They're just following in their commie government's example by issuing that coercive statement. They aren't "stronger stepping" one bit, anywhere.

As for the crack, poo happens. That's why I ride cheap carbon rims. Crack one, buy another. And then pat myself on the back that it wasn't a $600 rim.

I'm curious how you crack rims so much. I ride 98% of the time on carbon and haven't ever cracked one.

 

I've gone years without cracking any, and then two within the last year :/ Definitely understand **** happens, but at the same time, it was such a non-event hit that I really question how fragile LB rims are. I understand there is a race to get the weight down, but if they're breaking this quickly then they have a problem.

 

You should smack the other side of the wheel with a large rock and see how hard it is to crack it.

 

or try some "stronger stepping" on it.....

 

6 years on a pair of LB rims. No issues. Would buy again.

This includes an incident when the bike partially came off the roof-mount rack on the highway, so that the bar was resting against the back window of my wagon, and the bike was only attached the car via the rear strap of the rack...and the rear rim was against the end of the aluminum v-channel of the bike carrier...All at 80mph. The rim is scratched but otherwise ok.

The only issue I have with these early rims is that they aren't drilled at 6 degrees.

For those considering inexpensive Chinese rims, You get what you pay for. There is no such thing as a free lunch. You're not paying for the kind of service and warranty that you'd get from a US/Canadian company selling rims for USD$500+, so it's not reasonable to expect the same service. If one isn't comfortable with that, don't buy the rims.

 

I'm fine not expecting the same quality customer service. Although, I didn't appreciate the threat. I didn't expect sub-par durability. Maybe it's possible they've gone downhill in the last few years since you purchased.

 

You've had a bad experience this time. It sucks and it's unfortunate. Like you say, you can make a different choice next time if you want to reduce your risk

It's possible that LB have done downhill, but I haven't seen any evidence on the thread that been going since ~2011 or 12. Hand in hand with lower prices is also quality & durability that isn't going to be the same as the best. The better rims are made in Taiwan, inexpensive Chinese rims are made in .... China. Again, one gets what one pays for.

Have no doubt, buying a frame or seatpost or rim from China isn't as risk-free Reynolds or Enve or We Are One or SC. Buying direct from a known Chinese manufacturer or reseller reduces the risk, buying a known name from Alibaba is probably ok. Buying from a no-name company on AliExpress is asking for trouble.

As an aside, CyclingTips did a review of a gravel bike, where the bike can be purchased from a US owned company (I think). They use a Chinese/Taiwanese OEM for the frame (that you or I can by for ~USD$600), they QC every frame, and send some back.... So, a mid-range US vendors openly admits that it buys frames from a solid Chinese/Taiwanese OEM, and that some of the frames aren't good enough.

Back to rims. Once I determined that I was unlikely to suffer a catastrophic failure, I decided to buy. I'd buy from LB again if they had what I wanted at a price I was happy with. They aren't as competitive price wise as they were, so I'd buy from one of many other companies they they compete with. Per my comments above, I still view it as somewhat of a risk relatively to a mass market brand. I live in Australia though, and we're undeserved, so I have a different perspective to service & range & price than those in the UK/EU/US.

IMHO, the bigger issue with Chinese carbon rim vendors is staying in touch with newer offerings from WeAreOne and Zipp and Crank Bros (even SC talk about it...but some of it seems to be marketing vs reality), all of whom are offering rims or wheels that focus on comfort/traction as well as stiffness.

 

Man, I am soooo glad I did not go with Chinese Carbon rims. OP - if you gotta negative rep LB.... by all means do so. Good thing this did not happen blasting 23mph on a descent, down Flume Trail!

 

So if you've "gone years" without a break sounds like you're ahead in terms of cost. Bad luck - had the same thing not too long ago w/tires. 3 sliced on rocks in a month or two after no probs for several years...clearly the tires' fault.

I'm curious, do you inspect the rims after every ride? Since you "know what a hard impact feels like", maybe another harder impact on a different ride finally showed up in the form of a crack a few days/weeks later. If you're abusing rims, might not hurt to consider an insert if you're not already using one to help mitigate risk in the future. :thumbsup:

 

So if you've "gone years" without a break sounds like you're ahead in terms of cost. Bad luck - had the same thing not too long ago w/tires. 3 sliced on rocks in a month or two after no probs for several years...clearly the tires' fault.

