Bent rim

[Al-Rider]

Hi,

I have really been enjoying my e-bike. So much so that I have been doing jumps and drops that I never had tried on my 160mm full suspension enduro acoustic.

Today however, I misjudged a big gap and ended hitting my rear wheel on one of the logs holding the landing slope. My guess is this is beyond repair, but I would like to hear opinions/advice: repair? New rim? New wheel?

 

[Slowroller]

Ouch. I woudn't bother trying to bend that one back, once you deform aluminum that much, it'll be stretched and not end up back in a more or less normal shape. You have 3 choices, if you like the wheel & rim, buy another, tape it next to that one and swap the spokes. Or, do the same with a different rim, but with the same ERD (Effective Rim Diameter), or a new wheel, which is obviously the most expensive.

 

[Al-Rider]

Thanks Slowroller. You confirm my suspicions. I guess I'll just buy a new rim and take it to a shop to mount a new wheel with the same hub and spokes.

I wonder if an insert like CushCore would have helped save the rim from an impact like this.

 

[R120]

Dont think an insert would have helped here, looks like quite an impact to do that, take it the suspension bottomed out?

 

[Al-Rider]

Totally bottomed out. The moment I hit the log with the rim I knew it was game over.

 

[craig landau]

what country are you in

 

[Al-Rider]

In Portugal. Why? You think there is a way to fix this?

 

[Dirtnvert]

That should buff right out................

That would’ve most likely happened to any rim casing a gap to a log. Your lbs probably won’t build a new wheel with your old spokes. If they’re not too old(probably not) I like using them. I find they build a good wheel being “pre stretched”. I’m in Canada so I’ll use can $’s but new rim is about 70 + 50(spokes)+50(build labor) plus tax = about $200. Identical rim from commencal is probably 40-50 . An hour and a half to tape the new rimalong side that bent one(make sure the spoke holes are angled in the same direction on both rims) and move the spokes over one by one. After you have a little tension on each spoke nipple and your not confident enough to true and dish your wheel(it’s pretty straight forward) you could take it to your lbs for a true. That leaves you with 40-50 or 60-$70 with a shop true as opposed to $200
The riding you’re doing you’d be best served with a tire liner as well. In that case it might have been a small ding you could straighten

 

[craig landau]

replace the rim with a stronger one like a dt swiss xm 521 35mm or fr 570 27 mm if you want to run a narrower tyre , if you try to beat the rim back to shape it will be very weak in that area and can crack , i was asking your location because if you were local to me i could lend you a wheel till you got yours fixed

 

[Al-Rider]

Thanks Craig. Do you think there is a noticeable difference in strength between the DT Swiss XM521 and the e13 trs+? The difference in price is minimal, but the effective rim diameter is slightly bigger in the XM521 (6mm) and I would like to use the same spokes.