Cannondale wheel issue

[borisface]

I have a Cannondale Synapse Neo e-bike which I have owned from new for 18 months. I have only ever used it on road, never loaded the bike with panniers and I live somewhere with smooth roads and no pot holes (so not the UK obvs). I haven't touched the wheel which has remained true. When cleaning the bike I noticed a split starting to develop either side of a spoke hole and when I looked more closely there are in fact ten similar splits starting to develop. I've not seen anything like it before. I bought the bike mail order - do I have a claim against cannondale's warranty.

[thirdcrank]

I have a Cannondale Synapse Neo e-bike which I have owned from new for 18 months. I have only ever used it on road, never loaded the bike with panniers and I live somewhere with smooth roads and no pot holes (so not the UK obvs). I haven't touched the wheel which has remained true. When cleaning the bike I noticed a split starting to develop either side of a spoke hole and when I looked more closely there are in fact ten similar splits starting to develop. I've not seen anything like it before. I bought the bike mail order - do I have a claim against cannondale's warranty.

If the bit I've highlighted means you bought it abroad, then surely you need relevant local advice

[borisface]

Yep bought it from Bikerboader in Germany, so EU consumer law applies. Just after a gauge as to whether I should be getting uppity or let it slide. I have contacted the company I bought it from and waiting to here back.

[PT1029]

Yes, EU law applies (are you living in the EU?,may be more complex if you don't?).
Also what is Cannondale's warranty on parts, 1 year or more?
Also worth checking what the weight limit is for the bike (blurb/website often says), if they knew you were over the weight limit, your chances of a cheerful Cannondale sorting it out are reduced.

Split rims though not a daily occurence is seen from time to time if you work in cycle repairs.
If the wheel is a rear wheel, and the existing rim is symetrical (spoke holes in the centre of the rim), it would be worth trying to replace it with an asymetric rim or wheel (spoke holes off centre to the left) which would even out the spoke tensions a bit.

[531colin]

Thats a pretty classic fatigue failure in an (apparently) non-eyeletted rim.
What normally happens is the failures all occur on driveside spokes, because the cyclic changes in tension are superimposed on a higher static tension.
Last time we had a run of them they occurred in a particular type of rim on bikes of varying brands, so the conclusion was that the rim was at fault. I'm a bit surprised I didn't find a photo. In this case we don't know if its a fragile rim, or if the tension has been wound up to an absurd extent.....the tension is obviously more than the rim can support.
In the UK that would be "not of merchantable quality".......but do you want an exactly similar wheel form the manufacturers? You might be better off with a wheel built by a competent wheelbuilder and specified for the load.

EDIT....found the previous thread.....viewtopic.php?t=40617&hilit=rim+fatigue&start=15

[borisface]

Thanks for the replies. At 73kgs, I'm well within the weight limits. I'm EU resident. The cracks are all driveside now I look at it. I guess a complicating factor is that the bike is an ebike with a mid-mounted motor and so the forces are going to be greater than just with my legs.

Just checked the cannondale warranty for cannondale parts - one year! So I may well outside the time limit. I take your point about a replacement being the same, so I will have to run it past the controller of the purse strings...

[Jdsk]

I have a Cannondale Synapse Neo e-bike which I have owned from new for 18 months.

Just checked the cannondale warranty for cannondale parts - one year! So I may well outside the time limit.

Yep bought it from Bikerboader in Germany, so EU consumer law applies.

You may well have consumer protection for longer than the period stated in a warranty:
https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/d ... dex_en.htm

Jonathan

[borisface]

Cheers Jonathan, I'll see what they come back with and then point them in that direction if required. I've had a look around in the internet and no-one else appears to be reporting an issue.

[gcogger]

Thats a pretty classic fatigue failure in an (apparently) non-eyeletted rim.
What normally happens is the failures all occur on driveside spokes, because the cyclic changes in tension are superimposed on a higher static tension.
Last time we had a run of them they occurred in a particular type of rim on bikes of varying brands, so the conclusion was that the rim was at fault. I'm a bit surprised I didn't find a photo. In this case we don't know if its a fragile rim, or if the tension has been wound up to an absurd extent.....the tension is obviously more than the rim can support.
In the UK that would be "not of merchantable quality".......but do you want an exactly similar wheel form the manufacturers? You might be better off with a wheel built by a competent wheelbuilder and specified for the load.

