Shimano catastrophic wheel failures cost team sky



Thanks for posting. Once again proving that riding anything made of CF will end in tears.

Now to be serious, let's hope a thorough accident investigation is done by the team and the manufacturer which finds the cause and remedy. Lots of things to check out before jumping to any conclusions.
 
Cutting edge versus bleeding edge. If you look in the video, there looks like a nice lip or divot on the manhole cover he ran over. Not sure I would ride these wheels anywhere other than a velodrome.

That does it for me, I'm going back to wooden spokes
 
Supposedly, there was a pothole just out of camera shot. I'm not buying the pothole excuse. Even cheap ass Chinese carbon wheels that are race light hold up well over hundred of missed vision potholes.

The Textreme model is a new, lighter version of PRO's disc and tri-spoke TT combination. I think they finally hit critical mass. Any less material and the wheels would spontaneously start a fusion reaction and melt into a puddle if a rider looked at them wrong.

Pssst! Hey kid! You wanna be on a Pro Tour team and be a beta tester for uber lightweight **** that goes down the side of a mountain at 60 MPH?

Help! I just threw my $15,000 Pinarello Bolide to the ground and I can't get up!
 
That dude was lucky he wasn't up on the Alps someplace coming down a twisting mountain road doing 60 plus mph.
 
Well, that's race spec for you.
"Ideally", a properly optimized race vehichle - of any kind - should fall apart/be all used up moments after crossing the finish line.
(Ideally here meaning ignoring cost, environmental concerns etc.)

As long as it doesn't, there's still room for improvement. Shedding/moving some further weight perhaps.

Can be hard.

Building something that's stiff and strong enough to race on usually means it has fatigue resistance enough to stand several races.

Bikes at this level OTOH are often ballasted anyhow, which pretty much negates the weight saving aspect.

Then again, reducing rotating weight is always beneficial - to some degree - even if the overall weight has to stay the same.

Maybe time for UCI to introduce not only an overall weight rule but also a component weight rule?

I've talked a little to a guy who does prototyping and custom work for pro MTBers.

He can shave some decent weight off an FS XC bike.
But then he clearly states that the expected life of brake rotors, rings and cassettes while providing full service is in the range of hours on a bike that's race tuned by him.
 
I disagree with having racing stuff so fragile that ""Ideally", a properly optimized race vehichle - of any kind - should fall apart/be all used up moments after crossing the finish line." CampyBob...UNLESS...those types of fragile bikes are for professional racing only, and they would never be sold to the general public for use, in this way it would be the same as NASCAR.

I remember when NASCAR was stock car racing, that meant that in order for a car to qualify to race NASCAR that car manufacturer had to make at least 1,000 (can't recall the exact number, maybe it was 1,200?) limited production cars to be sold to the general public that had the exact same chassis, suspension (I think shocks could be changed to handle the demands of oval bank racing) and mechanicals as that which was going to be used for racing, the only differences was the interior was gutted and safety stuff installed, wheels changed to race safe wheels and tires changed to racing only tires (racing only tires were illegal for street use back in those days as they are to this day), headlights could be removed and air intakes installed in their place, otherwise the cars could not be modified from its original factory configuration. Nascar has since evolved (in a direction I do not like, I liked the old ways better) into what a car being used in NASCAR is nothing like what you can buy from the factory.

So as much as I would hate to see pro cycling go in the same direction as NASCAR, but if that's what they want is fragile race only stuff then that stuff, be it frames, wheels, whatever, can only be sold to pro race teams and destroyed or sent back to the manufacture after it's intended purpose is finished, and we the general public would not be able to buy such bikes and components.

Otherwise if they don't make pro cycling specific bikes and components only then they have to make bikes that can withstand the rigors of the average person banging it down rough streets for many years.

Yes, I know you'll start screaming about other types of racers that aren't pro but they race so shouldn't they be privy to such bikes? NO! They can race on something that is similar but bikes and components have to be made stronger then the pro race versions to handle daily riding on rough surface streets without the possibility of endangering the rider.
 
You're quoting dabac and addressing me?

