no-name hub. After a bit of adjustment it runs smooth and true.

[Brucey]

My rear rim recently gave up and split after about 6000 miles. Is this a reasonable sort of mileage? (Surly LHT and Mavic A319). The front has about 4000 miles on it.

Could a long term solution be a switch to a disc set up at the front (Disc trucker forks) and a Grizzly CSS rim at the rear?

IIRC A319 rims have about 0.4mm each side to wear off before they are down to the point at which they are going to fail. They are a fairly lightweight rim, strong for their weight, and they are not that expensive; best to treat them as a consumable I guess although 6000 miles a go is a bit on the low side.

I'd think about using different brake blocks... what have you been using? Do you often clean the debris from the brake blocks?

If you like the rim brakes otherwise, maybe CSS rims front and rear are worth a go.

cheers

[Gearoidmuar]

I use beast rims on my touring bike, specified by Thorn.
Rigida Andra rims (tungsten impregnated) using Swissstop blue blocks on V-brakes. So far, 20,000 miles and no obvious wear. They do claim that they give 6 times the mileage of usual rims.