Wheel Fail

Another rim failure. I try to watch spoke tension but only seem to get a few years of loaded touring out of a rim. I am hoping now that I am 45 pounds lighter that will help. At least this one was near home and easy to replace. I have had two failures while touring that were more than 100 miles from a bike shop, Newfoundland and Western Oregon along the Columbia River. No fun hobbling along with your wheel wobbling and no brakes  worried that you could have a catastrophic failure at any time. It really take the fun out of touring.

I have been a Mavic fan. I like the design and construction of their rims but was a little disturbed at the bike shop today when I went to buy a replacement. They claim that they have seen quite a few Mavic rim fails this year. Mavic will replace if it is under 2 years old. Mine had under two years of usage but because I was off the bike quite a bit is more than two years old.

I wonder if other riders are seeing a lot of Mavic Rim failures and agree with the guys at the bike shop. The good new is the bike shop has a rear wheel that looked adequate for my industrial usage and I’ll have a replacement by 4PM.

Anyone have suggestions on how to prevent rim failures?