Recommendations: Wheel upgrade on a budget

[AyeYo]

I'll give that a try. I also threw on some Kool Stops to my Wiggle order today so if cleaning up the rims doesn't help, maybe some different compound pads will. Honestly the shudder is mild and I can deal with it if need be. I was just afraid there was a spoke tension issue or something and I was going to blow a spoke on a downhill (which on a 16 spoke rim I'd imagine would result in a wheel failure and some serious injury). Now that I know it's a common issue of bad pad/rim combo, I can at least continue riding in peace.

 

[maydog]

Originally Posted by AyeYo
... The headset is already tight ...

You may want to double check that.

I had a shudder problem with my recent bike build. I had what felt like a grabby brake in the front wheel, but only when slowing from pretty high speeds. The wheel, fork and brakes were brand new clean and straight.

On a decent I pulled the brake and could see the fork shift very slightly rearward when braking. I did a quick field check of the headset and it seemed OK.

After the ride, I hopped off the bike and with the wheels on the ground I grabbed the front wheel near the top and rotated it backward while pulling forward on the headtube hard. I could detect the tiniest bit of play. The play was only evident with a large force, like when slowing a 100kg payload at high velocity.

After loosening the stem bolts, putting assembly paste on the expanding plug wedge and readjusting the preload, the play was gone and the problem fixed.

 

[AyeYo]

Interesting. I didn't really think about the force of stopping hard vs. me just rocking the bike back and forth. I guess I have to check that tonight. From what I've read there's no given torque value because it's actually a bearing preload. My only worry going too tigh is cracking the notoriously weak CF steer tube.

Only reason I ruled headset out (aside from it apparently having no play) is because this happened immediately with the new wheels. What are the chances the headset went from fine in the morning to lose in the afternoon with nothing but a wheel swap in the middle?

 

[maydog]

Dunno, maybe your braking forces are harder with the new wheel - or maybe your headset is not the problem. It is something to double check nonetheless.

My fork has a CF steerer as well. On the first assembly, I did not use paste on the wedge. I put it on the second go around as I believe this helped the wedge "grab" the inside of the tube without to get a better preload with the same amount of torque.

Double check the quick release as well.

 

[AyeYo]

Well the good news is the issue is fixed. The bad news is I still don't know what the issue was, because I made the mistake of attempting all solutions at the same time and then going for a ride after. I should know better than that after the car modding years. Oh well. The rim seemed perfectly clean and stickiness free to me and I can't imagine that tiny bur did it, so maybe it really was the headset, as odd as that may seem.