No problem all summer, did a big trip to Washington state and rode all kinds of nasty stuff, then at the end of the season I go to the park here. Mind you, tires are still in very good shape due to having to change them out mid-season, I go down one run and slice open the rear on a rock instantly. Well crap, so I go down and buy a new rear tire, get it all mounted it, go back out. Then I get not one, but two rock-punctures in the front tire. Not thorns or pinches, but straight up rocks puncturing the casing. Once I figure it out it's two holes as I'm pumping for half an hour I am able to at least get the front to hold with plugs...until later when either one gives out or I get yet another puncture. Another plug saves the day, but damn...and I'd been riding the park on the same trails earlier in the season with no problems. All happened in one day in a short time span.

 

LB is a known good brand and really OP has no idea what actually broke his rim. And if it was broke by a rock, still not the manufacturer's error.

The good news is that at around $200, who cares! You can buy 4 LB rims (or Carbon Fan my preferred brand) for the cost of 1 'lifetime warranty' cf rim.

 

I had good luck running the lb rims I had built up 3 years ago, including racing 90% of a stage on a completely flat tire. I went back to the lbs to see if I could build up a pair for my 29er and they said they stopped selling them because they saw quite a few broken rims. So my guess is the quality went down.

Maybe it is time to consider running cushcore.


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I've got some insane mileage on LB rims, across more than a few wheelsets and tons of tahoe rim trail miles. I wanna say the first set I built was in 2012-13?

Sounds like bad luck! I'd buy / Build with LB again without a second thought

 

,

"[/FONT]We also become stronger stepping on the fake criticals which were later proved valueless by the wide range of experienced riders and experts from different industries. Hope you see yourself a respectable one and supported by decent members in those communities. "

I can not see the threat?
It seems to be saying negative press is still advertising.

 

Why do you assume the small rock hit caused the crack? It could have been poor spoke tensioning or lack or stress relieving or just a defect in the rim but by claiming a rock strike you have invalidated the warranty. Post a few pics of the carbon rim and it’s crack please

 

LB's quality continues to incrementally improve, but failures like this and -- more importantly -- bad customer service are still more common than not.

Agreed on spending a few extra $ to get a quality rim from a company that stands behind their products.

 

Watch out for Lebron harshing on your comments.

 

Yeah, it's certainly a hard pill to swallow breaking a carbon wheel.

That said. You sign up for Chinese carbon wheels and take on the risk of inconvenience if something goes wrong. That is the price you pay for cheaper hoops. Sometimes it pays off and you don't have issues. Other times you have to withstand the inconvenience.

Just don't be surprised about worse service for cheaper products. Take it on the chin and move on.

 

Reviving a dead thread to bad mouth “cheaper” “Chinese” product with no account of personal experience?
How can you be sure about this “worse service”.

You:

 

If they threatened me like that, the five year old in me would come out and I would post the funniest negative review I could muster. What are they gonna do?

Anyway, I've built lots of wheels with LB until one instance during Covid they did something with a shipping surcharge that turned me off. I checked out Nextie and they were straight up and even upgraded me to Fedex shipping for free. Done a handful of those now and haven't had any comebacks.

 

Bummer but like, stuff happens.

There are plenty of people who pay out the wazoo for ENVE and other high end hoops/wheel sets that fail (and get ignored or worse).

I built up an LB carbon wheel set in 2014 and they continue to be fine. Some jackwad from Stan's who I saw at an MTB event in 2015 or 2016 side I would DIE on them [emoji23]

I also have 6 Stan's wheel sets with hoops from 2008 to maybe 2015 or so that are all fine as well.


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My experience is like OP. I had three sets (6rims) one died in a weird way that looked like a manufacturing defect.

They don't stand behind their product and 10% isn't worth it.

My other two sets have been completely fine with no issues.

Buy them with the expectation of zero support if anything goes wrong.

 

Roll the dice

 

Complete zombie thread (Started in 2019) but newsflash: Most of our carbon products (frames, wheelsets, etc.) are made in China. For example, all Santa Cruz carbon frames are made in China and have a LIFETIME WARRANTY on them. Economically, it would make zero sense for Santa Cruz to have this policy if the quality was substandard. I have had 4 sets of Light Bicycle carbon rims with zero issues.

 

right ! news flash, MTB'rs break stuff. So sick of reading negative hit-and run reviews and someone revives a 3 year old dead thread. DUM ! FWIW, I have a set of LB carbon wheels purchased in 2018, no problems ever.

 

Okay, I clearly stand corrected.
My Tallboys and 5010's do not have that on them.

 

2019 Santa Cruz Hightower CC:

2018 Santa Cruz Blur CC:

2022 Santa Cruz Bronson CC:

 

Mic drop there.