Today in the shop I got to see this. The rim held together in maybe 3-4 places, altogether 15cm. The rest was literally torn like this. What could possibly cause this kind of damage?
For reference, it’s an Italian e-road bike, don’t remember the company. Rim is 17-622 and the client put 40-622 tyres in it. Could it be that the tyre was too wide?
Thanks in advance!
by Nick_the_Gadabout
14 Comments
That width and too much pressure….
Too much pressure in the tire?
Corrosion
Rear wheel of my Load 75 split like this too. It was made by Alex Rims. Double-layered wheel. I think they have a manufacturing issue. I contacted them & they fobbed me off saying it was corrosion as my particular type of wheel isn’t anodized. Once the split appeared it seemed to propagate from one hole to the next underneath the rim tape. When I eventually noticed the crack after multiple punctures & removed the rim tape to check it the crack became much worse.
Some tubeless sealants have ammonia to keep it from drying and clumping.
Ammonia hates aluminum.
Thats is some really bad corrosion damage. Maybe bike was ridden near coast where salty road water could cause this?
Weak rim, manufacturing defect. I say from all my years working at a shop never saw this. I could also see it being from low tire pressure and jumping or a large impact which affected the rim. Maybe get rebuilt with a stronger rim, depending on your weight and riding style
Is the white stuff from the tube exploding or corrosion?
Split down the centre like that I would say too much pressure in the tyre.
We engineers call that stress cracking, possible stress *corrosion* cracking.
Aluminum does that. What causes it? Cyclic stress, and maybe something corrosive. Also, shoddy materials.
Best guess is moisture, water or ammonia based sealant got in there. That white stuff is galvanic corrosion.
is that a hub motor? I’ve heard they can mess spokes up but this looks like something else
Low quality aluminum rims coupled with an ebike seems a bit much. Quality rims are worth the price for safety and the amount of time having to repair the lower quality rims.
Sometimes, rims just die. A cheap rim I had did that after about 5000 abusive e-bike rear wheel miles. Not unexpected really.
I use to ride a lot in Florida “balm Boyette scrub” which is a huge swamp near Tampa and the salt in the ground and in the air corroded the spokes on my carbon rims. Became unsafe. I never had a catastrophic failure but I did start losing spokes. First one or two then 4-5. On inspection all the nipples had corroded out. An accident waiting to happen.