Light-Bicycle.com carbon clincher rims

[maggierose]

I've been tempted to try some Chinese made rims; so I did. After reading on the internets I went with Light-Bicycles.com. They had a "brand" they are trying to promote (allegedly attending Euro-bike", a nice "U" shape, and several positive reviews - mostly of their mountain bike rims.

I placed an order on June 23rd. I had several correspondences with Kartrin. She wanted to make sure I needed a brake track on the rims I ordered: I did. She also let me know when they were going to ship and also sent two different messages saying that they would claim varying amounts of value to my order for customs.

I received my rims on July 23rd. On month from order to delivery. The box they shipped in was minimal and had some light packing wrapped around the rims. On initial inspection they looked OK. I laced the rims but while tensioning the rear wheel, I felt something sharp on the non-drive rims. Sure enough, their was a large crack. I marked it with yellow tape and it measure approximately 26cm. I squeezed the brake track area in the damaged area and heard all kinds of cracking noises. I finished tensioning the wheel for grins. I put in rim tape and pumped up a clincher to let the tape set.





The next morning, I attempted to set up the rim tubeless with a 25c Schwalbe One. I added sealant and put 90 - 100 psi in and the braking surface pulled away from the rim bed. The tire also wouldn't seal but I wasn't putting a lot of effort into a defective product.



I took a closer look at the braking surface of the front rim and it is very porous and markedly different from any reputable brand I have experience with. I don't trust it any more than the obviously defective rear rim.



I've contacted Light-Bicycles and voiced my concerns. They want to replace the defective rim but I insisted on a new set or a refund. They are playing the common Chinese games so I will be requesting a refund from Paypal.

This is rich and my latest message: "It is really the newly process. Because the new layup design is being tested in France for a long time. And we just use it for production tomorrow. Hope you can give us a chance, it the replace the rim failed, we can still make refund to you. Is that ok?
"

Yeah, the layup being tested in France...

Anyway, many people buy and use these rims and I can understand that there will always be production problems. But I find this off-putting. I'm also disappointed with their customer service. The rims came with little "QC Check" labels in them which is laughable. I read about some MTB rims cracking and this is why. There is no production standard and as most of us assume; I am sure there is no testing done on these products. For me, it is not worth it. YMMV. I am posting this because this is the kind of information I was looking for before I bought the rims. Hopefully, it will save somebody else the hassle. I know some people have used their rims in the past with success but again, for me the, again, any money saved is not worth one failure or injury. This post is self serving but hopefully educational to others. Thanks!

[tmr5555]

Sorry to hear this carbon clincher disaster.
light-bicycle.com sounds just as reputable as carbonspeedcycle, the company my failed carbon clincher came from
Link to thread: viewtopic.php?f=113&t=133976&p=1158500#p1158500

[dmulligan]

@maggierose Which model rims did you get? I received my pair of Light-Bicycle RRU55C02 rims the day before you got yours. My rims look almost identical to yours down to the imperfections.

I am waiting for my spokes and hubs to arrive so that I can start my build.

[maggierose]

@dmulligan: same, the 55mm. I'm not sure who's molding them but they have no business building rims. I'd love to see photos of your rims. Unfortunately, I bought spokes.

[fletch62]

Could the rim have been damaged in transit? It looks as though it may have been dropped onto that edge to cause a crack that big or is it just a manufacturing fault?

[shlammed]

That sucks!

Those are the rims I was considering.

[maggierose]

Fletch, I don't think an impact during shipping would follow the round contour of the wheel. Nor should impact damage cause the brake track/rim wall to separate from the rim bed. What happened if you lost air pressure on that wheel and had to ride with a flat tire? Not good!

[dmulligan]

@maggierose I will post some pictures of the rims in a few days.

I doubt that maggierose and I are the only two who have ordered these rims. I would really like to hear from people who have experiences with the Light-Bicycle "U-Shaped" carbon clincher rims such as the RRU55C02, RRU45C02, RRU35C02, or RRU25C02 or the previous incarnation assuming the 02 is version 2.

[F45]

I have used the 35mm U shape version 1, purchased at the beginning of this year, for a few thousand k. No problems. There aren't any long braking descents around here, which factored into my decision to roll the dice. So far it's working out. If I get two years out of them I'll be satisfied.

[spud]

I and some friends have been running the original U45 rim since last fall, with no issues (though we don't have terrain that requires extended braking events). I was considering building up some more wheels and requested samples of their new rims, and frankly was concerned about some of the inconsistencies of the early 2015 generation. Hopefully the new ones are better.

[dmulligan]

Inconsistencies in the 2015 generation? Please elaborate, where and what have you seen or heard?

Sent from my Oneplus One using Tapatalk

[maggierose]

So I eventually had contact from a second individual, Nancy. This is the bulk of her message to me:

"Sorry for the late contact. I am Nancy from light-bicycle. We hold meeting discussion about rim failure reports everday Thursday. I find Kartrin did not do it well in the email reply with you.
Sorry, she is not very good at english, so can not understand your meaning well. but she is very carefully girl at order information checking. We will change another sales to take care of warranty process from tomorrow.

For your rims problem, it is really our problem. And we can replace 2pcs road rims freely with new layup design as attached picture showing. And also, we can refund the road rims cost to you and 2pcs newly road rims are for your free riding.
And actually, it is the second time of similar issue. One customer had the same problem last days. And our engineers are looking forward the problem, because in the past, there was no this kind of problem.
Last month, We just changed to new layup design similar to Reynold rims. Because one customer sent us a Reynold rim for analysis, and we learnt from Reynold layup design. And used on our rims. The strength is improved, but it looks like it still has some problem while we do mass production. Because all rims are hand made. If the layup process is not very easy, the workers will make mistake sometimes. So, it will cause some rims have this kind of problem.

And our engineers are working on this problem, we still use some of Reynold rim layup design, but adding our newly method. Please find attached picture. It is 2 to 3 outer layers will go like red lines like attached picture, to make the layers going around the whole rim. Then it will prevent from this kind of issue. We have tested this method in layup process for a few days, the workers feed back it is not hard. So, the production line has started this newly layup yesterday."



So, I think there must be a series of defective rims in the wild. Frankly, the attitude chaps me. They acknowledge they don't know what they are doing. They just make "stuff" and hopefully, it doesn't fall apart. This about sums it up for me:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjkkjH0GnfY

[dmulligan]

@maggierose: When I said that my rims look similar, I was referring to your description of the brake track looking porous and to me they look like the last picture in your first post. My hubs and spokes order is finally in so I'll get those "before" photos taken tonight.

[WMW]

So, I think there must be a series of defective rims in the wild. Frankly, the attitude chaps me. They acknowledge they don't know what they are doing. They just make "stuff" and hopefully, it doesn't fall apart.

I thought she was refreshingly honest and accommodating.

What she stated was that they changed to a new process that seemed to offer benefits, but that in practice there was a greater chance for error and less margin. So they are modifying how the rims are made to address this. This is about as good as it gets in the bike industry. I know of a certain big name company that spent many years coming out with new layups again and again and they always had issues.

[glam2deaf]

Agreed, pretty impressive customer service. Both in terms of offering an open answer about what they're up to, and replacing the rims + a refund.