Safety Warning stiker on wheel rim

[Charlotte's Tandems]

On my daughter's new bike (a Saracen) there is a sticker at the base of a spoke that says "Safety Warning. Rim must be replaced when the safety line is no longer visible Refer to handbook".

There is nothing in the handbook about it and no reply from the bike shop yet.

Anyone know anything about it?

 

[Andy_R]

The safety lines are the grooves running around the circumference of the rim. When using rim brakes of any type, the rim eventually wears down. When enough of the rim has been worn down that you can no longer see the groove then it needs to be replaced. This doesn't apply if your bike has disc brakes of course

If you take another photo of the sticker, but this time show the rim as well I can show you the safety line.

 

[LosingFocus]

I luckily have a wheel sitting next to me with the same sticker on:

You can see the groove near between the curve of the rim and tyre wall.

 

[Andy_R]

Here we go http://www.flickr.com/photos/8576869@N04/5751923375/in/photostream shows the grooves in the rim

 

[Alembicbassman]

If you keep your brakes and rim clean you can get many years use from a wheel.

You'll go through a few sets of brake blocks before the rim gives out

There are some photos on this site of what happens when a rim blows

It's not pretty !

 

[Andy_R]

To be honest, in all my years of pedalling, i've never worn through a rim. As alembicbassman has said, keep it clean. It's only when conditions are really muddy/gritty that you have to worry....and it takes many, many miles. TBH alot of the warnings we get on bikes these days are down to the "Caution, may contain hot liquid" warnings on cups of coffee, and "may contain nuts" on a packet of KP.

 

[summerdays]

I replaced a rim after about 18 months of cycling ... partially due to not cleaning the rims occasionally to start with (I was very new to cycling), and being the sort that uses my brakes lots on the hills. I doubt many children do enough miles to go through a rim though.

 

[byegad]

To be honest, in all my years of pedalling, i've never worn through a rim. As alembicbassman has said, keep it clean. It's only when conditions are really muddy/gritty that you have to worry....and it takes many, many miles. TBH alot of the warnings we get on bikes these days are down to the "Caution, may contain hot liquid" warnings on cups of coffee, and "may contain nuts" on a packet of KP.

A year's commuting 16 miles each way wore out the rims on my Thorn Club Tour. While keeping them a bit cleaner would have helped the amount of filth on the rims by the time I got to work on a wet day was grinding the rims every time I braked.

 

[Will1985]

Nothing to worry about really - Campagnolo warn of a risk of death if you don't look after their stuff properly!

 

[e-rider]

I've only ever worn out one pair of rims and that was after 10 years of MTBing - perhaps 8,000-10,000 off road miles

 

[Globalti]

I used to wear out my MTB rims almost every year here in Lancashire - it's very gritty! I got pretty good at taping a new rim alongside the old, transferring the spokes over then re-trueing.

 

[I like Skol]

I used to wear out my MTB rims almost every year here in Lancashire - it's very gritty! I got pretty good at taping a new rim alongside the old, transferring the spokes over then re-trueing.

I also used to wear out MTB rims back in the day (when I was young and used to ride twice a week) and all that happened was that the rim wall would start to splay out as it got too thin to resist the tyre pressure. As it always got worse in one spot due to uneven wear or manufacturing tolerances it soon showed up as lumpy breaking before any catastrophic failure occured.

The thought of throwing away a good serviceable rim just because the wear marker has gone makes me shudder!!!