# Bontrager affinity wheels trustworthy?



## coondogger (Aug 3, 2018)

Some cat I was riding with the other day was wheezing on about cracks in the Bontrager wheels. He said he personally knew several people whose Bontrager wheels developed these cracks and ultimately had to be replaced.

I'm assuming he was talking about carbon wheels. Have there been any problems with the Affinity tubeless ready wheels (which I believe are an aluminum alloy)?


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## Lombard (May 8, 2014)

Back in the mid-2000's, Bontrager was using a paired spoke design in their Bontrager Race wheels. These were very prone to spoke hole cracks. I had a pair of these and the rear wheel had cracks at 4K miles. I'm only 170lbs, but I do a lot of hill climbing.

Bontrager has long since abandoned the paired spoke pattern design. CXWrench is very familiar with recent Bontrager wheels and he could fill you in on whether these are reliable or not.


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## cxwrench (Nov 9, 2004)

OP seems to be having some Bontrager issues. AFAI have experienced the Affinity wheels are good to go.


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## slow.climber (Nov 25, 2010)

Lombard said:


> Back in the mid-2000's, Bontrager was using a paired spoke design in their Bontrager Race wheels. These were very prone to spoke hole cracks. I had a pair of these and the rear wheel had cracks at 4K miles. I'm only 170lbs, but I do a lot of hill climbing.
> 
> Bontrager has long since abandoned the paired spoke pattern design. CXWrench is very familiar with recent Bontrager wheels and he could fill you in on whether these are reliable or not.


Yup, the paired spoke design was horrendous. Me (170 lbs) and a partner (130 lbs) destroyed those things. We climb a lot but they failed going in to corners on high speed descents.

Fun times.

I just picked up a used bike that comes with a Bontrager Paradigm Comp TLR wheel set. Hopefully they'll behave. I like that they're direct pull, use DT Swiss internals, and I assume DT Swiss' bladed spokes. Not sure if the case is a rebranded DT Swiss or ???


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## Srode (Aug 19, 2012)

It wasn't just the paired spoke wheels that were a problem, their lower end aluminmum wheels in general had some issues with cracks at spokes. I had a hard time selling a set of like new wheels from my Domane for that reason, didn't get much for them when they did sell but they were at least out of my garage.


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## GlobalGuy (Jun 9, 2015)

Srode said:


> It wasn't just the paired spoke wheels that were a problem, their lower end aluminmum wheels in general had some issues with cracks at spokes. I had a hard time selling a set of like new wheels from my Domane for that reason, didn't get much for them when they did sell but they were at least out of my garage.


Yep, I had exactly the same problem with the wheels you mention. Fortunately both times Trek covered me 100 percent and then I upgraded the wheels on the road bike in question.


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