Comments on Ritchey Aero Road Wheelset (5/01)
I've been running a set on my cross bike since the bike was built up back in November. It's the set with the aero/flattened spokes: "Z-Pro" with 28 spoke front, radially laced, 32 spoke rear, 3X. Been riding mostly medium to rough singletrack, with descents, plus road work & light commuting. I'm about 175 pounds.
Here
are my experiences:
Quick check for true/relative spoke tension, otherwise no adjustment before
1st ride.
1 - out of the box rubbery-squeal-squeak from rear hub, especially at slow speeds. Disassembly of rear hub (easy - two small hex bolts) and reassembly made it disappear.
2 - significant lateral flex in rear wheel. Tire rubbing chainstay during
hard climbing. Increased tension in rear wheel/stress-relieved/retrued.
2.5 - rear wheel popped out of dropouts under load on a steep hill. See "Bad thoughts" below.
3 - significant detensioning of spokes in rear wheel. Increased tension again/stress-relieved/retrued.
4 - Detensioning continued over the next 2 - 3 rides. Reread FAQ about spoke tension/stress-relieved, visited Sheldon's site re: same. Finally, pulled out the truing stand with a free evening, wore gloves to be able to grab and squeeze the spokes (those aero spokes'll hurt...) and brought the tension up again. This seemed to have reduced the problem significantly. There's still some retruing necessary after running them over the rocks for a couple hours, but now it's mostly minor adjustments.
5 - Lateral flex occurs periodically to the point where the tire rubs on the chainstay. This happens while riding up steep hills/trails out of the saddle, especially when one of my feet is at the bottom of the pedal stroke. Increasing tension reduces/eliminates this. I am not positive that the tires are rubbing the chainstays, but that is what seems to be happening. It seems to happen if the wheels get out of true from impact or if they detension slightly.
6 - The welds are not finished, and the rear wheel seam is uneven on one side, causing a little hop when truing. I don't notice it when I ride.
Bad thoughts:
I do feel that they were not sufficiently tensioned or stress-relieved during
the manufacturing process, despite the snazzy "Master Built" serialized sticker.
I don't think I should've had to disassemble the hub to fix that noise. It was very noticeable out of the box.
I don't care for the QR's. I _know_ how to use them, but for some reason this (sorry Tom) Salsa-like design goes from too-light to too-tight very quickly. I am very careful while I use these. I will be replacing them.
Good
thoughts:
Light and smooth. OCR design makes it easy to hand-test tension. Front wheel
has had only minor true tune-up and holds well.
Final
thoughts:
These really _aren't_ daily-use, hammer on 'em CX wheels. I think once the
tension/stress-relief step was past, they've been good, but probably a little
light for what I'm using 'em for. Maybe a bit too much lateral flex in the
flat spokes for off-road use, leading to minor retrues. I've used the bike
to commute on, and they've been good over rough, paved surfaces. I'll probably
get a wild hair and try them on my road bike for a long ride, but so far have
not. And to be fair the them, that's really what this set seems designed to
do.
5/12/01
-
Well, finally broke a spoke on these wheels. Drive-side at the hub bend. I've
been feeling as if the tension was probably too high for its own good the
last time I trued them, but it was the only way I knew of to eliminate the
tendency of these wheels to rub the chainstay while flexing laterally. I keep
thinking of the example which John Castellano gave at one of the early Ibis
BowTi demos, when he showed the "X" hinge that helped inspire the
idea of a pivotless system. Those nice flat pieces of material just loved
to flex.... And so I think that has been a large part of my frustration with
these wheels. So, I'm going to rebuild them with traditional round, butted
spokes and see what happens. Hopefully, i will be able to appreciate the benefits
of the Ritchey OCR rim design mated with his rear hub.
8/10/01
-
Built up the wheel with DT 14/15 spokes. First off, it was difficult to find
any shop in my area who stocked black spokes in the size I sought, so I ended
up ordering them through Excel of Boulder - in stock, order confirmed via
email and sitting on my front doorstep within 3 days. Nice. Of course, then
the spokes and nipples sat around and mocked me for a month and a half, until
I finally decided that it was time to build up the wheelset. Removed the old
bladed spokes and cleaned things up, checking that the rim was still reasonably
true with nothing attached (except for the lousy seam, as noted above). The
wheel built up nicely, and it was actually the first wheel I've built from
"scratch". They trued up with significantly less tension than was
used with the bladed spokes. No other problems encountered.
September
update:
After
running them easy the first ride, I decided to bring up the tension a quarter
turn for each nipple. There is still noticeably less tension than the aero
spokes required to prevent sideways flex. They have held true remarkably well
through several rides/week, with a little bit of tweaking, but no major problems
such as I encountered during the "aero" phase.
9/20/01 - I've ridden these wheels pretty heavily now for a few weeks. Very minor retruing after a particularly nasty rear tire pinch-flat blowout coming down Eldridge Grade from the top of Mt Tam. Otherwise, combining the standard spokes with the OCR and hub has been really nice. I particularly like the even tension, and the fact that the tire no longer rubs against the chainstays under hard climbing. The front wheel has been holding up well, and despite my inherent lack of fondness for a radially spoked wheel, has given no problems.
Last updated: September 20, 2001