preview: Al33 kickstarter launch (new 33mm deep toroidal shaped aluminum rims (465gram) + wheels)

[bm0p700f]

like a front wheel really.

Also november did wind tunnel testing and the Kinlin XR31T came out quite well until a yaw angle of 7 degrees. that angle or less that account of 70% of riding time so the advantage the Al33 rim gives is small when you consider that for angles under 7 degrees it shows higher drag. I am not convinced about the overall package.

The failure they had though is odd. They have not said where the failure happens but if they suspect nipples are cause then it must be at the end of the spoke. Maybe the angle the spoke enters the rim is part of the issue if they are using there 2:1 hubs. I am not sure how using a thinner spoke will help as more flex will result unless they are using a spoke with a shorter thick section at the top. that might help a bit. A difficult one to resolve for sure.

[sugarkane]

this isn't front wheel tension.... and for an alloy rim is massive. the HED Belgium's which are the best alloys in the market place are rated to 110kgf by HED they can be pushed to 120kgf but any more than that is asking for trouble.
also they are using the parks tools tension meter which would have a error of at least 10-15% unless it was recalibrated on a daily basis.. and rig to do that properly would be more expensive than buying a more accurate tension meter in the first place..

if your getting close to 100% tension ratio then there is no need to go that high...

[bm0p700f]

My point is front wheels use lower tension for the same reason. For a rear wheel with triplet lacing 1000n ds could bd enough depending on the hub. On mh royce build i used 1100n which gave over 800n nds tension.

So we acually agree

[sugarkane]

Yep.. I wouldn't want 115kgf NDS carried over 8 spokes it's putting way too much hurt on the hub and the rims. If your getting 1:1 tension ratio the 100-105 is more sensible.

[kavitator]

but when tire is infalted tension drops a little.

if tension is more than 50kg on NDS for most riders it will be ok.
2:1 and 120kg is too much - but if rim handles why not. With J bend spokes after some 1000km it will be 100kg

[approvedbytheNSA]

I have the ceramic version of these wheels for a while now and I'd like to offer my two cents of advice:
Do not get the ceramic version. The thickness of the coating is not constant, which causes a lot of pulsation during braking. On the other hand, the coating is so crappy that it's gone within 1000-2000km after which the braking goes back to normal.

[thp]

wow, so in real life only 1-2k km's for the coating, and it's inconsistent so it pulses. That sucks. Guess there's the new open pro's to try if I want an all black buildable rim.

[NoMütze]

now that doesn't sound too promising...just out of curiosity, which pads did you use?
i read somewhere in the KS-campagne, "test wheels" held for 15k without signs of wear...
and there are however some other examples which seem to suffer the same issue (Zero Nites)
thx

[approvedbytheNSA]

The coating eats through brake pads fast. So far I used:
- Aforce supplied pads
- Shimano ceramic pads
- Koolstop ceramic pads (one 140k ride)
- Now back to (new) Aforce pads.

As for weather conditions: I had a 5 minute shower once followed by 20 minutes of riding in spray, all other rides were dry. And I cleaned the rim surface every other ride.

[NovemberDave]

Ceramic pads are way too abrasive for Al33s or any other PEO coated rims. That's just a direct route to trashing the surface and it's not surprising that the surface is coming off with ceramic pads. None of our customers have reported any pulsing, in fact they say that braking is quite outstanding (one customer yesterday called it nearly as good as on his bike with hydro discs, and he's in a wet and hilly area), so I have to conclude that the pulsing is related to use of ceramic pads.

Although this current crop of rims is all called "ceramic," none are. Mavic, DT, and Campagnolo are, to the best of my knowledge (which comes after very extensive research - we investigated sourcing rims and having it done), all done in the same place, same process, by the same people. That becomes important in a second. I don't know which others are done there, but AForce has the PEO process done in Taiwan. The fine brush strokes may differ but the general process is the same (think of PEO as an analog to anodizing - different places do it with slight variances, but the process is generically the same no matter who does it).

HED's Turbine (?) coating is different entirely, and is more of a surface mechanical solution (etching) with anodizing (again, so far as I know after somewhat extensive research there) providing the black.

