[Closed] How do I know if my road rims are too worn?

no idea about wall thickness. Germany has a standard for wear indicators that might help.

I just have a look/feel, if an involuntary sucking of teeth occurs, time for a new rim 😉

When they fall apart going over a bump? Has happened to me and nowt dramatic happened. Rode home - not using the front brake - and changed the wheel.

Has the potential to be rather more drastic though...

I also use Al's "involuntary teeth sucking" indicator.

When I fit new blocks and they don't really touch the rim except at the corners, because it's become so appealingly rounded.

depends how handsome you are.

if you're a looker, like me, then err on the side of caution. if you have to ask, then it's too much already.

if your face already looks like a smashed crab, then just keep using them till you wake up in the max-fac recovery ward.

If the rim sidewalls are concave by differing amounts as you go round the wheel I tend to replace. I take it as a sign that the rim is starting to fall apart, and bow out under tyre pressure.

Yup, I'd go with the visibly bowing out due to the tyre pressure test.
If your rim sidewalls still look parallel it's got plenty of life left.

robinlaidlaw - Member
Yup, I'd go with the visibly bowing out due to the tyre pressure test.

Replace before this. Brake wear can look similar though.

Or of course the gentle "tick, tick, tick" as you apply your brakes to find a split in the rim..

Thats a worrying sound that, right there. 🙁

When the wear indicators show#/don't show. A rule across the rim and a couple off mm worn off is another method.

#Mavic rims wear in.

what sort of mileage should you expect to get from road rims? Lets say mostly dry miles, but riding through winter. Wondering if 4000 miles is anything to worry about or if rims normally do loads more than that.

They look okay....

Or when you try and true out a wobble, get confused, then realise you've got bigger problems if it's wobbling out to both sides at the same place...

Or cut them in half, an if they look like this, throw them away.

[img] [/img]

ha! I had a rim go on an old MTB, about as far from the trail end as it was possible to get. Tyre stayed on, rim in one piece, so gingerly slithered down to the finish.

Come to think of it, my MTB rims are not in great nick... hm.

[img] [/img]
This is too late

Wondering if 4000 miles is anything to worry about or if rims normally do loads more than that.

Should be ok, mine are around double that mileage and are fine. My test of fine or not for the road bike is to rub my finger over the rim if it feels obviously concave then it's done. On the commuter I've ridden them until they've shown a crack.

Fully deflate and inflate tyres, if the rims bow out significantly when you pump up tyres from flat, that's a bad sign.

Buy an iwanson gauge to measure the the thickness of the rim
Any thing at 1mm is recommended to be replaced.
I was reading an article on rim wear and roughly the rim will fail/split at 0.7mm but it's dependant on lots of variables such as the construction of the rim, tyre volume.

p[img] [/img]

£5.50 from eBay for one of those, ordered. Ta for the tip.

The easier method if you've already got a vernier caliper is the old bent spoke trick.
As described here:
http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=18238

what sort of mileage should you expect to get from road rims? Lets say mostly dry miles, but riding through winter. Wondering if 4000 miles is anything to worry about or if rims normally do loads more than that.

They look okay....

How many hills is the question, last set of wheels did well over 15k miles, but the route to work is pretty flat and not much braking, if i was doing lots of stop start and lots of hills they will wear quicker.