Picked up a single speed for free of Facebook market place. It’s a novatec hub at least, but the wheel seems to have prominent seam that you can see a hairline of daylight through. Not concerned about the paint coming off so much as the road worthiness of it. Should I bin it? I’m trying to ball on a budget for this build, anybody have any links to cheap ish wheels?
by Jackk0106
6 Comments
Yeah bro wheels got the hurps. Don’t ride that.
Just till I got home and binned it.
I wouldn’t just worry about it I would replace it yesterday.
Aluminium rims are made by extruding a very long coil of aluminium rim, and it’s then cut to pieces and the ends are joined. So they always have a seam, and on cheaper rims it can look pretty rough.
The seam is really only a problem if it’s bad enough to affect braking. But it’s almost never a structural problem because you have a lot of spoke tension holding the seam together.
That surface finish looks really rough though, but maybe it’s a DIY paint job that was done poorly?
if the seem is flat, theres no problem, if it isn’t you might want to file it flat so it doesn’t wear the brake pads, that’s it,
the seam won’t split if that’s your concern, it has some steel pins joining them, i’ve seen many rims with visible light coming through the seem and it was strong as any wheel, cheap wheels are all like that
just watch out for cracks developing in this area. specially if it’s a front wheel, if you see one just change it
https://preview.redd.it/bll96mq8ixqe1.png?width=543&format=png&auto=webp&s=b4113a813db89059db3247d1872ece15fba5b083
Honestly, it shouldn’t be that big a deal. Just as long as you always ride with a goalie mask and possibly even goalie pads. Otherwise I wouldn’t worry at all!