Cleaning single speed commuter bike at weekend and noticed a bit of a wobble on the back wheel that seemed quite bad. I thought that needs a teek and reached for the spoke key. But alas it was beyond tweeking as the spoke hole has corroded and the nipple pulled through. I went to swap the wheel out and as I removed the freewheel three more spokes pulled through :-0

oops. That won’t T-Cut out will it?

Did the spokes used to be black?

Road salt has a lot to answer for when it comes to alloy corrosion.

[edit] glad it’s not just my garage where the background would look like that 🙂

I thought this was going to be a music thread…

Anyway, yeah, nipples and spoke beds get eaten by road salt something chronic. Lost a few wheels that way.

nice! if the nipples were steel, even stainless steel and the rim aluminium…add salt for a very bad combo.
http://www.aluminiumdesign.net/design-support/aluminium-corrosion-resistance/

moral of the story…and probably not included with the parts. Clean and wash the bike thoroughly before storing for any length of time then lube up like crazy 😳

Am disappoint 🙁
Was expecting this: [video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-RVJyNpfDk[/video]

Blimey… how old are those rims?

You want some ACF50 on your nipples you do 😉

(disappointed there’s no blowing a kiss smiley 🙁 )

New wheels were already on their way…

I am hoping that H Plus Son Archetypes are slightly better quality than the purple Halo rims.

it’s not the ‘quality’ of the rim / alloy.

it’s a wonderful combination of alumininium* + salt + (maybe) stress.

there was nowt wrong with those halo rims, they just got killed with salt – the same conditions will kill your new rims in exactly the same way.

greasy nipples..that what I say

=

other brands are available

Would eyelets stop that?

I know aluminium will litteraly fizz away before your eyes, but I’ve never seen an eyeletted rim corrode through like that before, and mine get pretty manky.

Brass nipples would be better

just clean the bike before storing if it’s been used on salty roads. if it’s not your rims could be other stuff on the bike too. notice the hole around the tyre valve (also stainless) has gone too. expensive lesson learned. now back to nipple shaped greasing

The wheels came on the bike when I bought it 13 months ago and it was quite a cheap bike. Obviously I was taken in by the purple anodizing…

I have no way of knowing when the back wheel was fitted to the 2007 Langster nor do I know the use/abuse it suffered.

In my ownership its been cleaned monthly and hacked back and forth to work. But nothing lasts forever…