Okey. So story with my wheels being build by a local bike shop continue. I waited for them for almost 5 weeks because they couldn't determine proper spoke length. Few days ago they called me and said wheels were ready to collect. Unfortunately, after I mounted them, front wheel was about 2cm (~1inch) out of dish. Following yours advice I took wheel back to service where it was built and adjustments were made.
At home I noticed a few bulges under the tape. First I though that maybe it's some dirt but after removing tape what I saw was a spike on the edge of hole where nipple is going. Some of the rim's material was damaged – hole is not round anymore, there is a dent in it. There are 4 places like that. Spikes are around 1-2mm high, very sharp and they would definitely puncture tube after first few meters of riding. Reason for spikes is most probably a slipped tool during tensioning.
I know I could just take a file, remove the spike and enjoy my bicycle but that small detail, that quality of work made me really suspicious about this guy skills . So after a quick research on the internet I took a closer look at both wheels and I noticed few things that worries me.
FRONT WHEEL
- Spikes and dents – should I care about that forementioned dent on the edge? I'm afraid it made material weaker and that it will crack. It's a dt Swiss 545DB aluminium rim.
- Spokes tension – when I grab two crossing spokes in my fingers I can barely bend them. Much more force has to applied than on rear wheel spokes and my other wheels. It wasn't like that before making wheel ditch. Can this lead to rim or hub cracking?
REAR WHEEL
- On 12 out of 36 spokes thread is not full screwed into the nipple. Depending on spoke it protrude from 1 to 5 mm into hub direction Also when looking at these spokes from outer edge of rim spoke is very, very deep inside a nipple. Again guy told he couldn't determine proper length and it looks like there are too short.
Maybe I am exaggerating but those are the wheels I'm planning to use on longer bikepacking trips and I prefer to avoid failure somewhere in the middle of nowhere and my overall feelings about these wheels are bad.
Tomorrow I will visit two more bike service centers to show them wheels and ask about their opinion. Do you have any suggestion what should I ask them or what to pay attention for?
Thank you reading this long post and for sharing your experience on wheel building.
by VanderBlady
10 Comments
Hard to say about the tension without using a tensiometer, but yeah, those spokes are too short.
Ok as I started reading, and looking at the pics, I was thinking “I don’t know that I’d even trust these wheels. Clearly built by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing.”
Then I see your intended use case. Get your money back. I hope these aren’t hubs and rims you purchased on your own and you can just return it all. This is not acceptable build quality in my opinion. That should never have gone out the door.
I think you’ve got it all pretty much figured out. Show the other shops what you’ve shown us, and it should be pretty clear. If it was me, I’d want the wheels rebuilt. Figuring out spoke length can be tricky, but it isn’t some black art. That the original shop struggled with that critical first step is a major red flag, IMO.
I think you can safely file the sharp bits on the spoke holes in order to salvage the rims. But I’d want someone knowledgeable to re-calculate what the spoke lengths are *supposed* to be, and then compare those numbers to what you’ve got. The high tension, inaccurate dishing, and exposed threads above the nipples tells me they didn’t get the numbers right — again, that’s the *most* *critical first step* on which everything else depends.
No way would I embark on a bikepacking trip or tour with those wheels.
I suspect that the builder used a large flat head screwdriver to tighten the nipples which is the reason for the burrs around the spoke holes. The amount of thread showing at the nipples tells me that they weren’t paying attention at all, it’s easy to make a mistake in measuring spoke length, but that should have been corrected as soon as they started tensioning the wheel.
Totally unacceptable for even an amateur wheel builder and a definite safety issue. Please ask for a refund and take your business somewhere else!
A bit of protruding thread isn’t uncommon but not ideal. 5mm seems like a hell of a lot though (like 50% not engaged with a nipple usually being 10mm). Threading is sort of weird in that load distribution on the threads isn’t even (the old engineering rule of thumb is that the first 3-4 threads are doing like 90% of the load), but still. Kinda shoddy.
The clearance holes on the inside of the rim are sometimes a bit rough given that its drilling into thin material that is also curved, but those look horrifying, like the builder hand drilled out the factory holes even further. Pic on the right looks like a classic hand drill stall/twist bite on breaking through.
I wouldn’t trust rim tape to protect the tube against outright burrs.
Do not ride those wheels. Demand full replacement. This is an absurdly incompetent wheelbiilder.
Those spokes are at least 4 mm too short. Even if the nipples are brass, they will not last because the nipple heads are unsupported. If they are aluminium they could fail on the first ride.
Get your money back, and take them to a shop that knows what they are doing. Unfortunately it’s increasingly common that shops don’t have anyone who actually understands wheelbuilding.
The wheel builder has no idea what they are doing. Those wheels are not going to hold up. This is a re do or full refund plus costs of whatever is damaged. Go find someone else that actually knows how to tension, true and dish.
First, what type of hub are you using? straight pull with a particular lacing pattern like triplet or something like that?? That’s the only pattern where I would say “yeah, that’s a hard one to check for length”.
Damn, that’s some bad job you have there.
5mm is a lot of thread, unless they over threaded the spokes with a machine and have more than the 10mm of thread.
The dent, that’s some screwdriver right there.
The spokes not fully threaded, that’s poor tension, they just went round the wheel tightening without much care in the world.
You have two options, you take them back and ask for your money back, get them to either un build the wheel and take your parts elsewhere or they go and rebuild them the proper way.
These are terribly built with clearly incorrect spoke lengths.
And someone went crazy with a power tool for lacing. Normally you see that kind of damage on wheels built badly by machine. I’ve literally never seen that kind of damage on a hand built wheel.
There is probably no serious damage to the hub or rims, but you should have these rebuilt properly with new spokes and nipples. Just file down the sharp burrs on the spoke holes.