Bromton Rim Fail - what luck!

[MGate]

Trundling into the city today from Yorkshire I assembled my Brommie and set off only to get an alarming 'pulse' on rear breaking... uh oh. Stop and check; the rim had split. Mental maths ensues... 12 years old, 1500 miles a year...

However I was near to Condor Cycles on the Greys Inn Road and popped in. They had a replacement wheel and after half hour of grubby fettling I was back on the road some £235 lighter... of course to get to my meeting in time rebuilding a rim was not an option.

Kicked myself as I should have taken the opportunity to go from a Brompton Wide Ratio hub to a 'standard ratio hub' but I had no idea they still made the old standard ratio - it was only after looking at rim rebuilding options I found this out. Would have been cheaper and more usable for me. Hey ho I'll just have to wait another 12 years until I replace it again.

Should be thankful that I wasn't pelting down our hill to the pub when it happened, and that I was near one of the largest stockists of Brompton spares when it happened!

[irc]

Good luck I would say. 18k of wear on a small rim in UK conditions? No complaints. And as you said - it happened in one of the few places in the UK with a ready replacement to hand and not at high speed.

Buy a lottery ticket this week.

[pjclinch]

I've had a rear Brom fail on me (given my Brom dates from ~ 2000 that's not unreasonable). I did consider the wide ratio as the replacement but decided against because it strikes me the gears are further apart than I'd like in practice. I prefer a closer spacing and acknowledging that I'll have a fairly limited top gear.

But that aside, knowing that Kinetics in Glasgow does a lot of business upgrading Broms to 8, 11 and 14 speed hubs I wondered if there were any not-very-used 3 speed rears knocking about there, and it turned out there were, so I got a nearly new complete back wheel for rather less than £235!

Pete.

[MGate]

Lucky one there Pete!

Due to my own lack of maintenance and having to be near the Thames for a meeting I had to pay the 'Brompton' tax to get going again. Does make me think about putting a disc on my Moulton though. Its a new SST and has the fittings - would just need a new wheel and a left hand Campag ergo power lever... mmm...

BTW - while I was there a guy came in with a full Titanium Brommie. It really is feather light... objects of desire!

[MGate]

Agree with you about the BWR hub. I've never been able to 'chase' the fastest gear out yet even down a big hill! A little too much for my spinning style.

[hoogerbooger]

I've had an old BWR wheel on a shelf for eons as similarly didn't like the large gaps between gears.....despite living in a hilly place where it could get me up the hills. Whilst I'm running a satisfactory but quite expensive 16 gear alternative.....I still have hankerings about trying the BWR with 3 sprockets. However I'm on a 2005 Brompton and looks like no one makes a swap in 3 speed plastic LH lever.....so I shall hanker on on that one for longer.... unless I find a 3D printing file online somewhere ( and talk nicely to my brother ...or some other clever person) ( you have to have a dream)

( glad you survived the mishap)

[deeferdonk]

Deja vu!

Its a shame you hadn't seen my recent thread with similar woes, and been motivated to do some preventative maintenance

viewtopic.php?t=164029
impressed you got it sorted quickly and got to your meeting, took me a bit longer to get a new wheel via the interwebs but slightly cheaper. Make sure you check over your front wheel if that has seen similar mileage.

BTW i have just sold my old hub and spokes from my broken wheel via ebay auction so can tell you the market value is £36.27 if you want to recoup a bit of your cost.

[pjclinch]

Does make me think about putting a disc on my Moulton though. Its a new SST and has the fittings - would just need a new wheel and a left hand Campag ergo power lever... mmm...

My SST is the one with the Alfine 11 hub and a rear disc, and I like said disc much more than I thought I would. It's cable so you can still split it easily and clearly not as good as a hydraulic, but it's still pretty good and IMHO better than the rim brake my previous TSR had.

Pity the front won't take one, I'll probably put a Magura HS hydraulic rim brake on the front at some point (I have V-brake bosses on mine).

Pete.

[Brucey]

would a TRP Hy-Rd brake (with slight MA revision) not be a good solution?

[MGate]

deeferdonk - I did! Which made me think - hmmm - mine look ok... I didn't find a wear mark either. I had a pronounced machined groove in mine that I thought was the wear indicator. There was still plenty left on that... sure enough thats where it failed.

[Brucey]

...... I had a pronounced machined groove in mine that I thought was the wear indicator. .....

if the tyre is ever overinflated, it can contribute towards such premature failure. In any small wheel, fatigue is likely to be more important, so that may be another factor. The widespread use of external grooves is often both ineffectual and unnecessary IMHO, often creating rather than solving problems, so may be quite counterproductive. Buying rims without grooves is always preferable unless you wind up with no wear indicators at all, making such grooves the wear indicator of last resort.

[MGate]

Yes Brucey - over inflation, plus jumping off kerbs, drunken trips back from the pub, not bothering to clean the bike for months at a time and many other crimes against a bicycle contributed. TBH they are tough little wheels and not the first wheel I've had split a rim, 26inch, 700c, they all wear out if you use them long enough in the grit and grime of all year UK roads.

Better replace the front...