Checking RETRO Carbon wheels for safety ???

[john]

Sounds like you're treating them as well as you can and taking full care. I'd not worry too much, esp if they aren't seeing heavy off road use. There's a post somewhere by user ameybrook who rode these heavily, apparetnly the weak spot tends to be the hubs. Although equally you do see horror stories of entire wheel failure.

Yeah I've heard all of the horror "STORIES" but I've never actually been able to substanciate any of them.... apart from few images on google, and a couple of sketchy paragraphs of text !

... as with everything, everyone has a horror story that happened to a mate of a mate from the pub, and no one bigs things up for being good, they just get used, its only when things go wrong that its highlighted !

No smoke without fire though, as above if you take care I'd say the wheels were safe enough. Equally some failures have clearly occured. Although I've no evidence I'd suspect any failure of the carbon spokes were possibly caused by existing damage to the weave or manufacturing issues - the problem with carbon is the failure mode can be quite spectacular (i.e. a crack).

 

[adi-66]

No smoke without fire though, as above if you take care I'd say the wheels were safe enough. Equally some failures have clearly occured. Although I've no evidence I'd suspect any failure of the carbon spokes were possibly caused by existing damage to the weave or manufacturing issues - the problem with carbon is the failure mode can be quite spectacular (i.e. a crack).

I agree, but i guess that theres loads of wheels that fail steel spoked ones too ! but you are correct in what your saying ! smoke n fire and all that, hence my post...

..... Lets hope that a "spectacular" fail doesnt happen as I travel for a about a mile a day at 38-40 mph (as measured on my Cardio Trainer GPS app on my phone) the rest of my trip is averaged at 21mph...

... A failure at either speed is likely to hurt a bit ! LOL :shock:

 

[john]

No smoke without fire though, as above if you take care I'd say the wheels were safe enough. Equally some failures have clearly occured. Although I've no evidence I'd suspect any failure of the carbon spokes were possibly caused by existing damage to the weave or manufacturing issues - the problem with carbon is the failure mode can be quite spectacular (i.e. a crack).

I agree, but i guess that theres loads of wheels that fail steel spoked ones too ! but you are correct in what your saying ! smoke n fire and all that, hence my post...

..... Lets hope that a "spectacular" fail doesnt happen as I travel for a about a mile a day at 38-40 mph (as measured on my Cardio Trainer GPS app on my phone) the rest of my trip is averaged at 21mph...

... A failure at either speed is likely to hurt a bit ! LOL :shock:

The difference with a steel spoked wheel other than the obvious is that the spoke count is far higher.

Still given you're aware of the potential pitfall of the spinergys sure you'll be fine. Some owners of said wheels seem to be in a curious state of denial.

 

[maxhc]

All Spinergy owners should read this:

http://pardo.net/bike/pic/fail-020/index.html

 

[adi-66]

All Spinergy owners should read this:

http://pardo.net/bike/pic/fail-020/index.html

Seen that before, most of them are 700c wheels.

Its gunny that the page is sponsored by a law firm or something like that... and its from the USA - land of litigation !

Has anyone on Retro Bike actually had a Spinergy wheel FAIL ON THEM ??

 

[john]

All Spinergy owners should read this:

http://pardo.net/bike/pic/fail-020/index.html

Seen that before, most of them are 700c wheels.

Its gunny that the page is sponsored by a law firm or something like that... and its from the USA - land of litigation !

Has anyone on Retro Bike actually had a Spinergy wheel FAIL ON THEM ??

From memory the failures experienced here have tended to be hub related.

 

[adi-66]

BUMP

 

[VTFoco2001]

I am not convinced whether X-ray inspection methods will work. Cracks in composite structures are probably too small for the resolution achieved by X-ray.

C-scan will definitely work on these wheels. Aerospace related manufacturing companies as well as jet-engine workshops should have the equipment and expertise available.

Tapping is also a possibility but one should have enough experience to detect small cracks. Large cracks and delaminations though will be easily detected by this method as you have enough spokes on a Spinergy wheel as reference.