Author Topic: Word of warning when it comes to Velobuild (VB068 in particular)  (Read 1170 times)

Froglover825

TL;DR - my rear wheel worked itself out of the rear dropouts twice with two different wheelsets resulting in a broken CMC joint with a cast for 10~ weeks.

I made a comment roughly 9 months back where at the time after around 2000 km's on my vb068 the rear wheel had worked itself out of the rear dropouts, essentially resulting in some scratches, this happened on a sprint, "I had a rather unfortunate incident on my 068 a few days back, essentially my rear wheel came off from under me, as in I was riding along got out of the saddle and the rear wheel rolled out across the road and my shoulder cushioned the fall.
I had my bike serviced a few days beforehand, I'm guessing the junior mechanic didn't properly secure the wheel somehow.

Fortunately my shoulder took most of the damage however the rear dropouts i'm most concerned about now, I've attached some photos:
https://imgur.com/a/bg0dEvP
Is the dropouts meant to look like that, as in that shallow? The derailleur hangar seems to match up with the depth of the dropout.
If someone could confirm that it looks the same as theirs it would clear up my concerns that it is a user error not due to poor design."

Roughly a month later the same thing happened with a different wheelset, this time I wasn't so lucky and ended up breaking my CMC joint.

There's an inherent issue with the frame I have, my theory is that the dropouts are incredibly flexy where when power is put out it flexes causing the wheel to come loose.
Happy for others to look at the image I showed earlier (https://imgur.com/a/bg0dEvP) and provide their opinion.

I've since made a full recovery and currently riding a secondhand sl6 frame I've picked up on the cheap.

Thanks



jcr

Re: Word of warning when it comes to Velobuild (VB068 in particular)
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2023, 08:37:51 AM »
wow that sounds nasty. Good thing you've recovered.

My dropout looks the same (shallow). I do check my skewers and retighten them every so often (on the Velobuild and also brand name bikes). Also in my case, I think it would be harder for the wheel to roll out from under, my derailleur (Sensah Empire) angle position seems to make it hard for me to remove the wheel so any loosening my tires will probably rub the chain stay (25C tires).

Just curious, what skewers are on those wheels? I've read those super lightweight skewers don't clamp as well so I ended up with the stock heavy ones from my wheels.

00Garza

Re: Word of warning when it comes to Velobuild (VB068 in particular)
« Reply #2 on: March 23, 2023, 10:12:28 AM »
Yeah, my first thought was to ask if you used the same skewers for the different wheelsets. If so, it could be a skewer failure.
I had a second hand flyxii road frame that flexed so bad when putting down power it would sometimes change gears on its own. Fortunately campy skewers were pretty solid.

patliean1

Re: Word of warning when it comes to Velobuild (VB068 in particular)
« Reply #3 on: March 23, 2023, 10:27:59 AM »
During my rim-brake days I bought a pair of Yoeleo C50 wheels that came with questionable skewers. I had a few instances where the rear wheel almost popped out but was able to catch it in time before any catastrophic happened.

Swapped the skewers from another set of wheels (Winspace Hyper) and not a single dropout issue ever.

Froglover825

Re: Word of warning when it comes to Velobuild (VB068 in particular)
« Reply #4 on: March 23, 2023, 04:27:31 PM »
wow that sounds nasty. Good thing you've recovered.

My dropout looks the same (shallow). I do check my skewers and retighten them every so often (on the Velobuild and also brand name bikes). Also in my case, I think it would be harder for the wheel to roll out from under, my derailleur (Sensah Empire) angle position seems to make it hard for me to remove the wheel so any loosening my tires will probably rub the chain stay (25C tires).

Just curious, what skewers are on those wheels? I've read those super lightweight skewers don't clamp as well so I ended up with the stock heavy ones from my wheels.
After the first crash I made sure they were tight each time I went out.

With the two wheelsets it happened on it was two different skewers; whatever comes with a pair of shimano rs 81 c50's and a pair of lightbicycle, definitely not lightweight.
I've since used the shimano rs 81 c50's with the same skewers on my commuter bike with 3000km over some really bad roads and the same problem has not occured.
I remember when I first had a look at the frame, I looked at the dropouts thinking they were more shallow than my other bikes, could definitely be a factor.

Froglover825

Re: Word of warning when it comes to Velobuild (VB068 in particular)
« Reply #5 on: March 23, 2023, 04:32:01 PM »
During my rim-brake days I bought a pair of Yoeleo C50 wheels that came with questionable skewers. I had a few instances where the rear wheel almost popped out but was able to catch it in time before any catastrophic happened.

Swapped the skewers from another set of wheels (Winspace Hyper) and not a single dropout issue ever.
Yeah, my first thought was to ask if you used the same skewers for the different wheelsets. If so, it could be a skewer failure.
I had a second hand flyxii road frame that flexed so bad when putting down power it would sometimes change gears on its own. Fortunately campy skewers were pretty solid.
Different skewers, the first time I crashed I thought it might have something to do with them being lightbicycle wheels+skewers but second time was with shimano rs81 c50s.
I've used the lightbicycle on my main bike now no issues, and the shimanors81's c50's are on my commuter and ride like a dream.