Enve Clincher Failure

[billspreston]

Thought you guys might like to see some first-hand photos of an Enve clincher failure. This happened on a steep, but short descent from a guy a ride with. He's a bigger rider and knows the risks so please fight the urge to lecture on about how stupid it is to descend on clinchers and how amazing tubulars are

This is a relatively new Enve 3.4 rear rim (old brake track) and I was pretty impressed by the damage. Deformed, delaminated, bubbled, cracked. Have personally ridden the same section many many times on some Zipp 303 clinchers and the brake track is pristine.

[Calnago]

I'm fighting the urge, but as a bigger guy I certainly can appreciate the added demands on equipment during hard braking on descents, especially carbon clinchers. Aside from wanting super solid wheels (I've sold wheels that were less so) I also appreciate a frame that doesn't give up much under those conditions as well. Thus the ultra lightweight stuff doesn't really suit my needs for most things bicycle related. But sometimes it's hard to convey that to the bigger guys who think they should be able to ride the same stuff as their friends who weigh 50-75lbs less than them. A few hundred grams of extra assurance in a frameset is an ok thing in my mind for the added confidence and handling.

[bilwit]

what happened during the ride? did he crash out? i'm thinking the brake track showed signs of too much wear and needed to be replaced before that ride..

[billspreston]

Well said Calnago. This rider has good (expensive) taste in components and I think it's definitely a struggle to balance weight, aesthetics, and safety for someone with that type of personality. And in a competitive group there can be an element of keeping up with the Jones', but sometimes genetics & physics just aren't on your side. I do think this rim performed poorly, but I'm not a carbon specialist by any means so that is just my opinion.

[billspreston]

bilwit - tube was fine and the tire stayed on the rim so the rider stayed up. He felt pulsing and heard the rim knocking the brake pads while freewheeling and pulled off. Looking at the condition of the front rim and the fact that these rims were only ridden a couple thousand miles I would be really surprised if the brake track was worn out, but that could certainly be the case.

[bilwit]

Interesting, I suppose from the pics it does look more like just heat warping rather than combined wear. How hot was it outside? It gets well over 100-110F down there this time of year, I'd be weary about carbon clinchers in that weather and I'm only 60kgs.

I've been on chinese carbon clinchers for over 13,500kms all weather in Seattle and the brake track is definitely showing concave wear at this point, I already have replacement hoops but have been putting it off. Might be swapping them out sooner after seeing these pics combined with the temperature jumping up over the next couple months.

[kode54]

shouldn't happen on a steep short descent. could be using different brake pads than the Enve ones. i can imagine that happening on a steep LONG descent, but not a short one.

[Stueys]

shouldn't happen on a steep short descent. could be using different brake pads than the Enve ones. i can imagine that happening on a steep LONG descent, but not a short one.

This. A long descent where the heat doesn't dissipate I get, but a short one. Seems odd...

[joejack951]

I don't want to sound overly judgemental but why was he braking so hard on the rear wheel? Hard braking should be done on the front. It looks like he was having to ride the rear brake to keep his speed down which caused the overheating. Short, hard braking efforts on the front wheel would have been a non-issue.

[billspreston]

I did visually confirm that the Enve Gray pads were installed on the roadside.

I found a video of some motorcycles riding where it happened. The descent starts at 9:45 in this youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9Vy-oNyrh4#t=9m45s.

In the video you'll see the short descent starts steep at 15% and runs through bad pavement and then into gravel. So joejack951 you are correct that the rear brake was being ridden harder than usual due to those conditions. I agree that more care could have been put into braking on this rim, but at the same time I am also surprised at how quickly it went south.

[charlieboy52000]

Thought you guys might like to see some first-hand photos of an Enve clincher failure. This happened on a steep, but short descent from a guy a ride with. He's a bigger rider and knows the risks so please fight the urge to lecture on about how stupid it is to descend on clinchers and how amazing tubulars are

This is a relatively new Enve 3.4 rear rim (old brake track) and I was pretty impressed by the damage. Deformed, delaminated, bubbled, cracked. Have personally ridden the same section many many times on some Zipp 303 clinchers and the brake track is pristine.

I'm glad that he is fine. It was only
The rear wheel I see. I usually use my front brake more and the rear is back up. I'm a big guy 200lbs.
thanks for posting. Now we know that the mighty Enve (very expensive) is not infallible. It might have been a bad batch perhaps?
My experience is with Reynolds. So far very happy with their performance.




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[TobinHatesYou]

On descents I'm pretty much using 80/20 front/rear or even 90/10. This person must ride their rear brake all the way down...

My friend's front rim started showing similar delamination over one spot, but he put 25000 miles into them over 3 years. ENVE replaced his old 6.7s with new version 3.4s.

[yinya]

Similar thing happened to my front 4.5 rim (version from 2 yrs ago) on enve pads, though to a much lesser extent. Enve replaced no questions asked with the new break track version. I'm 85kg, ride short steep hills here - up to 3k down, not sure when or how happened until had to check the rim one day after pulsing appeared...


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[RussellS]

This happened on a steep, but short descent from a guy a ride with. He's a bigger rider

You need to provide a lot more information. Weight and size of the rider would help a lot. "Bigger rider" is not useful. Compared to Froome or Contador 99% of the world is BIG. I'm 195 pounds and do not consider myself BIG. I ride with several guys who are 225, 250 pounds and a lot taller than me. I'm little compared to them. I'm just average size in the USA. Are carbon clinchers and anything lightweight ONLY for teenage girls? I rode a century with two 14 and 15 year old girls on Monday. Combined they weighed what I weigh by myself. They rode just fine but were probably not putting out a lot of POWER or harming their components.

[billspreston]

RussellS he is 190cm tall, 95kg. Not huge, but bigger than your average WW.