Hey all, I bought these zipp wheels second hand and they had about 15000km’s with me now. They start to wear out, but the marks are still a bit visible on 3 of the 4 sides. Do I need to replace them now before it gets too dangerous? What’s the worst that can happen. I absolutely love these wheels and can’t yet throw them in the bin…
by tjebl5
6 Comments
I’d give a good clean to the rim first then unsettle the tire to check the entire rim and then proceed with the ridability evaluation.
If the wear indicators disappear on either side of a rim, you should replace it. If you don’t, you run the risk of the wheel failing catastrophically. If that happens when you’re travelling at speed, you could end up with serious, potentially deadly injuries.
The wear indicator is still visible, so they’re still rideable. 15,000km isn’t that much on an alu road rim brake wheel, you actually use the brakes very little on a road bike.
breaking would improve drastically with a new rim though.
Edit: probably using softer pads can compensate for the unevenness of the rim brake surface
There’s a simple proof test for rim wear and that’s to inflate the tyres to way more than their rated pressure.
Chris Juden, an engineer who was technical officer for the UK’s Cyclists’ Touring Club for many many years came up with this test. He suggested inflating your tyres to twice their rated pressure, which puts a very high load on the rim sidewalls. If the rim survives that, it’s safe to ride.
I’ve seen other knowledgeable people suggest 20-50% over pressure.
Wear eye and ear protection. If the rim goes, it’ll go with a bang, though if you inflate the tyre gradually you’ll probably be able to stop when the rim cracks rather than when it fails completely.
If you feel obvious divots or like troughs on the braking surface then maybe but that doesnt happen for a very long time, a good way to increase your rim life at least to my knowledge, is to take a rough file to your brake pads every once in a while because sometimes they will pick up chunks of metal from your rim, thats why theres sometimes chunks in the pads and lines taken out of the rim. It will increase your braking performance and somewhat increase the life of the rim, because those metal chunks wont be tearing on your rim.