My main issue regarding carbon wheel robustness: if it fails, it does so instantly and completely. There's no grey area of smaller or bigger dents before it fails like with aluminium rims. And these types of catastrophic failures can happen due to invisible inner faults, because someone messed up the lay up or because there's a hidden bubble somewhere. This doesn't happen with aluminium rims.
I have a pair of carbon wheels on my XC bike that my dad built ten years ago. The hubs have had some routine maintenance and the free hub body was swapped a few years ago when the bike got converted to 1x12 when it became mine. The only issue with the wheels is that there is one spoke that is seized and a small leak in the rim tape. It goes to show that they are tough (especially when you have someone without mechanical sympathy thrashing on them).
Carbon wheels on my mtb made a huge handling improvement, especially in chunky stuff. On my road bike….i cant tell the difference. I was totally expecting something big over the cheapo $250 aluminum wheels that came on it . With the carbon wheels I improved 59 seconds on a route that takes 59 minutes. 😮
My main issue regarding carbon wheel robustness: if it fails, it does so instantly and completely. There's no grey area of smaller or bigger dents before it fails like with aluminium rims.
And these types of catastrophic failures can happen due to invisible inner faults, because someone messed up the lay up or because there's a hidden bubble somewhere. This doesn't happen with aluminium rims.
I have a pair of carbon wheels on my XC bike that my dad built ten years ago. The hubs have had some routine maintenance and the free hub body was swapped a few years ago when the bike got converted to 1x12 when it became mine. The only issue with the wheels is that there is one spoke that is seized and a small leak in the rim tape. It goes to show that they are tough (especially when you have someone without mechanical sympathy thrashing on them).
Carbon wheels on my mtb made a huge handling improvement, especially in chunky stuff. On my road bike….i cant tell the difference. I was totally expecting something big over the cheapo $250 aluminum wheels that came on it . With the carbon wheels I improved 59 seconds on a route that takes 59 minutes. 😮
Cant beat that lifetime warranty 👌🏻