EDIT....found the previous thread.....viewtopic.php?t=40617&hilit=rim+fatigue&start=15

I had the same thing happen on a Cannondale Topstone 2. I'm very heavy, but within the manufacturer's weight limit. I didn't bother with a warranty claim for exactly the reason you state - the best result would be a replacement wheel of the same type, and I wouldn't trust it.
I called Spa Cycles, took their advice, and bought a new pair of wheels from them. Lighter than the originals and (as far as I can tell) much stronger.

[531colin]

........... I guess a complicating factor is that the bike is an ebike with a mid-mounted motor and so the forces are going to be greater than just with my legs..........

Conventional wisdom says that driving forces are shared by (at least) all the driveside pulling spokes, but tension variations in individual spokes are greater as each spoke passes the bottom of the wheel, Brandt's "load affected zone"; so driving forces wouldn't be expected to fatigue either rim or spokes.
So, you have 10 rim splits....unless its a 40 spoke wheel, at least one of those is a driveside "pushing" spoke.....?

And in any case, Cannondale must have known its an e bike when they specified the wheels? What about gcogger's bike, is that an E bike?

[Jamesh]

Cannondale always had dodgy wheels from back in the supersix days.
Maddox iirc.

They expect you to upgrade tbh. Which is fine for a race bike for for a general purpose bike dosent cut the ice!

[Bonzo Banana]

Cannondale use factories like fuji-ta and the automated wheel tensioning machines at the factory will only do a reasonable job of tensioning the spokes. If the bike was bought mail order and just sold as a boxed bike and sent out presumably no one there did any final checks on it or they were minimal because of all the packaging. Some Cannondale bikes use fairly poor factories with very poor assembly as can be seen below but such issues are normally sorted at the bike shop before the customer gets it. As with most US and European brands they are buying from factories in Asia and will move frequently to get the best price. Cannondale is part of Dorel which is now part of Pon Holdings of the Netherlands. Their business strategy seems to be market as premium but buy as cheaply as possible. They are probably very basic quality rims, they look fairly generic non-eyeletted rims to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5MzpGzCX7Y

[Jamesh]

Not exactly acceptable imho on a £4k bike.

Possibly on a £500 bike but not on something as upmarket as a synapse E...

I'd get onto them to sort otherwise go on social media to flag up the issue.

[rareposter]

Not exactly acceptable imho on a £4k bike.

Possibly on a £500 bike but not on something as upmarket as a synapse E...

I'd get onto them to sort otherwise go on social media to flag up the issue.

And they will simply say:
18 months old, out of warranty.

Also, as with any warranty claim, the issue is not between the customer and the bike manufacturer, the issue is with the customer and the shop they bought it from.

None of the EU law over-rules that - if there is a claim whether it's (potentially) under warranty or you're trying the Consumer Rights Act or equivalent, you go to the shop you bought it from. At this stage, it is nothing to do with Cannondale.

Although there is a reason they are known in the industry as Crack n Fail.

[borisface]

So I had an update from Cannondale via the dealer. As follows 'the manufacturer has contacted us and will send us a new rim. this means that you will have to send us your wheel so that we can rebuild it after receiving the new rim.'

Whilst Cannondale are within their obligations regards my consumer rights, I feel that this is the bare minimum that they can do. It's actually not much use to me as I have to send the wheel from Portugal, where I live, to Germany. To do this I would have a 50 mile round trip to the nearest shipping company, so £20 worth of fuel, the delivery costs are likely to be another £20 or so. Plus the delay in getting the wheel back and the risk that it will happen again. So the upshot is that I'll probably just get a new wheel that's more fit for purpose.

It's not really possible here to have a wheel built, at least I don't know anyone who could do such a thing and I'm not getting involved in importing anything from the UK as it's a PITA. So I'm looking at factory built wheels. I require a centrelock disc brake wheelset with 12mm thru axles.

The type of riding I do is just general on road riding on pretty smooth roads and it's mountainous, so was thinking either a Mavic aksium or a fulcrum 6. I've had both mavics and fulcrums in the past (and both have done c. 30k miles) on my human powered bikes and found them to be bomb proof. I'm slightly erring towards the aksiums as they are £100 cheaper and as it's an ebike a couple of hundred grammes extra weight isn't a big issue.

Any other recommendations or warnings about the mavics/fulcrums? Or if I were able to get a wheel custom built what rims should I spec? I run 32mm tyres. And for a strong wheel what spoke pattern in the rear?