How no-warning carbon wheel failure wiped out top pro cycling coach

[flying]

http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news ... DA6mEjGdqU

Ouch!!

Wonder what brand wheel?

[Mep]

I can kinda make out the XXX i.e. Bontrager from the picture. Is it though?

[otoman]

Here’s another view. Probably Aeolus XXX?

[flying]

You guys are good at this

[ome rodriguez]

Could be CLX.

[TobinHatesYou]

Bontrager Aeolus XXX wheels don't have the logos diagonal like that. Also the first letter the crack goes through doesn't look like an X to me.

[TobinHatesYou]

Could be CLX.

Yes, it's a Roval CLX. Good eye.

[robertbb]

Holy sh1t! I'd almost expect this to be a "noname" rim, but from a Roval CLX... this is baaaaaad.

[Marin]

Usually failures like that are the result, not the cause of a crash.

[tymon_tm]

that looks like a small initial crack got bigger with time and sliced the whole rim down, being "pulled" by the spoke's tension ?

[TobinHatesYou]

that looks like a small initial crack got bigger with time and sliced the whole rim down, being "pulled" by the spoke's tension ?

Looks like the crack is perpendicular to the tows as you’d expect. My guess is the failure originated at the nipple/spoke bed.

There’s no free lunch I guess. CLX rims are among the lightest for their depth/width combination.

[HammerTime2]

Holy sh1t! I'd almost expect this to be a "noname" rim, but from a Roval CLX... this is baaaaaad.

Has anyone considered whether it could be either a counterfeit or an "out the back door" QC reject of an actual Roval?

Edit: To clarify, I am not suggesting that he knew he was riding a counterfeit or QC reject. He could have obtained through what he thought were legitimate channels.

[Mep]

Holy sh1t! I'd almost expect this to be a "noname" rim, but from a Roval CLX... this is baaaaaad.

Has anyone considered whether it could be either a counterfeit or an "out the back door" QC reject of an actual Roval?

I can't imagine why a guy like Neal would ride anything counterfeit or less than top of the line.

[robeambro]

I don't know, seems odd that he'd remember that the wheel failed catastrophically with no warning. Sounds like a very selective piece of information to recall from an otherwise blacked out event. Don't mean he's lying, but he may not remember what actually happened, and his mind created a "false memory" of the accident to explain what happened. Wouldn't be unusual, there's plenty of such things happening to people who suffer mental or physical traumas.

(Or maybe the wheel did fail catastrophically with no warning. I don't know. Just offering an alternative point of view.)

[AJS914]

The wheel failed. Why try to blame the rider's memory?

The fact is that wheels are laid up by hand. You can end up with voids and unseen QC issues.

When you see stuff like this you got to think that maybe we are idiots for riding around on the bleeding edge of weight/materials and low rent bike industry engineering. Do a google search for broken carbon handlebars and you'll find many stories of spontaneous breakage and face plants.

https://www.google.com/search?q=broken+ ... 25&dpr=1.2