Would you ride this? Carbon rim screw damage

Shimano GRX carbon wheels. Had the longest screw ever go straight through vertically while riding. Poked a nice hole in the inner rim wall.

What do you think of the safety of this rim in this condition? I know it’s the part of the rim that is where holes would be drilled for spokes but I’m pretty cautious about carbon damage…

though I would agree that it was made to fit spokes there, the screw hadn’t been threaded in gently. Stamping it in I could imagine there is a considerable risk of crazes. To a carbon bike repair shop, fill out the hole with epoxy?

Personally I’d probably relegate the wheel. That said, a ride buddy of mine had a similar thing happen (which actually went through the rim bed and punctured the sidewall just down from the spoke holes) and he was told by the wheel company owner that it’s fine, so… :man_shrugging:

That part of the rim is in compression (the reaction force to the spoke tension), so the hole should be stable if plugged with something compatible. If it were mine, I’d use a high TG epoxy with a filler of milled carbon fibre (available from Easy Composites, amongst others: Milled Carbon Fibre Powder - Easy Composites).

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Holy moly, that’s unfortunate. Get it repaired by someone competent and keep riding it, but keep a close eye on it.

FWIW, I’ve got a pair of Mavic R-Sys wheels, with a 5 - 6mm round hole in the rim bed, that’s not a spoke hole. Similar situation, riding on roads that were frequented by construction vehicles, and a bolt went through it. Long story short, it’s now on my daily rider, nigh on 15 years, and no worse for wear. I check it for cracks, hole propagation, etc whenever I swap out the tubular tyres, and the hole has remained the same.

Not sure how you make of that, but for the first year or so, I rode with fear, but now, I pretty much forget it’s there, until I need to replace the tyre. I’m 65kg (145 lbs), give or take.

I reckon it would be irresponsible of me to suggest that you continue riding that wheel, but it might be possible that the wheel could still be somewhat useable, if ridden with more care. Otherwise, you’d be fine just swapping out the rim for complete peace of mind.

It’s probably safe to ride but I wouldn’t. A couple of potential solutions would be:

  1. Seeing if your local Shimano-dealing shop can get a replacement rim and rebuild (shimano wheels often have proprietary spokes and such)
  2. Contacting someone reputable that does carbon repair about getting it fixed.

Edit:

  1. If it doesn’t have some stupid 21h drilling, non-standard spoke-hub interface, or other such nonsense you could also just rebuild it with a different rim from light bicycle or the like.