Let me repeat this: 765 grams. For a tri-spoke. That's light.

We can buy the highest level equipment. Material is cut to a minimum and a lot of it has rider weight limits. Buy that 10-pound Emonda and see how long ot lasts under a 180-pound rider on rough roads with or without a weight limit specified. Just because you can buy the lightest bleeding edge **** out there doesn't mean it's going to last, is safe or even a good idea for some people.

NASTYCAR engines blow. Regularly. So do the tires. Transmissions lose gears. Differentials blow. When you're at the limits of material science and technology it sometimes goes South in a hurry. Go buy yourself a cup car and see how long it lasts on your daily 30-mile commute to work.

This really isn't rocket surgery.

I have a friend that into weight saving components. He's busted a couple of saddles that had carbon rails. No manufacturing defects, just a 170+ pound guy riding Ohio roads. Did he switch to stainless/Ti. No. He'll finish another ride with another rocking saddle soon.

Me? I'm glad we have choices.

Now, let me also repeat this: "I'm also guessing there is an engineering spec problem and/or a manufacturing defect."
 
Forgot to add: You will see a lot of stuff marked "PROTOTYPE" on Pro Tour bikes. You will also see a lot of stuff with the name brands blacked out and/or decal'ed over with another (sponsor) manufacturer's name.

Anyone here old enough to remember the early 1970's and the era of drillium?

FU57CZPHFSHT0AS.MEDIUM.jpg


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images


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How well did drillium hold up?

JJR_Drillium_Campy_NR_rear_derailleur_broken.jpg
 
Supposedly, there was a pothole just out of camera shot. I'm not buying the pothole excuse.


Now, let me also repeat this: "I'm also guessing there is an engineering spec problem and/or a manufacturing defect."

Maybe a spec issue or manufacturing defect, maybe not. You can clearly see a manhole cover in the video right in the area of the wheel collapse as the camera approaches. There certainly is a depression visible between the road and the pothole, but it's tough to visualize how deep from the video. These wheels are extremely lightweight time trial wheels, they are not wheels designed to do a full stage in the rough and tumble of the peloton--so the scenario where someone is going to use an extreme aero spoked wheel in a mountain stage or descent is probably not going to happen. If you hit a manhole cover with a few inch depression very hard at those speeds with your weight on the front end, you can break a very lightweight wheel--particularly one built to the very edge of tolerances. My guess is that you might trash a regular spoked wheel if you smash a depression hard enough where you are really moving, but its probably not going to collapse catastrophically. As an aside, when I'm riding, I try to avoid riding over manhole covers because this can happen even on a regular bike. Sometimes its unavoidable if you are bunched in with a group, and it sucks.

The NASCAR/stock car analogy is completely daft. I have owned lots of high performance vehicles with fragile wheels. I can tell you that it doesn't take much of a pothole to disintegrate a low profile tire and wheel on most high end sports cars that are used every day on roads. They are the proverbial "stock" car to the extent that they are driven. I had an M3 that basically was useless if I needed to drive it during pothole season. Relatively small defects in the road, stuff that would not even be noticed in my pick up truck or typical passenger car would collapse and destroy not just the tire, but would split or trash the whole wheel. The things that made the car great for track days and fast lap times rendered it just about unusable on anything but pristine roadways. Unless its a 911, which have the engine in the rear and are relatively hardy, wheel and rim blowouts on relatively small potholes are fairly common in high performance cars.

From what I can see, unless I have a very good idea of how deep the depression caused by the manhole cover was, I am not going to say that this wheel had a defect. It's not designed to be ridden over a pothole or manhole cover at 30 plus mph with your hands pushing down on the hoods.
 
I can tell you that it doesn't take much of a pothole to disintegrate a low profile tire and wheel on most high end sports cars that are used every day on roads.

You, too...

How many alloy road wheels have you wasted with your cars? Ohio roads killed two of mine that I can remember, Tires...I don't even count tires...busted carcasses...cut sidewalls...tread separation...

Come to think of it, my wife trashed a steelie on one of our Buicks! And that was with 70 series tires IIRC.

