Post-recall R-Sys wheel failure

In article ,
"Robert Chung" wrote:

http://www.velonews.com/article/9305...-wheel-failure

Appears to have suffered brain damage as a result of that little mishap.

--
Michael Press

In article ,
"Mike Jacoubowsky" wrote:

"Tom Kunich" cyclintom@yahoo. com wrote in message
...
"Robert Chung" wrote in message
...
http://www.velonews.com/article/9305...-wheel-failure

This "modern" low spoke count wheels are failing like crazy. Not as
bad at that one of course but more and more people are going over the
bars. Also carbon frames are failing a lot more often than it's being
let on.

Steel frames (though my Look and my Colnago are heavily enough built
that I don't have to worry about it) and 32 spoke count wheels are
looking better all the time.

That's a severe oversimplification. You can build a very sturdy
low-spoke-count (20 front 24 rear) wheel that can last a very long time.
I've got a set of Bontrager XXX-Lites that now have 21,000 miles on them
and have literally never been touched with a spoke wrench.

The issue is when we try to build stuff as close to the edge as
possible, and it's not the material used that's the problem, it's how
it's used.

As for steel, the manner in which it fails may be different, but trust
me, many, many steel frames failed back in the day. Typically
severely-buckled downtubes.

Since down tubes act in tension a buckled down tube is not
the proximate cause of failure. How did those frames fail
that had buckled down tubes?

--
Michael Press

As for steel, the manner in which it fails may be different, but
trust
me, many, many steel frames failed back in the day. Typically
severely-buckled downtubes.

Since down tubes act in tension a buckled down tube is not
the proximate cause of failure. How did those frames fail
that had buckled down tubes?

--
Michael Press

Frontal impact. Steel frames & forks were typically not very strong in
such situations. You and I may be interpreting this thread differently;
I am not talking about JRA (Just Riding Along) failures.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com


"Michael Press" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Mike Jacoubowsky" wrote:

"Tom Kunich" cyclintom@yahoo. com wrote in message
...
"Robert Chung" wrote in message
...
http://www.velonews.com/article/9305...-wheel-failure

This "modern" low spoke count wheels are failing like crazy. Not as
bad at that one of course but more and more people are going over
the
bars. Also carbon frames are failing a lot more often than it's
being
let on.

Steel frames (though my Look and my Colnago are heavily enough
built
that I don't have to worry about it) and 32 spoke count wheels are
looking better all the time.

That's a severe oversimplification. You can build a very sturdy
low-spoke-count (20 front 24 rear) wheel that can last a very long
time.
I've got a set of Bontrager XXX-Lites that now have 21,000 miles on
them
and have literally never been touched with a spoke wrench.

The issue is when we try to build stuff as close to the edge as
possible, and it's not the material used that's the problem, it's how
it's used.

As for steel, the manner in which it fails may be different, but
trust
me, many, many steel frames failed back in the day. Typically
severely-buckled downtubes.

Since down tubes act in tension a buckled down tube is not
the proximate cause of failure. How did those frames fail
that had buckled down tubes?

--
Michael Press

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
"Robert Chung" wrote in message
...
Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:

Perhaps. But one of the most-interesting things about this is that it
was in VeloNews, a publication that Mavic advertises in pretty
heavily
Dumbass,

It happened to the Editor in Chief for Velonews. Think if it'd
happened to one of us (same circumstances same witnesses same article)
they'd've published it?

The Editor in Chief, of all people, is made sensitive to the needs of
advertisers. More likely to see that sort of thing come out from a
less-senior staff member, and then an editor gets in all manner of
trouble for allowing it to be printed.

My guess is that Mavic made a monumental error in even suggesting the
possibility that the rider may have been at fault. That probably set him
off. Even if it's possible the rider *was* somehow responsible, that
sort of thing has to be handled very carefully when the rider has, well,
teeth. And the Editor of a cycling publication has teeth.


It's a difficult place to tread.

In the early nineties, one of the technical magazines I subscribed to
was canceled because they couldn't hold on to advertisers. It was a
great magazine; they told the truth. When there were reports of lost
data from a particular hard drive, they disassembled the ROMs, debugged
the machine code and pointed out the error. Made an interesting story
one month. There went one advertiser. Eventually, there weren't enough
left to pay the bills.

At the other end of the spectrum there's Bicycling, which exists solely
to provide ad space. Who takes that magazine seriously?

