So… this just happened.
We were driving up the final hairpin turns to our chalet in Vercorin (Swiss Alps), when we suddenly heard a loud bang from the bike rack. Turns out my rear wheel — a DT Swiss ARC 1600 Dicut — had exploded. The carbon rim is visibly cracked, and the inner tube clearly blew from the inside (see pictures).
The bike (Canyon Aeroad) is only 18 months old and was freshly serviced before the trip
I checked the DT Swiss recall — my serial wasn’t affected. And I wasn’t even riding, just climbing the hill by car
It was warm and sunny, but nothing extreme. No braking heat, no wild pressure. Yet somehow the inner tube must’ve overheated and exploded, tearing straight through the carbon rim — without damaging the outer tire?
I’m now on the hunt for a cheap rear wheel at the local Decathlon just to finish some climbs this week, and then sort out a proper fix when I’m back in Belgium. Unless, by miracle, I find the same wheel somewhere around here…
Any idea how this could happen? Heat buildup in the car? Pressure + altitude? Defect? Fatigue?
Just looking for answers — or at least some emotional support in this tragedy 😅
by ichinistan
18 Comments
Honestly no idea how it happened but i‘d certainly contact Canyon/DT Swiss, i bet they are interested in what’s going on as well. Even though the situation sucks i‘m glad this happened while climbing and not on a fast descent. Could have ended badly
Isn’t that the exact area where they are saying the issue is? I ditched the DT’s anyway before the recall as I’m not a fan of them. There are better, lighter, wider (and quite) wheelsets out there.
No chance this was part of the recall, was it?
Wow! Don’t know what caused it, but I’m quite certain that your inner tube is not to blame. Undamaged, not-defective rims do not explode because of tubes (or tubeless) pumped up to normal pressures… You’d faster blow tire off the rim. There must have been some kind of damage or defect to the rim already.
Regardless, thank goodness that didn’t happen with you on the bike, bombing down a mountain descent!
Is it possible that it was being heated by the exhaust? What kind of bike rack was it?
Absolutely contact DT Swiss, even if it wasnt part of the recall. Very very odd that an inner tube would explode with that much impact damage to the carbon fiber
I know you said yours wasn’t part of the recall but that looks like it’s in the exact same spot as the ones that were affected.
There’s several reasons why it could possibly not have been part of the recall (wheel mm, which factory it was made), but this one does come from the same line that had other models recalled so I’d definitely report this to DT Swiss.
Check exhaust…
You might have just expanded DT Swiss’s recall…
The only thing I could think of is an over inflated tyre with a pre existing crack and maybe the pressure/heat of the sun made it blow?
How much pressure was in the tire before you started? While reading the manual of my tpu tubes, there was a caption, that you should deflate your tire to really low pressure (not sure / around 1 Bar). While traveling flat, there shouldn’t be a problem, but if you ascend (flying / driving up the mountains) the air in your tire will expand because the environmental air pressure is decreasing.
Th opposite happens, if you descend. Close the empty plastic bottle at altitude and watch the bottle while you descend.
These wheels are recalled
> We were driving up the final hairpin turns to our chalet in Vercorin (Swiss Alps)
So you were driving up over 4,000’ in elevation, likely with tubes inflated to much lower elevation…
Your car’s exhaust heated the wheel and tire to their failure point.
There was an email about a product recall from Canyon about some dt swiss carbon wheels with special serial numbers
You can eventually go straight to the DT Swiss HQ, you are in the swiss Alps so it might be on the road when you will go back to Belgium. 😂
I’m pretty sure that’s not DT Swiss’ or Canyons fault. You car exhaust destroyed your carbon wheel with the hot gas. That’s a known problem: https://9thwave-cycling.com/protect-your-carbon-rims-the-unseen-dangers-of-car-exhaust-and-how-to-prevent-damage/
What pressure do you pump your tires up to?