UKC

I was cleaning off my gravel bike last night ready for another week of wet and muddy commuting when I notice on rim of the back wheel, a few cracks around the  nipple of two of the spokes. I'm not sure how long they've been there but I did wash the wheels not so long ago as I was cleaning the whole bike and getting it winter-ised. This included putting some of those scotchlite tube reflectors onto some of the spokes, so I reckon I would have noticed them then if they had been there.

The wheels are Hunt 4 Season Discs and have been excellent. I've had them 3.5 years - annoyingly they have a 3 year warranty! - and they will have done between 9000 and 10000 kms, including a fair amount on bumpy-ish off road trails (bridleways, canal tow paths etc.). A google shows I'm not the first person to see this happen on their Hunt wheels, but obviously nothing last forever.

Does that sound ok-ish for the life of a wheel? I know there isn't much I can do beyond getting a new wheel (or rim, but I don't have the skills to build it into a wheel). Do I just accept it as a cost of commuting quite a lot by bike and order a new wheelset? The freehub of the original wheel that came on my Boardman failed after about 2.5 years and was a sealed unit so couldn't be fixed - that's why I got the Hunts in the first place. I guess back wheels get more hammer than fonts.

It’s not so common for rims to fail around the eyelets, irrespective of the mileage.  Normally lots of spokes would start to fail, or a few too many dings, from impacts, would normally kill a rim off first.  

So then it’s a question of whether it’s cheaper to get a rebuild or buy a new wheel.

I’d also add that I’ve seen people push it and keep riding a damaged rim and they’ve got away with it for a while.

My American Classics did exactly the same after about 4years and approx 7000kms. 

Didn't want to risk it so replaced them. 

Cheers. Sounds very similar amount of use.

Wiggle have their Prime gravel alloy wheelset on 45% off for Black Friday. About 300 grams heavier than the Hunts but slightly wide internal width so a bit beefier. I really liked the Hunts up to this, but for basically half the cost if I order soon, I might need to try the Prime Orra...

My father in law had a similar thing happen to a set of Mavic Ksyrium Elites which had probably done <10k km on nice, smooth roads, so it does happen. In an aluminium rim my guess would be some fatigue mechanism to blame. 

Regarding re-building a wheel, I haven't crunched the numbers so I can't tell you if it's cheaper to get a new rim or not, but it's remarkably not difficult if you can get a rim the same size (and therefore letting you re-use the spokes). I turned the guts of the freehub on my MTB into shrapnel a couple of years ago (definitely due to my relentless power output and nothing to do with poor maintenence... ahem...) and decided to just get a new hub and build it myself. It cost me about 20€ for the new hub, and a Friday night in front of the telly to take apart the old rear wheel and rebuild with the new hub. I guess about 3 hours and 3 beers and I had a new wheel with <+/-0.5mm radially and axially. I do a decent amount of bike tinkering, but never got close to building a wheel before, and it was nice to tick that box too - very satisfying. I borrowed a truing stand for the job, and followed the Art of Zinn, but I bet there are any number of YouTube tutorials. Getting it true is a bit like solving a rubix cube - it appears mysterious, but there's actuality a fairly systematic methodology you can follow and then it's just "cranking the handle", so to speak. 

So the question is, are you as stubbornly tight as me? Could you even put the Hunt hub in your old Boardman rim? 

Edit: Typos

Aluminium does develop microfractures that end up spreading slowly (and then increasingly quickly). And 10K is a decent amount of riding. But nevertheless I would be disappointed - 10k is not that many km.

You could always try emailing Hunt and ask to buy a new rim off them, then either a) take it to the LBS to switch or b) do it yourself. As Green Porridge says, if you have exactly the same rim it's actually quite straightforward to swap: just tape the new rim to the old, loosen all the spokes and transfer them across one-by-one. The trick of course is setting the tension and getting everything straight - which, if you've not done it before, takes time. And time is money etc. A replacement wheel is obviously easier and quicker.

BTW you're probably okay to keep riding it for a while, keeping an eye on the how the cracks develop (which they will do). Eventually they'll fail but unless you're doing drops or hitting big rocks at speed it's unlikely to fail catastrophically as long as you monitor things.

I’d say 10k is not a lot , I’ve done 50k on my Hunt 4 seasons incl a fair amount of off road and they are still fine. I’d contact Hunt and see what they say. But I’d be well peed off with wheels that only last that long. Fwiw I’ve got a set of mavic carbons road wheels that have done over 100k  and are almost as good as new (replaced bearings once).

Only time that's happened to me was due to hitting a pothole in the dark.

If you get a new rim, I agree with Alun's technique of taping them together and swapping across. You could always take it to LBS/wheelbuilder for final tuning.

Lightweight, Long lasting. Pick one. 

Points to consider to prolong rim life

• Rims with eyelets are more resistant to spoke hole fatigue. 
• Road salt accelerates galvanic corrosion between dissimilar metals, i.e stainless steel spokes and aluminium alloy rims. The alloy will corrode  in preference to the steel. If riding on gritted roads, rinse your bike thoroughly with water after every ride. 
• What do you use to clean your bike.? Many bike washes contain ingredients that can accelerate corrosion the same way salt does, I only ever use water to rinse off dirt.

Its a mid price wheelset, so probably worth repairing to save the cost of a whole new wheelset, if the hubs are still good contact Hunt they do a rim replacement service.

Which alloy version of the Hunt 4-Season wheelset are they: Road, All-Road or Gravel 

Just checked to be certain - they are the Gravel, Chris. Looking now I can see they are making a slight wider, slightly beefier version. I don't think those were offered when I bought mine in 2020. It perhaps suggests I'm not the only one to find the original ones not as strong as I hoped for. 

I'd drop them a line - they are meant to be a great company to deal with.

And the word 'durable' is used a lot in their wheel descriptions !

I don't think that 3.5 years is a respectable life span for an alloy gravel wheelset under moderate use before they start to crack around the spoke nipples.

Take your mind off the cracks by fitting some spokey dokeys. Nobody will ask you about the cracks either.

That sounds poor! I would have hoped for no issues with Hunt wheels. Wonder if you can get santa cruz wheels for a gravel bike as they have a lifetime warranty ...

As others have said I'd contact Hunt.. I'd expect their support.. and get spokey dokeys (killer)

You’d expected them to last much longer.  I have a few wheels past 100,000km and running just fine. The rims Hunt use are Kinlin if you go down a rebuild route.

Could be a spoke tension issue? I had a rim crack like that (on my DH bike years ago) and it actually disintegrated into 7 sections on the Ft William DH track! Spoke to a wheelbuilder about it and he said (from what I can remember form 15+ years ago...) it can be accelerated by over tight spokes? 

Did you hear anything back from Hunt Toby?

Hi Toby, I've not had to have anything done to my Hunt mtb wheels in 3 years of use but I'd definitely get in touch with them.

I've had three separate friends with issues on Hunt wheels...not all warranty issues and all of them have reported excellent customer service.  

I tend to view wheels...rims especially as a bit of a consumable as I tend to ride a lot and esp on techy mtb stuff I'm not the most delicate.  But others will have wheels for decades and not need to replace them.

Look forward to hearing what happens...good luck.