‘23 V4S stock forged wheels vs BST wheels

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I have to say in the back of my mind I’m lil iffy about the BST’s I just bought….but…I’ve put the Thysenkrupp CF wheels through about some of the most torturous testing you can throw at them and they survived stuff without blemish that I think metal wheels would not have survived intact. Certainly luck and a bit of talent at keeping the bike upright in sketchy situations played a roll, but they handled everything better than I would have imagined…at least twice early on I had some off track excursions that WHILE it was happening I was thinking “my wheels aren’t gunna survive this”…both times I took the tires off the wheels and literally examined every square inch with a bright light and magnifying glass for fractures too small to catch with the naked eye and nothing.

Try at least 15 off track excursions with a 270 pound rider at the time, once in the infield at streets of willow where I ran over several literal boulders, and power through hard dirt ruts like a dirt bike etc.
 
I have a friend I raced cars with. He would always approach the edge from the out of control side so looped the car a lot. I always approached the edge from the control side working up to the point where I looped the car or close. Beat him every race. May I suggest this as a strategy Steven. Dude from a probability standpoint 15 times not good. My friend went off at Willow Springs (big track) 600 race broke both his arms. His old lady had to literally wipe his a** for like 6 weeks.
 
andyb said:
I can only tell you the wheel was fitted as std equipment on a V4 ducati it exploded looks like whilst at a track. Its on another ducati forum and I know of the person that posted it.
Click to expand...

They are definitely not standard issue wheels, if you have a look at the angle of the spokes, they are aftermarket BST. The superlegerra spokes are straight from the rim to the hub not on an angle.
 
ffs

the pics a ducati v4 with BST carbon wheels. I think the spokes have rotated with the force before they broke.
Screenshot 2024-01-14 at 09.32.15.png



The red herring here is Baggers said he knew a bloke who broke a carbon swing arm and then Karl asked the question what has a carbon swing arm to which he got the responses superleggera and the BMW thing.
 
Here’s a pic of mine next to the Thysenkrupp

I think the Thysenkrupp is a better design. Having said that the newer Rapid Tek BST’s are definitely a different design, I can’t imaging they changed the design and made the weaker than the previous generation, but it’s possible. I also HIGHLY doubt that pic of the exploded wheel was from the guy just pouring on the power down a straight. 10 to 1 bet that bike had a pretty epic crash, that would have destroyed any wheel.

IMG_0689.jpeg


IMG_0615.jpeg
 
The failed wheels shown are gloss finish. All the oem Ducati carbon wheels are mat finish. The whole premise of the thread is false.
 
I think the one picture with the red circle is one with the more easily replaced hub so you can buy a hub and use them on another bike. The factory Ducati ones probably have the hubs permanently fixed. I really don't think the factory swingarms or wheels are unsafe. I guarantee Tom Cruise has several superleggera's. Killing Tom Cruise (or one of his riding buddies) by faulty wheel would be an ugly experience for Ducati. The regulatory folks and more importantly, the lawyers, let them out of the plant. They're ok.
 
Yeah that exploded BST was a RapidTEK not OEM SL wheel.

BST are made using pre-preg CF layup and autoclaved. Your TK are with woven with CF strands and then injected with resin (RTM). I’d trust the TK’s over BST on manufacturing process alone
 
andyb said:
ffs

the pics a ducati v4 with BST carbon wheels. I think the spokes have rotated with the force before they broke.
View attachment 53051


The red herring here is Baggers said he knew a bloke who broke a carbon swing arm and then Karl asked the question what has a carbon swing arm to which he got the responses superleggera and the BMW thing.
Click to expand...

1705253666566.jpeg


IMG_0842.jpeg


IMG_0843.jpeg


Carbon spokes rotating??? That doesn’t even make sense. It’s ok to be wrong, Andy...

Clearly the exploded wheel isn’t an SL or OG SP wheel. Just look at the angle of the spokes and the hub as Steven pointed out. Also non-OEM wheels also contain BST markings whereas the OEM don’t.
 
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SuperDomestique said:
View attachment 53058

View attachment 53059

View attachment 53060

Carbon spokes rotating??? That doesn’t even make sense. It’s ok to be wrong, Andy...

Clearly the exploded wheel isn’t an SL or OG SP wheel. Just look at the angle of the spokes and the hub as Steven pointed out. Also non-OEM wheels also contain BST markings whereas the OEM don’t.
Click to expand...

I wonder what would happen if the hub in the rapid tek came loose? It would probably start to wobble and then rip itself apart. Sorta like the picture?
 
SuperDomestique said:
Yeah that exploded BST was a RapidTEK not OEM SL wheel.

BST are made using pre-preg CF layup and autoclaved. Your TK are with woven with CF strands and then injected with resin (RTM). I’d trust the TK’s over BST on manufacturing process alone
Click to expand...

No reason to "trust" anything, its engineering. Pre-preg is used to build very advanced components, it's a very sophisticated product that removes a lot of potential for production errors. RTM or resin transfer moulding is primarily for high production runs and has its own limitations . As I have mentioned many times, you need to understand the material and think about carbon in terms of load paths and tensile strength, carbon has no strength without the resin whose job is to hold the fibres in alignment i.e. less resin and more carbon but no starved fibres = a very light rigid component. Pre-preg and RTM get to the same place from a different angle.

Carbon can be made flexible by altering fibre orientation and density but you want zero deflection in a wheel, the examples shown would have destroyed an alloy wheel but no one goes around with horror pics of alloy failures and demand we go back to spokes. The other issue with carbon (and its not the fibre but the resin) is fire, heat buildup from a dragging brake, if it catches fire you are ....... A carbon wheel wont survive intense point loading and fire, but then again neither will a mag. As for the one wheel changer apprentice mark and the wheel is a throwaway, Ill take them!
 
andyb said:
ffs

the pics a ducati v4 with BST carbon wheels. I think the spokes have rotated with the force before they broke.
Click to expand...

Andy, carbon fails catastrophically, i.e it works then it doesn't. In a wheel It does not deform unless extreme heat was involved to soften the resin.
 
Paul G said:
No reason to "trust" anything, its engineering. Pre-preg is used to build very advanced components, it's a very sophisticated product that removes a lot of potential for production errors. RTM or resin transfer moulding is primarily for high production runs and has its own limitations . As I have mentioned many times, you need to understand the material and think about carbon in terms of load paths and tensile strength, carbon has no strength without the resin whose job is to hold the fibres in alignment i.e. less resin and more carbon but no starved fibres = a very light rigid component. Pre-preg and RTM get to the same place from a different angle.

Carbon can be made flexible by altering fibre orientation and density but you want zero deflection in a wheel, the examples shown would have destroyed an alloy wheel but no one goes around with horror pics of alloy failures and demand we go back to spokes. The other issue with carbon (and its not the fibre but the resin) is fire, heat buildup from a dragging brake, if it catches fire you are ....... A carbon wheel wont survive intense point loading and fire, but then again neither will a mag. As for the one wheel changer apprentice mark and the wheel is a throwaway, Ill take them!
Click to expand...

I like the weave + RTM because you can use a continuous fiber and the chance of voids is less because resin gets pulled through the fibers. I did a deep dive on carbon manufacturing when researching bicycle frames. IMO, RTM is better for strength and durability. Prepreg is better for lightweight applications.
 

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