How much "rough stuff" can wheels take?

[Xiorell]

Been cruising about on my new bike since friday, all well and good etc, really enjoying it.
One thing that keeps worrying me is, how much bumpy bits are my wheels ok with before they buckle or are otherwise damaged?

I've got rigid forks, 700c size wheels. Apparently the wheels are double walled? What exactley that means I dunno

Anyway what I mean is, I have been riding it on the roads but I'm paranoid about every bump, this morning I took off on a 10mile ish trip before work and was going down a long hill where there's these speed bump things which are more like cobbled stripes in the road rather than full on bumps.
I was concerned going over that at anything other than a snail pace was gonna bugger my wheels up.

Am I being overly worried? Maybe it's just coz I feel more bumps in my wrists with it being rigid (The last bike I rode a while back being a bouncey one). Plus that had fat MTB wheels not thinner ones like this bike

 

[lukesdad]

Wheels are tougher than you might think.The main worry is pot holes, hit a large one of these at speed and its going to hurt you and your wheels. Everything else should be OK as along as you dont go hitting kerbs etc. With the hump type stuff you describe in your post. There are a couple of techniques you could use. Both require you to get your bum out of the saddle,the first is just to use your arms and legs as suspension and just cushion the Impact, the second is a bunny hop. As you approach compress your arms and legs open up and lift the bike over the obstruction.

 

[Globalti]

Have a gliff at this video, watch right to the end; you'll feel better afterwards!
View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z1fSpZNXhU

 

[slowmotion]

Here are some road bikes on cobbles. All that vibration doesn't seem to have done them any harm. Maximum respect to the riders, BTW.

[media]
]View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoEGWTCFQQI[/media]

 

[GrasB]

If you've got decent wheels I'd be far more worried about what your contact points can take... this is from a hitting a pot hole at over 30mph on a rigid frame with Halo Freedom 29er rims shod with 700x28c Schwalbe Marathon plus:

I've been munching ibuprofen on doctors orders since that encounter

 

[Davidc]

It's quite difficult to damage half decent or better wheels, especially if they're 36 or 32 spoke ones. Although there's supposed to be a difference between 700c and 26" wheels I've never noticed, both will go out of true if you hit a pothole hard enough, and if you come off in the encounter it hurts just the same. GrasB has clearly tried it recently and I can't recommend it either.

I've never damaged a wheel just on rough streets or tracks, and that includes cobbles and rubble surfaces, and a fair few thousand miles travel. I have damaged wheels in ruts in the direction of travel - the classic ones being tram and railway tracks - and you should worry about those far more than about speed bumps across the road. The edges of some roads are very dodgy for that at the moment.

You subtitle the thread Rigid Forks. I'm sure there is a difference with suspension, but again I haven't noticed it yet. Riding up kerbs puts distortion into rims with or without it. So can any other sharp edge. I've seen the results on family owned bikes of both sorts, and the consequences are equally expensive.

 

[totallyfixed]

I had an encounter with a car that bent my titanium frame and cracked my forks, wheels unscathed.

 

[GrasB]

Although there's supposed to be a difference between 700c and 26" wheels I've never noticed, both will go out of true if you hit a pothole hard enough, and if you come off in the encounter it hurts just the same. GrasB has clearly tried it recently and I can't recommend it either.

Yeah it's not pleasant & my injuries were just from the impact of the pothole, I didn't even come off the bike! The rim it's self while not perfectly true didn't take more than mild tweaking with a spoke key to pull it back into shape (I'm suitably impressed by these rims & the quality of a factory built wheel).

 

[Davidc]

Yeah it's not pleasant & my injuries were just from the impact of the pothole, I didn't even come off the bike! The rim it's self while not perfectly true didn't take more than mild tweaking with a spoke key to pull it back into shape (I'm suitably impressed by these rims & the quality of a factory built wheel).

I haven't come off on one for some years but had swollen boy bits last year after hitting one hard - went through a few Ibuprofen tablets as a result.

I've found wheels, factory and hand built, to be quite strong, especially in incidents with potholes. The worst damage I've seen but I've always suspected it could have been a kerb, was on one of my children's bikes where a suspension fork had been bent at the crown but the (26") wheel was unharmed apart from the tyre. Impact damage is peculiar and counterintuitive.