I’ve read a couple of reports (so not a massive sample I admit) of carbon laminate wheels, such as Shimano’s RS81s, delaminating over time.

I actually owned a set a year or so back but never managed to put many miles on them before I hurt my back and sold the bike. Did like them though.

Sounds like the issue of delaminating can be caused by riding poor road surfaces, I’m hoping the fact I rarely need to true wheels and rarely puncture on road surfaces where my lighter friends do means I’m not too heavy on wheels.

Anyway, has anyone come across this issue?

Yes – I’ve owned 3 sets (inc one set of c50’s) and they all did this. One set was really bad….

I’ve read/heard all sorts of reasons for it…the main one being salt corrosion from winter/spring riding – basically moisture getting under the laminate and doing its thing.

In ll cases, the wheel ran fine and they was no effect on performance, but to varying degrees they looked awful and were therefore pretty worthless for resale, which was a home because they are lovely light, stiff wheels.

I ended up using the roughest looking pair on a cross bike and to give you an idea of how strong they were, I battered them around the Lakeland Monster and they ran perfectly true afterwards!

Yikes, food for thought!

Are you doing a lot of winter and autumn miles? Chances are I’d be putting them on a ‘Sunday best’ bike, they’re unlikely to see a lot of filthy wet miles…

Cheers

I’d buy Chinese carbon for a Sunday best bike. Don’t get any of those problems!

Yeah but I really like the features of the Shimano wheels, the easily adjustable bearings, the hub spacing etc. (I seem to recall reading that Shimano hubs offer the best bracing angle for the spokes etc.). Plus I have no idea how you would go about buying Chinese Carbon, it’s all a big mysterious black market to me! 8)

Fulcrum/Campag wheels offer much the same, so I guess it’s a toss up between possible but unlikely problems with the delamination, or accepting a less aero aluminium rim on a Fulcrum Racing 3.

I’ve got them on my winter/wet bike 2 years+ and so far all ok.

I’ve a pair of RS80’s for about 5 years, no problems but are on my summer bike.

Get chinese carbon rims and build onto shimano hubs.
Best of both worlds.

Mate has just built a pair, 50 something mm light bicycles on 24/28 D-A

Will keep an eye on my RS81s now.

No probs so far, and I use them year round – but have another bike for wet weather.

OK, I’m reassured, I’ve got two different bikes for commuting on so frankly doubt these wheels will see more than 3000km a year, and I could use the stock wheels for winter rides if I knew they were going to be wet.

Thanks all.

was no effect on performance,

if this is the case then it suggests the laminate is purely cosmetic and serves no mechanical purpose – surely the idea is it increases stiffness whilst minimising weight?

I had always thought of it more as a ‘faring’ to improve aerodynamics? Wouldn’t a similarly deep aluminium rim be heavier?

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/shimano-undertaking-investigation-into-team-sky-wheel-failures-at-tirreno-adriatico/
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxeyI_B4nEE[/video]

IIRC the carbon is sructural in the 24 and 35 rims (actually bonded to the aluminium core) so delamination absolutely does affect the structural properties of the rim. The deeper ones aren’t laminated in the same way, its a structural carbon fairing instead. So can’t really delaminate, but if it separates from the rim, you’re far more stuffed than with the 24/35 rims.

yeah, by laminate I assumed we were talking about the C24 and C35 where the CF is glued on to the alloy rim as, er, a laminate, rather than deep section fairings.

The 24’s that I had (2 pairs) – the delamination was between the very outer “lacquer” layer and the carbon – the carbon, as far as I could tell, wasn’t separating from the aluminium core. The C50’s I had were similar in that the “damage” was under the lacquer layer and in that case big sheets of lacquer came away….

As I said, it made the rims look terrible but I never had any issues with the rims actually failing in any way…..

….hope that now makes a bit more sense!

Ah… yes it does, and actually that rings a bell with one of the other comments I saw somewhere.

So not great big jagged splinters of carbon sticking out the side then? 8)

Sounds like something you could probably repair with nail varnish or something if it came to it? Either way, I’m still thinking it would take me an awful long time to get them looking like that, if at all (e.g. I had a ride planned this morning and am battling to get myself out the door in the face of some slightly misty drizzly looking weather, so hundreds of miles in the winter is probably a bit hardcore! 😀 )

If it’s just the clearcoat/laqcuer you could just sand, mask and respray if it gets too rough looking.