Lightweight wheels.

[dobbo]

Lightweight or carbonfibre wheels.
1/ can anyone tell of their experience of carbonfibre wheels eg how different/ better they made the bike handle?
2/ are they worth the expense?
3/ can they handle rough roads potholes etc or are they too fragile,brittle?
Boxertrix brain trust thanks in advance.

[SP250]

We built our own for the racebikes back in the early 90's (one of the first teams to do so - Hejira) and they were good for racing on smooth tarmac.
We scrapped a few as we damaged them and learned how to make them stronger and properly integrate the spokes with the rims without using CNC milled aluminium hubs or spokes or reinforcing etc. We would not use them on the road, but the commercially made ones available now are much heavier and hopefully stronger to be able to withstand the potholes etc. Also we "lifed" the wheels as well and did not continue using them after they had done so many racing miles just to be on the safe side - unlike Honda and Armstrong who had wheels collapse whilst in use on track.

Pays your money and takes your choice, but I personally would not waste the money by fitting them to an 11S or a 12S
Most riders are not sensitive enough to feel the improvements they make and unless you want them for "bling" reasons, then much more performance and handlling improvements can be achieved by spending the money on properly set up aftermarket suspension. Or put the money towards a top line superbike which will be way better than an R1100S.

Just my opinion and drawing on having made and used carbon wheels 30 years ago.

[GerryB]

We built our own for the racebikes back in the early 90's (one of the first teams to do so - Hejira) and they were good for racing on smooth tarmac.
We scrapped a few as we damaged them and learned how to make them stronger and properly integrate the spokes with the rims without using CNC milled aluminium hubs or spokes or reinforcing etc. We would not use them on the road, but the commercially made ones available now are much heavier and hopefully stronger to be able to withstand the potholes etc. Also we "lifed" the wheels as well and did not continue using them after they had done so many racing miles just to be on the safe side - unlike Honda and Armstrong who had wheels collapse whilst in use on track.

Pays your money and takes your choice, but I personally would not waste the money by fitting them to an 11S or a 12S
Most riders are not sensitive enough to feel the improvements they make and unless you want them for "bling" reasons, then much more performance and handlling improvements can be achieved by spending the money on properly set up aftermarket suspension. Or put the money towards a top line superbike which will be way better than an R1100S.

Just my opinion and drawing on having made and used carbon wheels 30 years ago.

I fully agree with you !

I don't have much experience with carbon motor cycle wheels , but with bicycles, for sure .

The carbon frames have a "life" and shouldn't be used after 2 years old.

However , so many seem to be either ignorant, or ignore this .

I certainly would not use any carbon wheel on a road bike .

[Al]

Have no experience of carbon fibre wheels but having seen the material from the aviation industry side I would not be happy about using them on the road, the Harrier wings were carbon composite, very light and strong, yes, but if it suffered a single point impact like a screwdriver/spanner etc being accidentally being dropped and the tip hitting the wing the inner skin that you can’t see would apparently start to delaminates, translate that to the road with stone/road debris impacts and shock from potholes etc it might be an issue.

Al

[MickB]

Gerry,
I'd be very interested to know the source of the info re life span for carbon bike frames. I've never come across this before. I have been using the same pair of carbon forks on my road frame for well over 10 years. My carbon road bike is coming up for 3 years old and all seems fine.

Regards

Mick

[dobbo]

Thanks lads no new wheels for me. I'm not interested in bling but only trying to improve the r1200s. The roads around my way are very rough.

[GerryB]

Gerry,
I'd be very interested to know the source of the info re life span for carbon bike frames. I've never come across this before. I have been using the same pair of carbon forks on my road frame for well over 10 years. My carbon road bike is coming up for 3 years old and all seems fine.

Regards

Mick

My brother is an ex professional cyclist.

He was warning me years ago about the dangers of the carbon frames, and the fact that they can be damaged, without you being aware of this.

As a result, he has always ridden titanium and or aluminium frames , since he left the pro scene.

He is still riding 2 to 3 hundred kilometres a week, despite complaining about how unfit he is.

I've personally never done any research , just took his word for it, and knowing the budgets of some of the teams , its clear to me, the very big money teams are riding carbon, the lesser funded are riding an ally frame and wheels.