HEDs and Mavics differ from the others in the amount of surface texture their rims have, but again Mavic is PEO and done by the same place that does DT and Campagnolo/Fulcrum. How is it that Mavic's coating is generally thought to be so much more durable than Campagnolo's, which is the general flavor I've gotten in reading reviews all over the internet and is reinforced in this thread? Surface texture may have something to do with it, and brake pads undoubtedly do.

Since we were able to do a bunch of testing last year, and since we've stayed in close touch with each of our Al33 customers thus far, we have quite good data on what works and doesn't. Carbon pads generally have good power and extremely good modulation, and are very gentle to the rim surface, but wear quickly. We didn't see this wear rate in testing last year, but again that's why if you're doing your job right you stay in contact with your early-adopter customers and get stuff sorted. We've arrived at a pad solution recommendation that is, admittedly not very far into the expected/hope for life span of the coating, proving to be excellent. Don't use ceramic pads.

I'm not here to be a cheerleader or apologist for AForce. They are simply a supplier to us, with whom we've had good success from a product perspective. There have been some bumps in the road in terms of supply, and yes I wish that they were doing some things differently/better/more, but they're just coming out of the gate and you expect some of that with a new product from a new company that's finding its feet. What they're doing is quite a bit more involved than opening up the Yishun catalog and picking out their new proprietary rims that they designed the layup for (yes, that was snark). We've had to do a bit more grunt work with this product than we'd ideally like to do, fortunately we're well conditioned to doing that work, and I myself am just about to tick over 1000 miles on a set of machined brake track Al33-rimmed wheels and can say that I've never enjoyed another wheel more. They're great. But there are also a lot of other good rim choices out there.

[antonioiglesius]

Has any of the users experiencing issues with brake pads/coating contacted Jan-Weillem, and if so, what did he say?

[approvedbytheNSA]

Ceramic pads are way too abrasive for Al33s or any other PEO coated rims. That's just a direct route to trashing the surface and it's not surprising that the surface is coming off with ceramic pads. None of our customers have reported any pulsing, in fact they say that braking is quite outstanding (one customer yesterday called it nearly as good as on his bike with hydro discs, and he's in a wet and hilly area), so I have to conclude that the pulsing is related to use of ceramic pads.

Although this current crop of rims is all called "ceramic," none are. Mavic, DT, and Campagnolo are, to the best of my knowledge (which comes after very extensive research - we investigated sourcing rims and having it done), all done in the same place, same process, by the same people. That becomes important in a second. I don't know which others are done there, but AForce has the PEO process done in Taiwan. The fine brush strokes may differ but the general process is the same (think of PEO as an analog to anodizing - different places do it with slight variances, but the process is generically the same no matter who does it).

Thanks for the info. I thought the rim surface was in fact ceramic as advertised so I figured I could use ceramic specific pads. Especially since they stated in their kickstarter page (comments section) that koolstop ceramic pads would be fine...

The pulsing was most noticeable with the pads provided by Aforce though.

Since we were able to do a bunch of testing last year, and since we've stayed in close touch with each of our Al33 customers thus far, we have quite good data on what works and doesn't. Carbon pads generally have good power and extremely good modulation, and are very gentle to the rim surface, but wear quickly. We didn't see this wear rate in testing last year, but again that's why if you're doing your job right you stay in contact with your early-adopter customers and get stuff sorted. We've arrived at a pad solution recommendation that is, admittedly not very far into the expected/hope for life span of the coating, proving to be excellent. Don't use ceramic pads.

I guess some builders could learn a thing or two from you regarding aftersales.

[glepore]

I'm one of Dave's customers. No pulsing or wear after around 800mi or so, although pad wear is an issue. I suspect it may settle down some. Dave has a pad recommendation on his blog, and its a readily available pad. I'm going to try a set of Campy reds next because they're lying around.

[thp]

Problem is no one is talking about these wheels in the kickstarter comments, because either none of them received parts or if they did get something, they're no communicating it anywhere, so there is an absence of data and real world usage reviews for this product. So we're left to finding little bits of data here and there, and guessing at where the quality, delivery, etc of these rims.

[twoangstroms]

Yep, I'm a relatively early backer on that Kickstarter and I've not heard a peep directly about when to expect my wheels.