qeaou wrote:
First of all, I must say the response to my comment from Pro-Lite must be appreciated,
this only shows great customer support.
1. Bought in 2011 from a shop as new
3. Gavia 38mm
4. 90kg
5. (I don't want to point, but recommended builder)
6. (1 front, 2 rear)
7. Gavia standard lace
8. roughly 2000km
1. Bought in 2011 from a shop as new
Ok this is making more sense. You've got a very old set of wheels there.
38mm Gavia was discontinued in approx 2006, yours maybe even older than that. I'd need the serial number off each of your wheels to get a build date but if they were new in 2011 they were very, very old stock and well outside of factory warranty. You should have some questions for whoever sold them to you and if you bought them in 2011 then you might still be inside your statutory warranty period - in which case I would demand that the shop refund your money or have them re-built for you. The Pro-Lite factory are unlikely to offer us much assistance as they will deem your wheels as being well past any reasonable warranty period.
The hubs you have will be Gavia V1 - they were updated to V2 version sometime ago. I'm yet to see any failure on the V2 version, I have seen failures on the V1 version mainly from 90kg + riders combined with the old 2x lacing pattern, usually only the rear hub.
3. Gavia 38mm
4. 90kg
The 38mm Gavia was discontinued years before I became the Pro-Lite distributor so I don't have intimate knowledge of this model, from what I understand though at 90kg you would be over-weight for that model.
5. (I don't want to point, but recommended builder)
The mechanic needs a DT Swiss spoke tension gauge to get these back to factory specification when replacing spokes. The spoke tension is critical on the Gavia models, too much tension and the hubs will crack. Other models of Pro-Lite wheels are easy to work on, the Gavia however requires a skilled technician.
6. (1 front, 2 rear)
If you do decide to replace the hub and re-build the rear needs to be laced 3x - Pro-Lite upgraded to 3x lacing years ago for the rear Gavia hubs and when laced like this and built properly they don't break spokes and the chances of cracking the hub are minimised. They'll hold your weight with the 3x lacing.
7. Gavia standard lace
8. roughly 2000km
With only 2000kms and all those problems, I'm not surprised you are unhappy. I think you should be unhappy with the LBS that sold them to you rather than Pro-Lite. You bought a really OLD set of wheels and due to your weight they were not fit for purpose. Whoever replaced your busted spokes might have over tensioned the wheel resulting in the following spoke failures and the cracked hub although as mentioned earlier that model would have been quite marginal for you at 90kg.
If you want to re-build them, send me your busted hub and I'll see what I can do about getting you a replacement. You'll have to re-build it with round spokes as I know Pro-Lite doesn't have replacements given the age of the model and also they really need to be built using 3x lacing to avoid any future issures. I'll put you in contact with someone who has the right tools to do the job properly.