[SP250]

Dobbo,
If the roads are really that bad around where you live, maybe a GS would be the way to go instread of the R12S?
Or if you want to spend out, then really good, properly set up aftermarket suspension is the way to go.
It will soak up the small and large potholes and keep your cast ally wheels, but do check the tread and sidewalls of the tyres much more regularly as they and the suspension will do more work in soaking up the rough roads. But will also give a compliant and magic carpet ride overall.

[boxerscott]

Lightweight or carbonfibre wheels.
1/ can anyone tell of their experience of carbonfibre wheels eg how different/ better they made the bike handle?
2/ are they worth the expense?
3/ can they handle rough roads potholes etc or are they too fragile,brittle?
Boxertrix brain trust thanks in advance.

Hi Dobbo, so in a few words , my thoughts

1. No, not me
2 Most likely not, unless you have money to do in and you see it as a better investment than the Horses.
3 Pothole V any wheel/tyre combo... My money is on Pothole.



Chris

[dobbo]

I'm keeping the r1200s and not going the gs route I prefer sport/tourer however the gs is very popular over here. When I go for a ride I have to travel about 100ks (60miles) to get to some decent twisty roads where I like to get into it away from traffic and cops it's just the way it is around my way.
Your right about potholes my mate hit some big ones on his Triumph and cracked his front rim.
My bike has the olihns suspension and I've set the preload but not really tuned damping. I've played with damping but gone back to standard settings. I may alter them again when I start riding again after lockdown.

[Blackal]

They will make a huge improvement to the R1100s, R1200s, and even an improvement to the HP2s (which has lighter alloy wheels)

They are not as fragile as people think, and if you do hit a pot-hole sufficiently bad to damage the wheel, it won’t smash into a thousand shards - it will delaminate (which is evident by a ‘milky’ coloration to the weave.) - an alloy wheel will be totalled in such an encounter as well.

The difference they make to the handling is immense - the two constituent parts being unsprung weight and rotational inertia.

The large reduction in unsprung weight gives the suspension an easier life and keeps the rubber/tarmac contact greater than heavier wheel/tyre/disc combinations. So yes - top notch suspension is great on a bike, but CF wheels will improve the performance of standard suspension for the reason above.

As for rotational inertia - this is a greater effect as it helps to defeat the gyroscopic effect of wheels to resist change of direction. Turn-in is much sharper, and when you first change to CF wheels - it can catch you out, how quick the turn in, and the ease of turning requiring less effort. Rotational inertia will also affect accelerating and braking, like an engine with light/no flywheel is much faster to speed up and slow down.

I think some of the preference in going for aftermarket suspension over CF wheels is the thought of resale value. Might be the case, as I suspect that many might shy away from S/H CF wheels.

I don’t know how many current makers do fitments for the R1200s, and you may also have to factor in more expensive brake discs to fit.

BST, DYMAG and ROTOBOX seem to the current players in the market.

They aren’t bling by any means, and the guys with stock wheels festooned with ‘Marchesini’ decals - are tat/bling. (Or as one other member here opined: “They are more Mariachi than Marchesini”.

Lifespan of CF wheels? No idea, but I am not worried about them deteriorating in my bike-riding lifespan.

[SP250]

I have one of the 5 carbon frame, swing arm race chassis made by Hejira in the early 90's.
It also used to have carbon wheels on it, but having sat in the workshop for 20 years, the life of the wheels was deemed to be up even though it never turrned a wheel on the track. The chassis is still deemed to be ok as they were amongst the earliest ones to be built, the factor of safety was 5:1 because they were designed to take the V4 500cc two stroke GP engines and overbuilt. We also raced them with 650cc FS singles which, even with less horsepower, gave the chassis a harder time due to the single cylinder vibrations and harmonics (especially the chain drive harmonics on the overrun with a closed throttle - which always tries to lock the rear wheel up).
As such the chassis still has a couple of decades left of use, but the wheels were only built with a 1.5:1 FOS so less margin for safety so now consigned to the museum bikes.

[Blackal]

Okay - it is an advert for BST, but is probably relevant………………….

https://www.bikehps.com/bst/bst_faq.html

And from Rotobox (not sure how much detail they go into - but they certainly claimed to be stronger than other makes, at one time………

https://rotobox-wheels.com/

[dobbo]

Many thanks Blackel its cleared it up. There good for motorcycles(I understand the importance of unsprung weight) but I wont be fitting them to my pushbike.

[richphela]

I've built my own bespoke bicycle using the new Chinese tech and carbon wheelset.
The wheels are hed and they're very strong.
I'll ride it for 5 years, then retire it, but so far so good.