Cycling UK Forum

I discovered
rigida(http://www.rigida.com/en/products/singl ... steel/st32)
make an ST32 stainless steel rim in 559 x 22:

would these be better than chrome rims for braking?

Would you use leather or ordinary blocks?

Hopefully nobody imports them, though. I havent seen a stainless rim in 40 odd years, but I well remember the terror of being completely unable to stop in the wet. Modern box-section alloy rims with spoke eyelets are SO GOOD. You dont know how good unless you have ridden the previous rubbish.

531colin wrote:Hopefully nobody imports them

that's a bit harsh, they have their place.

on hub-braked bikes

Seriously though, are SS rims WORSE than chrome?
Can anything be worse than chrome?

I joke of course, but the question is a good one.


Personally, I've never seen a SS rim, but the idea sounds like a strong rim. Will a SS rim suffer from ovalisation or flattening?

They were once fairly common, especially on slightly better quality Raleigh roadsters. They come up for sale on Fleabay fairly regularly in the Westwood pattern. They're as rubbish as chrome for brakes, but they dunnarf last a long time! I might grab a set for the next machine I build with hub brakes.

I can't recall the name but someone used to make a lightweight (ie thin walled) steel rim with an anodised aluminium surface. It was outwardly a copy of the Wolber M58 Superchamp. The braking was reasonable until the anodising wore off, then it became as deadly as all the others.

Mick F wrote:Seriously though, are SS rims WORSE than chrome?
Can anything be worse than chrome?

I joke of course, but the question is a good one.


Personally, I've never seen a SS rim, but the idea sounds like a strong rim. Will a SS rim suffer from ovalisation or flattening?

I had a look on Rigidas website before my waspish comment. Not awfully clear, but the construction looks like a typical steel rim, ie. double layer very thin material, with a tiny gap between the layers, just reminded me of steel rims back in the day, which would wear/rust through the brake surface. Of course these wont rust, but they wont be anything like as rigid as box section alloy, so distortion will be much greater. Motorbikes use alloy rims not so much to save weight as to have a much more rigid rim.

If slipperyness in the wet is common to all materials harder than aluminium (eg chrome steel / stainless steel) then how can expensive ceramic rims have good braking (ceramic == hard)?

hence my wondering whether stainless steel might offer better braking in the wet than chrome.

531colin wrote:but they wont be anything like as rigid as box section alloy, so distortion will be much greater.

found it. given that some old lightweights had single wall alloy rims, and survived, i should think that stainless steel formed as above with swage lines and box sections, along with the only choice of 36 spokes will be plenty more than strong enough. 18/10 stainless is a tough material.
but i agree with what you said to start with, it'd be wreckless to use them in a rim-braked bike.

i doubt whether there's a UK rigida importer who stocks these. it'll be a farradteile.de or feitsbitztekoop.nl shop i guess (i've made those names up as examples)

What are cycle disc brakes discs made of:
stainless steel I think..
these (presumably ) work OK in the wet-----

Before Alloy rims became common, a brake called the Positech (see velovision issue3) was invented, its pads a rubber compound that had almost identical wet/dry performance but needed 4 times the activation force: hence a special caliper (sidepull) brake was designed.

This made me think that a rear V brake (perhaps with brake booster U) and rear steel rim (perhaps leather blocks) combination might be acceptable, as a V brake seems more powerful than necessary at the rear, anyway.

So are we saying that chrome or SS rims would be ok if we could get more pressure onto the rim?
This would need a complete redesigning of V brakes/Calliper brakes/Cantilever brakes?

Yes (although you could just use leather brakes):
But V brakes are already more powerful, for normal use, more powerful than is necessary at the rear, hence for a commuter at least , you could have one rim that would not wear out, and either a hub brake or 'consumable' alloy rim up front/