snyper rims cracking at spoke eyelets

[deckertim]

My Van Nicholas Yukon came with 36 h snyper rims. After less than 18 months the rear one is starting to crack at the eyelets. I need to replace the wheel and would be interested in recommendations. I use the bike for audax and light touring, so it is never heavily loaded, apart from my weight (around 15stone).
I intend to take up the failure of the rim with the retailer, but would rather go ahead and order a new wheel, as I have a number of rides planned in the next 6 weeks, including a 600km audax.
Is it reasonable for me to expect these rims to last longer than did? There is very little wear to the rims themselves. Is it likely this was caused by the tension of the spokes being wrong when the wheels was made.

[johnb]

Rigida Chrina and Ultegra hub.

[Brucey]

isn't the chrina a narrower rim? If so it might be a good one for a new pair of wheels but maybe not for just a new rear.

Re the OP's question;

Is it reasonable for me to expect these rims to last longer than did? There is very little wear to the rims themselves. Is it likely this was caused by the tension of the spokes being wrong when the wheels was made?

It could have been a combination of;

-rim properties
-usage conditions
-wheel build

that did the damage. No one factor may be 'responsible' -unless you can still measure a spoke tension higher than Rigida recommend....

I'd suggest a slightly heavier rim next time round, maybe with eyelets. Rims are consumables; two or three sets of tyres and you will probably need new rims at the best of times.

BTW Mavic A319 has an ERD +2mm vs Rigida snyper, so might be a good one to choose for a 'rim only' rebuild if the present spokes are full length.

cheers

[broadway]

Or Sputniks should be a straight swap, but more weight.

[johnb]

isn't the chrina a narrower rim? If so it might be a good one for a new pair of wheels but maybe not for just a new rear.

On a Van Nicholas Yukon with a max tyre clearance of 28mm. Why not?

[Brucey]

call me daft if you like but I always reckon the rear rim should be as wide -or wider- than the front.

cheers

[johnb]

Didn't realise the Synper was much bigger than a Chrina, but if it is the case I would prefer to change both the rims to Chrinas rather than to Mavic A319s on a Yukon.

[thecycleclinic]

Chrina's are so far excellent for me.

[Brucey]

Chrinas are -as far as I know- reasonable rims. But if I were in the OPs position, I'd have a wheelbuilder check and record the tension in the old wheel, then get it rebuilt with a rim that matched the other one reasonably well, hence the A319 suggestion. ERD is almost identical, hence cost should be rim + build.

To go to Chrinas you are looking at rim x2, build x2 and spokes x72.

Pretty close to the cost of a new pair of wheels.

cheers

[531colin]

I have never seen a Snyper cracked round the eyelets, and I have never seen a wheel built "too tight".....I wonder whats going on?
We had some rims on here (can't remember what?) that were cracking round all the driveside rear eyelets, that was a rim problem.

Exal LX 17 is in the same ballpark width wise as Snyper, and has double eyelets. These are supposed to transfer some of the spoke tension load to the other side of the rim, but I don't think they are made with enough accuracy to do that, they may simply act as big washers under the nipples. Can't remember if the spoke length is the same as for Snyper, I have a feeling it is.

[johnb]

We had some rims on here (can't remember what?) that were cracking round all the driveside rear eyelets, that was a rim problem.

.

There was a thread with DRC rim failure and many threads on the Mavic A319/A719/Open Pro Rim eyelet failures that lead to a lot of tourers and Audaxers moving to Rigida Sputnik and Chrina rims.

[bikepacker]

I have never seen a Snyper cracked round the eyelets, and I have never seen a wheel built "too tight".....I wonder whats going on?
We had some rims on here (can't remember what?) that were cracking round all the driveside rear eyelets, that was a rim problem.

Exal LX 17 is in the same ballpark width wise as Snyper, and has double eyelets. These are supposed to transfer some of the spoke tension load to the other side of the rim, but I don't think they are made with enough accuracy to do that, they may simply act as big washers under the nipples. Can't remember if the spoke length is the same as for Snyper, I have a feeling it is.

I tighten my spokes up to the top end of the Park tensioner meter and never had a problem with spliting eyelets. IMHO Mavic 720s and now 719s are by far and away the best rims for a touring bike, they appear to true up much easier, rim wear is better and the welded seam improves the look. BTW before you all jump down my throat with all your rim recommendations. I build wheels with various rims for quite a few local cyclists.

[Brucey]

....I have never seen a wheel built "too tight"....

well the limiting tension with many rims is when they are on the verge of 'pretzeling', but not all rims are like this.

Some rims come with spoke tension recommendations that appear to be well below that at which the wheel is going to pretzel up.

My impression is that these recommendations are based on the idea that otherwise, the rim might be more likely to crack in service.

Cracking isn't an exact science; the rims vary, and so do the conditions of use. Specifically the amount and type of road salt that gets onto the rear rim makes a massive difference to the likelihood of corrosion impacting the generation and propagation of cracks. This is something which the rider has little or no idea about, or control over, either. It could just take one droplet of salty water to dry out partially (and thus increase the solution strength) in the wrong place, and together with spoke tension stresses, a crack could be very likely to form in some rims.

cheers

[531colin]

Rears are 120/80kgf from Spa...no cracking I'm aware of.

Found those rims which did crack round the eyelets...http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=40617&hilit=alex+dh19

[Brucey]

Rears are 120/80kgf from Spa...no cracking I'm aware of.

Out of interest how close is it to the point of pretzeling with that rim?

Also, I thought you might like to see this;

Van Schothorst? Van bleedin' Splithorst more like....

BTW I weld repaired this rim; not because I thought it was a particularly good idea, but because I was interested to see if I could.

It took ages, but I think I've done it OK.

There is nothing 'wrong' with the stainless steel in the rim BTW, but plenty wrong with the corrosion conditions, and a bit wrong with the rim design. Say hello to 'stress assisted crevice corrosion', a form of SCC.

cheers