Long Term Review Of Carbonspeedcycle Products

[tmr5555]

Guys, the rim is in front of me and it's delaminated, i know you mean well and are trying to be helpful,
but I'm saying it's delaminated, i came to this conclusion using my eyes, seeing the damage and riding them while damaged.
So saying they're not delaminated by looking at a screen, c'mon, don't do this! , It's delaminated, please!
The holes were not there on purchase, they were caused by the heat build up.

I admit the photos are not great but the rims are definitely un-ridable, unless you have a death wish.

This is not a scare thread, It's an individual person's experience with a certain sellers products.
There are too many "wow, I bought wheels from x, and they're the best thing ever" threads, no follow ups,
Please respect my right ho have an opinion, and if you don't like it, respectively move on.

Small update:
The powerway R13 hubs have been implanted into 50 mm "Toroidal" clinchers for a 1650 gram wheelset:


Like the Zipps they are imitating, the sidewalls of these rims flex, no problems there, but if you pinched them hard enough you could hear crackling noises, shot an e-mail to the supplier, got a response saying "It's normal, It's the mould residue breaking off, not structural" (not that I expected him to say, "sorry that's a manufacturing error"), oddly after 500 km, no more cracking sounds could be produced.

The Kinlin's are still going strong BTW!

"Those wheels look fine", mate I should send you these as a belated Christmas gift
"scare story thread", so harsh.
Didn't expect the Spanish inquisition, geez.

[BoSoxYacht]

Guys, the rim is in front of me and it's delaminated, i know you mean well and are trying to be helpful,
but I'm saying it's delaminated, i came to this conclusion using my eyes, seeing the damage and riding them while damaged.
So saying they're not delaminated by looking at a screen, c'mon, don't do this! , It's delaminated, please!
The holes were not there on purchase, they were caused by the heat build up.

"Those wheels look fine", mate I should send you these as a belated Christmas gift
"scare story thread", so harsh.
Didn't expect the Spanish inquisition, geez.

Like I said before

Without having a chance to physically inspect them, I can't say for certain, but I don't see an issue that would stop me from using them.

YMMV

[tmr5555]

Like i said before

Ther're delaminated.

The rim is in front of me and you claim to know better, mental.
Where's the block button?

[basilic]

honest questions: what does "delaminated" mean? how do you know that it happened?

[tmr5555]

The rim has widened in two sections due to the heat build up and pressure applied by the inner tube causing the brakes to rub significantly and the wheel to get out of true, the epoxy has melted and this has caused visible bubbles that were not there previously, most significantly some layers of carbon on the outer section of the brake track are separated (as in delaminated) from the rest of the wheel.

Maybe some confusion is caused because when talking about wheel failure and delamination we expect to see a much more visibly damaged rim than this, although thank goodness not catastrophically damaged while being ridden, they are toast.

[gmakris]

Hi tmr5555 - from the photos you posted these are not clinchers but tubular rims
In case of delamination for tubular rims there is no tyre presure to push the rim outside

is this a typo?

[basilic]

thanks tmr5555!

[tmr5555]

Hi tmr5555 - from the photos you posted these are not clinchers but tubular rims
In case of delamination for tubular rims there is no tyre presure to push the rim outside

is this a typo?

DUDE WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?

[mattr]

I think gmakris has quoted someone else. ....... possibly someone from the manufacturer.


Or an idiot.

[BoSoxYacht]

Like i said before

Ther're delaminated.

The rim is in front of me and you claim to know better, mental.
Where's the block button?

all I said was without a physical inspection that I wasn't sure what you were describing was actually damage.

Don't be so sensitive.

[kavitator]

It is not big damage - some older cheaper well known manifacturesrs ----....----- wheelsets has same pushed out wall- and folks still ride them. Only not on steep downhills.
But if it is front rim better not use it

On mostly delamination or deformation of brake surface apper on place where spoke is - spoke pulling with force
next time try using campagnolo/fulcrum red brake pads for carbon, or equinox that rae very soft

Mostly destroyed rims are from wrong brake pads

So if you buy "no name" rims you have no data what brake pads will work

If you buy from "manufacturer" like Zipp, easton, ...you get brake pads which works with brake surface of the rim - how it works that is other chapter. But using wrong brake pads lead to no support at warranty

(sorry to my english)

[bm0p700f]

Delamination to me is the rim coming apart. what the OP has is not delamination but a slight warpage due to heat build up. This is quite different. The rim can probably still be ridden but obviously braking is an issue. Your original photo did not show this.