Amit Ghosh wrote:
carbon spokes were tried back in the 90s and they didn't work then. it's
no surprise that the improved r-sys design can still catastrophically
fail.

I don't see the point anyway - I doubt if they're much lighter than
Sapim CX-ray or DT Revolution spokes. Didn't these R-Sys wheels test
as the least aerodynamic wheel from a large range of wheels a while
back ? Any minimal weight gain would probably be cancelled out by
the aero drag.

On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:34:02 -0700, Fred Fredburger
wrote:

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
"Robert Chung" wrote in message
...
Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:

Perhaps. But one of the most-interesting things about this is that it
was in VeloNews, a publication that Mavic advertises in pretty
heavily
Dumbass,

It happened to the Editor in Chief for Velonews. Think if it'd
happened to one of us (same circumstances same witnesses same article)
they'd've published it?

The Editor in Chief, of all people, is made sensitive to the needs of
advertisers. More likely to see that sort of thing come out from a
less-senior staff member, and then an editor gets in all manner of
trouble for allowing it to be printed.

My guess is that Mavic made a monumental error in even suggesting the
possibility that the rider may have been at fault. That probably set him
off. Even if it's possible the rider *was* somehow responsible, that
sort of thing has to be handled very carefully when the rider has, well,
teeth. And the Editor of a cycling publication has teeth.


It's a difficult place to tread.

In the early nineties, one of the technical magazines I subscribed to
was canceled because they couldn't hold on to advertisers. It was a
great magazine; they told the truth. When there were reports of lost
data from a particular hard drive, they disassembled the ROMs, debugged
the machine code and pointed out the error. Made an interesting story
one month. There went one advertiser. Eventually, there weren't enough
left to pay the bills.

At the other end of the spectrum there's Bicycling, which exists solely
to provide ad space. Who takes that magazine seriously?

Good points.

Scott wrote:
How do you know that CF frames are failing more frequently than is
being reported?

Tom Kunich wrote:
Let's just say I know.

dave a wrote:
That's good enough for me!

SchwartzSoft omniscient technology is way cool.

Where is your (or anybody else's) evidence of this? Carbon generally
fails *after* the faceplant has already happened. What it does after the
rider is already on the ground is kinda irrelevant, don't you think?


It's irrelevant until it comes time to pay to replace/repair it.

On Jun 10, 12:34*am, Fred Fredburger
wrote:
Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:
"Robert Chung" wrote in message
...
Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:

Perhaps. But one of the most-interesting things about this is that it
was in VeloNews, a publication that Mavic advertises in pretty
heavily
Dumbass,

It happened to the Editor in Chief for Velonews. Think if it'd
happened to one of us (same circumstances same witnesses same article)
they'd've published it?

The Editor in Chief, of all people, is made sensitive to the needs of
advertisers. More likely to see that sort of thing come out from a
less-senior staff member, and then an editor gets in all manner of
trouble for allowing it to be printed.

My guess is that Mavic made a monumental error in even suggesting the
possibility that the rider may have been at fault. That probably set him
off. Even if it's possible the rider *was* somehow responsible, that
sort of thing has to be handled very carefully when the rider has, well,
teeth. And the Editor of a cycling publication has teeth.

It's a difficult place to tread.

In the early nineties, one of the technical magazines I subscribed to
was canceled because they couldn't hold on to advertisers. It was a
great magazine; they told the truth. When there were reports of lost
data from a particular hard drive, they disassembled the ROMs, debugged
the machine code and pointed out the error. Made an interesting story
one month. There went one advertiser. Eventually, there weren't enough
left to pay the bills.

At the other end of the spectrum there's Bicycling, which exists solely
to provide ad space. Who takes that magazine seriously?

Is that a trick question?

On Jun 9, 7:50*pm, Bob Schwartz
wrote:
Johnny Twelve-Point presented by JFT wrote:

On Tue, 9 Jun 2009 12:16:46 -0700, "Robert Chung"
wrote:

http://www.velonews.com/article/9305...rience---a-pos....

Yeah, that sounds like rider error. *The error of riding wheels with
little carbon spokes.

A SS spoke weighs 5-7 grams. I wonder how much weight they saved going
with carbon. After all there were 16 of them in that wheel.

Bob Schwartz

1400 gram wheelset for $1400....Building a 1600 gram wheelset is easy
using normal stuff. 200 grams(AND $700+) saved and spent on a 80,000+
gram package of rider and bicycle. marketing run amok.