Has anyone been using their Deep V’s for years and years?
Have the rims just kept going and going or do they have some sort of life span?
The reason I ask is that I have inherited a set of wheels. I want to take them with me around the world and to the CMWC but I believe the spokes and hub was starting to go.
So I was thinking I’d get the rim rebuilt with new hub and spokes.
Just for sentimental reasons really.
Does anyone have experience with reusing Deep V rims after thrashings?
These wheels were ridden by a mad courier for two and a half years before the tension etc started to go. Never ran brakes but had plenty of stacks, jumping and stairs. I guess it’s kind of hard to tell without seeing the wheel.
Bulletproof. Well, not quite, but in my experience they last really well, and are one of the few rims I’d consider building onto a new hub. Comparing them to other rims, they tend to be able to take more punishment without going out of round, and so rebuilding them still yields good results. Often it’s cheaper to buy a complete new wheelset, instead of having to buy hubs/spokes/labour. If it were me, I wouldn’t be rebuilding those rims without having a really good look at them though, just to make sure they’re still usable, with no cracks etc.
I had a 32H Deep-V fixed wheelset for about 3 years as a street trasher/commuter. I was impressed by the strength and durability.
If you are considering a wheelset to take you around the world, you really want to be sure about your equipment. I wouldn’t take a hand-me-down wheelset and expect it to last. Imagine, you’re on the side of the road in Tibet and the rim explodes- what you going to do then? :roll:
The fact that you’re unsure about the wheels indicates that there is probably something wrong with them. And you haven’t even left the country yet!
Hmmm, you are asking us to quantify whether the sentimental value you place on the well beaten up rims is more than the cost of having them rebuilt plus the risk that the rims are buggered and won’t yield a robust wheel.
Ultimately that is a question only you can answer. I would never place so much sentimental value in a deep v rim for it to be a question.
I have a deep V roadset around 15 years old that are still running strong, setup as 18 hole radial front and 24 hole 2x rear (a). They have survived a mountain of abuse over the years - I think I got down to about 92kg one year.
Also have 2 sets of fixed deep V’s that cop a fair bit of abuse. All the wheels have been bodgy built under my house in the dropouts of an upturned bike. NOne have more than 24 spokes.
I find them laterally and vertically stiff, with plenty of meat around the spoke holes. 10 or so years ago I was involved in a crash in a crit sprint finish 200 metres from the line where I got my rear wheel (a) tangled up with someone else’s front wheel - a few of his spoke nipples pulled straight through the rim destroying it. 3 of my brass dt spoke nipples snapped, the rim was undamaged and I still placed in the sprint.
I think I’ll take the wheel to marty or something and see if he reckons the rim is still good. Take it from there.
I’m thinking formula hub seems like the go.
What do you guys reckon?
As far as sentimentality over practicality goes…
Yeah it seems weird for me to consider sentimentality vs practicality.
Normally logic is paramount.
But now with this inherited bike I feel kind of precious about it and want to maintain its old spirit while making it my own at the same time. I still haven’t really decided if it’s still his bike or if it’s mine… Would it be both of ours?
i think you should go with sentimentality and keep the rims and rebuild them.
if we just spend all our lives going around buying new things whenever something breaks then we dont really have any awesome objects to hand on to the grandkids and it would be a bit lame saying “son i rode the kokoda trail on these wheels and then took them to so and so yada yada son falls asleep” etc, the most meaningfull thing in existence is to feel we have a trace of ourselves, and if you can drag a wheelset thru life with you for a bit then you know its something that can be passed on with a story. dont go for the “son this wheelset i bought new for my ride allong the kokoda trail and when i got back i put it under the stairs and then bought a new set to ride around town so here is that old set”, its less meaningfull. then again… but hey each side has a valid argument? its on par with maybe getting a priest and a scientist together to tell you if you should believe in god or not? that should help your wheel decision on a parallel i think… goodluck with it, and post a few detail macro photos of these rims up, i’d love to see what kind of character they have aquired over the years. cheers mate
to add to all that - i think it’s often easy to forget that a few scratches and dings very rarely affect a bike’s performance. structural damage is another thing, but slightly beaten-up components are so often given up on when they’ll probably keep working for years.
that said, it’s hard to justify a rebuild when a new set probably costs less.
unless you have a friend that can build wheels.