Still slating all chinese porduced carbon rims for this one failure is not good form. Likewise slating the kinlin wheel build means you have learnt not understood why this build has not worked for you. Kinlin actually make some very good rims. But like all rims they suit certain people more than others. You may have bought the wheels based on weight alone where as I could have told you and any wheel builder would confirm the XR200 rim should be 28 spoke rear minimum (unless the rider is very light) and I put a weight limit of 80kg on them. My own set which have a fair few miles use Novatec hubs 28F/28r and laser spokes. They are just stiff enough for me at 82 kg (I was lighter when I built them). So there is nothing wrong with the rim but the wrong spoke count has been purchased.

When buying wheels talk to a shop or wheel builder that knows what they are talking about rather than buying cheap or for low weight. I think at the moment you are going to end up buying expensive brands. Seek advise before your next purchase.

Kavitor is right also. Your rims came with brake pads they braking may not have been great but they would not have caused the problem you have encountered. With my rims the pads supplied where rubbish and it it took a fair bit of testing before I became confident that the pads I now supply would not cause a problem. Some that I tried evaporated before my very eyes, other smelt alot on hard braking (they came of straight away) until I found the perfect pads. The point being experiment with care.

[tmr5555]

@Kavitator: Nobody can know how much structural damage is in this rim a the moment. It may never fail, or it might fail on the next downhill.
Front wheel, rear wheel, all in the bin, or recycled into clothes hangers.
It doesn't appear to have huge damage, but they're compromised and riding them would be dangerous, otherwise yes to all your points.

- Not knocking the Kinlin's they are fine (must've misread).

- Asked the seller before using the lifeline pads, he answered "yes they are fine, swisstop brake pads are also suitable" (not that he's ever seen a pair of lifeline's in his life, that is part of the problem, better leave it for another time)

- Not exactly going after Chinese manufacturing but saying I bought a set of wheels from carbonspeedcycle (Helin Liu) and this is what happened. Everyone can make their own conclusions.

-The definition of "Delamination" is "dividing into layers", the rim epoxy has boiled, and the brake track layers have separated from each other, literally the dictionary definition of delamination.
Yes It's not a very "spectacular" delamination.

[glepore]

Semantics. The rim didn't "delaminate" necessarily, but it looks pretty clear from these photos that the epoxy passed the "glass transition temperature" (ie. became soft due to heat). The rim bulged. This is not good. It is not delamination in that the structure of the rim remains intact, but it did deform. Are the rims currently rideable? Maybe. I wouldn't if only because they'd brake like crap.

Glass transition temp is the major downfall of most open mold rims, at least according to November's testing, and they seem pretty darn honest about what they find. Its not necessarily something that crashes you immediately, but if the tire blows off, then yeah. But I don't know that I'd ride any carbon clincher in real mountains anyway.

[efeballi]

Timur, sorry to see your rim trashed like that. I have a Farsports wheelset that had the front wheel bulge like that (luckily warranty covered it) and it wasn't very cool.
I'm going to go against the grain here; the rim is probably structurally fine. That part of the rim is under load from only the pressure of the tyre and nothing else, the weight is dissipated wide enough to not be noticed by the rim wall and spoke tension loads are carried by the lower part of the rim. So methinks it's safe to say the only significant load the rim is carrying is created by the pressure of the tyre on it. If the wheel didn't go out of true when this happened, its structurally sound, that is, the only problem will be at the rim/tyre interface.

I've heard(and saw some test videos) that Farsports rims are tested up to 200 psi but rated only to 120, that's a 67% safety factor. So your brake tracks will have to lose its strength by 40% to fail if its ultimate pressure rating was 200 psi when new.

You probably run less than 120 psi on your tyres, so the rim has to weaken even more than that to be a concern.
My reasoning is that if the rim had weakened by THAT much, it would have failed right then and there, when the resin was hot and wasn't doing its job, not when it cools back and regains some strength. I continued using my bulged Farsports front wheel for a while, only the upper part of the brake track had bulged and I lowered the brake pads there to have acceptable braking. It went fine, I didn't die.
People are concerned that the rim will fail from structural fatigue after this damage, well, in my knowledge, carbon fiber doesn't work like that.

If you have some sort of a flat brake track left, I'd ride it. If you don't, well; there are 3 options:
-build it into a trainer wheel
-make 6 coat hangers
-make a mirror frame


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