Watch the video again and stop frame it. The wheel is already exploding and he's trying to get his right foot unclipped BEFORE arriving at the manhole cover. The explanation given by another SKY rider (Thomas?) that watched all three wheels kaboom was that a pothole that was struck by, at least, Moscon and possibly the other two was not in camera frame.

I have to agree with Froze that even though these are uber lightweight tri-spokes they should be able to take your average, ordinary thump with a lightweight Pro Tour rider aboard. At least for a few Hail Mary recoveries!

That said, none of us know what that hole looked like, how deep or sharp edged it was. We don't know if Moscon and the others had a warning called out and perhaps got the front end unweighted a little. We really don't even know the impact speed at that point as Team SKY was already in trouble during their run and losing riders...so possibly slowing it up a little?

After the rim exploded, the remaining riders were four and below the finishing limit of five. They coasted and coasted and coasted, waiting for the fifth man to catch up before hitting the line.
 
Yeah I was referring to Dabac, I got you guys mixed up, sorry Campybob.

Drillium in some cases held up just fine, derailleurs, brake levers, seat posts, and ring gears were a non issue; drilled out fork steerer tubes worked just fine since I never saw one fail under racing conditions, I never went that route. I never saw a drillium crank arm fail either but factory drilled ones were rare, but I did see a home drilled out one fail, and a home drilled out handlebar fail (never saw a factory drilled out handlebar or stem but I knew they existed). I had a friend who decided to take home drilling to the extreme and drilled out his frame...that frame collapsed while he was doing a training ride about a week or so after he did the work to it. But his home drilled out steerer tube held up but maybe that's because the frame failed before the fork got a chance to! Most people that I knew that used that stuff only had drillium derailleurs, brake levers, and ring gears, the rest of the stuff seemed to be a fringe few because I rarely saw the other stuff drilled.
 
Buddy of mine had an ultimate Gitane drillium. Laid out and drilled every hole, himself. Beautiful looking and it held up. He was ultra light (maybe 135-140 pounds) and powerless though.

He had a General Electric (IIRC) Lexan white plastic seatpost and a Unicanitor plastic track shell saddle. Full Campy Record. Even the cable winding drums of the shift levers were cross-drilled! With a NISI rims and silk track tires on it...I'm thinking it was around 16-17 pounds with a clamp-on bottle cage mounted. Frame size was maybe a 52.

I knew a guy that drilled his frame...never heard how long it held up, but it whistled at speed and he had to put clear tape over the holes to stop it from whistling!

The seatpost was a Shiba-Western IIRC. I think they were a subsidiary of G.E. Been a lot of years ago!
 
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You, too...

How many alloy road wheels have you wasted with your cars? Ohio roads killed two of mine that I can remember, Tires...I don't even count tires...busted carcasses...cut sidewalls...tread separation...

Come to think of it, my wife trashed a steelie on one of our Buicks! And that was with 70 series tires IIRC.

Watch the video again and stop frame it. The wheel is already exploding and he's trying to get his right foot unclipped BEFORE arriving at the manhole cover. The explanation given by another SKY rider (Thomas?) that watched all three wheels kaboom was that a pothole that was struck by, at least, Moscon and possibly the other two was not in camera frame.

I have to agree with Froze that even though these are uber lightweight tri-spokes they should be able to take your average, ordinary thump with a lightweight Pro Tour rider aboard. At least for a few Hail Mary recoveries.
I have trashed at least a dozen alloy rims in the Philly/metro NYC area over the past 15 years. The worst were the early BMW run flats the sidewalks were so stiff you'd blow the tire and crack the rim. More recently, My wife blew out two rims on an Audi on the same pothole.

As for the video, we can try and be armchair detectives but there is no way you can tell any of the details from a single camera angle. Ever see a NFL replay where one angle shows feet in and another looks out? If the team is saying pothole, sounds like they hit something hard. Agree on average ordinary thump, but this may not have been ordinary.

The latest news says a series of potholes and the winning team was on the same rims. http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/shi...team-sky-wheel-failures-at-tirreno-adriatico/
 

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