Chalo said:
at least decent suspension is necessary to not break wheels.
Ummm, no.
What you need is decent wheels.
I know you are dealing only with stuff you can get for free, which limits your palette of options somewhat.
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I think that an important qualifier to add is that you refuse to buy wheels that are suitable for your application, and that instead you repurpose wheels that are not suitable, but are free of charge to you. That is a major distinction.
Fair enough.
It's not really that I refuse to buy them, just that I haven't found any at a price I can afford (which is not very much on my best day, and nothing on the worst). Also, I am not entirely certain that a bicycle wheel can do what I want, but I have no experience with really tough bicycle rims, so there could be something that would do it, with an appropriately fat tire.
Probably OT, but, I'm curious--Chalo: what's the largest, deepest, sharpest-edged pothole you've hit without damaging your wheel, with that kind of load?
Most of the ones around here are not that bad, probably an inch or two deep, and a few inches across at worst, and not too sharp-edged.
But there are some from "sinkhole" effects at edges of roads that can be a foot or two across and 3-4" to a foot deep, anything from gently sloping down to the little hole in the center (really at the road edge, usually) or just a sharp drop off if the pavement has collapsed into the hole already. These can be some of the worst, too, because if you ride across one that's already large it can crumble more under you as you pass--and it does so with every car that goes over it, but cars aren't usually that close to the edge of the road to run over these things. I try never to be, but there are times in heavy traffic I don't have much choice, depending on location. Slowing down is best but on occasion the situation comes up so fast I cant' plan and react quick enough to avoid it.
IIRC this type is the worst one I ever rode into, which broke multiple spokes (on an admittedly crappy wheel) on CrazyBike2's rear wheel, and bent the rim, back when I was still using the middrive powerchair motor setup. I don't remember how deep ti was, but it actually stopped me completely, from around 17MPH or so (my fastest speed at that time), with the rear wheel stuck in the hole, and the rear BB/chainrings hitting the pavement. It didn't look that deep before I hit it, most likely collapsed more as I rode over it. I'd avoided it with the front wheel, but not with the rear--in this case any suspension I can envision wouldn't've mattered, and I expect that the front wheel would've dug in the same way, and I'd've probably flipped end over end launching me into the air. There ought to be a post on the old blog about it with a pic, I think. Don't remember when, though--been too long.
Some of the potholes are just places where a couple of inches deep of pavement has come out in chunks--those are often smallish, a few inches across, or maybe very long but not very wide. One of this type toasted a cheap but decent enough 24" alloy wheel (off a late 80s / early 90s Schwinn Ranger), again on CB2 while I had the middrive--I don't remmeber the speed but the rim got a flatspot when I hit the pothole. At one point I think I reused taht rim, forgetting it had the problem until I picked it up, and then deciding to try to use it anyway, but it was definitely not re-usable.
Some are just "waves" of pavement that have pushed up from an inch or two up to 4-5 inches (as high as the curb!), vs the concrete gutter or corner or other stuff along the road. Those are often deceptive especially in daylight becuase you don't see them as they slowly rise up and then suddenly fall off on the far side, but the worst ones are the ones you can see coming but can't avoid because of traffic, and have the sharper edge on the approach.
Some are places where they started to repair something, then covered it with a metal plate as a temporary patch, then went away and apparently forgot about the repair (ran out of money? time? I dunno), and then someone stole the plate (presumably for the recycling money), leaving a gaping hole that starts out filled with loose dirt (at best), a foot to several feet across, and getting deeper with every car that goes thru it and every rain (or watering cycle if it's near a place with lawn sprinklers that leak or overspray into the road). These are probably the largest, deepest ones, but they are the rarest for me to ever see. I've never run over one, as they are usually so large I feel as if I'd fall in (and I almost certainly would crash if I rode into one--some cars have been damaged by doing so!).
Similarly, sometimes people have taken the metal grates off of road-edge drains, leaving a heck of a hole in the road--small, a foot or two across, but very deep and right-angle-sharp-edged.