Had rear wheel rebuilt and it keeps buckling.

[Rohloff_Brompton_Rider]

I've got these.....

http://www.kinesisbikes.co.uk/products/wheels/crosslight-cxdisc

On a bike I bought offa here, and had nowt but bother with the rear...clicking, spokes snapping over and over.

So I had it rebuilt at my lbs with DT Swiss spokes and nipples...it's been back to lbs, the 1st time they had to replace the alloy nipples with brass ones (they said alloy ones were faulty). It's been back at least 3 times to be re-trued - and every time the non drive side spokes have become so loose that they rattled in the wind....this is usually in less than 10 miles.

At the moment the spokes are at least still tensioned now but the wheel is egged and out of true, luckily it's a disc wheel.

Are my problems down to a shoot wheel or shoot wheel building? Anyone else had this sort of thing...lbs say they've never had these things happen before and tbh I tend to believe them.

 

[young Ed]

stripped or dodgy threads anywhere?
you ever had any other wheel rebuilt by said LBS?
Cheers Ed

 

[Rohloff_Brompton_Rider]

No but I did buy £5k mtb bike of them years ago (apart from it snapping and nearly killing me, I had no issues with it) and they do build competition bikes and are Hope registered / trained technicians...so hopefully they should know what they're doing...he says crossing his fingers.

 

[young Ed]

if mtb was new they just buy in as is so weather frame or wheel snapped it's not their fault
do they build the wheels from scratch for comp bikes?
Cheers Ed

 

[Rohloff_Brompton_Rider]

Dunno, that's why I'm asking....personally i feel it's shoot wheel building skills...but it's only fair to ask before getting uppity with them.

 

[young Ed]

yep only fair looking at website you linked to they seem like good bikes using good components so shouldn't be components
member on here somewhere building wheels for free atm have a look under member services
Cheers Ed

 

[dan_bo]

But how shoot can a wheelbuilder be? The couple I've built myself as an amateur didn't go out of true within 10 miles that's for sure....sounds like the rims are made for....and take this from someone who knows....the lighter rider. You know what I'm saying.

 

[fossyant]

Does sound like the rims are pants.

 

[screenman]

Disc wheel you say, with spokes. That is weird, tell them to use a touch of threadlock next time.

 

[Rohloff_Brompton_Rider]

Disc brake

 

[screenman]

Disc brake

That will teach me to read the OP better next time, thanks for pointing it out.

 

[PpPete]

Sounds to me like the rim may have a natural bow to it.
Doesn't matter how good your wheelbuilding skills or the quality of the spokes, when rebuilt to be laterally "true" the tensions are going to be so uneven that some will go loose very quickly and then the rim will fold back up to its natural shape.
I've seen this happen on a brand new Specialized wheel - and the rider only weighed about 60 kgs

 

[RecordAceFromNew]

Sounds to me like the rim may have a natural bow to it.
Doesn't matter how good your wheelbuilding skills or the quality of the spokes, when rebuilt to be laterally "true" the tensions are going to be so uneven that some will go loose very quickly and then the rim will fold back up to its natural shape.

I agree this is a possible explanation, and imho if this is the case a half-decent builder would have noticed and should have told the OP, rather than letting him discover the effect for himself 10 miles down the road.

It should be possible to see if this is the case by checking tension evenness on each side (when the wheel is obviously true and round). The other thing to check is whether the tension is adequately high, possibly by comparing with a set of wheels known to be of good quality with similar spoke count and dish.

 

[Rohloff_Brompton_Rider]

I'm going to true it myself tomorrow. I paid to have it rebuilt as I just didn't have time, ironically it's probably taken longer to keep returning it than the time it would have taken to build it myself. I'm just fed up I'm unlikely to get my £40 labour fee back...but you never know.

 

[Spoked Wheels]

Not all rims are perfect, having said that, the builder would have definitely noticed something odd about the rims. Basically it would have been hard to get the roundness, laterally true and even tension to an acceptable tolerance without seeing a problem. If nothing odd was noticed then my guess the tension evenness and amount of tension are wrong and that equates to poor wheel building.

I'm assuming the rims are over 400g. If not then with disc brakes you want to use something a little beefier.