Last Updated on February 18, 2023
This morning I had one of those rides where I was sure the effort I was having to make felt a little tougher than usual. Admittedly I’d gone out on a whim having only eaten a banana and I knew that my legs would be a little tired from the forty miles I cycled through a monsoon yesterday. But still, this morning’s ride felt too much like hard graft, even when I was trying to take it easy.
When I put my bike (Mr Blue Bike, a Ribble Audax frame with mongrel groupset) on the work stand to ‘Mickle’ (clean and lube) the chain I noticed that the rear wheel was sticking against one side of the rear brakes. They are the sort of brakes that mount to the frame via a single bolt (do all brake systems mount that way?) so I figured the brake mount needed tightening.
Then I gave the wheel a spin and it appeared buckled. The wheels are Mavic MA3 rims laced to Shimano Ultegra hubs and as far as I know are pretty solid. I didn’t mind if they did turn out to be buckled; they’ve had a hard time of it over the last few weeks and truth be told I quite like truing wheels (here’s how it’s done).
So I started giving the wheels a really good clean then noticed something I’ve not seen before:
Bum.
Mind you, I’ve done 1,910.2 miles on these wheels (according to Strava) and the whole bike was second hand when I bought it so I don’t really consider that it owes me anything. The only question now is do I replace the entire wheel or just the rims and spokes? How many miles can one expect to get from an Ultegra hub?
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