Currently have Mavic XC717's on my inbred. They are a little too narrow for 2.3's to sit on, even some of the larger volume 2.1's squirm a bit. My wife is buying me a new set of rims for my birthday and has made it clear that these should be the last rims I'll ever buy, forever!

So what does the collective think, I want to run at least 2.3's and have noticed that Maxxis Ardent 2.4's are quite popular. It's a hardtail and I need the comfort (getting old don't you know).

Should I go for a 19mm or 21mm rim? Looking at Mavic rims with deore or XT hubs from Merlin. Open to other suggestions also.

Cheers.

I think it depends on how much hammer they're going to get and how much you weigh. I have Mavic Xm719 rims on one bike and DT Swiss 5.1 on the other. Both very similar rims and 19 mm wide if I remember correctly and I've run anything from 2.25- 2.5" tyres on them with no problems. I don't weigh that much by the way and try to avoid dinging my rims on rocks. Have also tried Mavic xm321 rims which were a bit tougher but also heavier. The heavier/wider the rim the more you're going to notice them slowing you down. Hope this helps

I'd go for 521's as 719's I have are a bit narrow at times. Or, perhaps, Funn rims (I have a white one, forgot the name, light-ish and wide, CRC have them cheap and they're made by Sun IIRC).

Hope Hoops with Flows…based on stated weights, iirc only 10g heavier than 719 rims but wider and will take a thrashing.

If you want slightly wider rims without much weight penalty over a Mavic 719 (and who doesn't if it means your tyres don't squirm on the rims when cornering under pressure) then have a look at Hope Pro 2 Hoops on Stans Flow rims.
They only weigh roughly 10-20 grams more than 719s and you've also got the benefit of being tubeless ready (which is the future if you're riding a hardtail).
If you do opt for Hope Hoops (on DT 5.1 or Flow rims) then email Rich at Gravity Sports as he organised a group buy last year.

Will check out the Funn rims at CRC. I'm 6ft 4 so I'm no light weight, so I'm willing to go for a tougher rim even if its a bit heavier. I've always been very careful with the 717's and probably babied them a bit. They are very light though!

FWIW I still think you'd be happy with the Flows…if you've managed on 717s, albeit very carefully, you sound like you'd have no problems with Flows.

Who sells Hope hoops with Flows?

I just built a set of wheels with the 719's, easy to build a good round wheel

Highly recommended typical Mavic I guess

Hope they work well with 2.25's unlike the 717's but will 2mm make that much differance

http://www.gravity-sports.co.uk/

I trashed a couple of 717's fairly quickly and replaced them with 719's on xt hubs (both sets built by merlin). Ive given the XM719's a right good hammering and they've been great, stayed true and the 2mm width makes a big differance runing 2.35's perfectly fine. I do tend to keep my pressures around 40psi though as I weigh just over 14st. They are leauges stronger than the 717's and only a little heavyer. I wonder how much the maxtal alloy they make them out of contributes to their strenght? Either way, very happy with them, stong and light and great for going up or down typical xc or am dutys.

Just seen a set of XM719's with XT 6 bolt hubs for 140 notes from Merlin. Can't complain at that price.

Think I'll put the 717's on my old giant hardtail with some slicks and turn it into a tarmac tourer for when the weather gets crappy and the trails cut up.

Cheers chaps!

Literally this morning just taken the 717/XT wheels off my On One and replaced the rims with Flows for exactly the reason you describe – 2.35 tyres were wallowing about a bit too much for my liking. Couldn't really afford to fork out for Hope Hoops so just got the rims for £50 each and built them onto the existing hubs:

Those white rims look good with that fork, what fork you running? I've got a 120mm MX PRO with ETA and TAS works really well and I think the longer crown to axle length suits the geom of the frame and it was cheap! Going to have to get some experience building my own wheels, what jig do you use? Don't you wish they had put some fixings for a pump / bottle on the seat tube. I'm never going to put my seat that low down that it would catch. That is the only thing I would change on that frame.

Er, I think they're MX Comps (100mm) from about 05/06.

No jig used. I tend to build wheels on my lap on the sofa then do the final bit of tightening/truing with the wheels on the bike, some zip ties on the seatstays/forks as guides. In fact you can see my zip ties in the second pic.

Yeah, bottle mounts on the seat tube would be handy. My saddle goes up and down a lot but not enough for bottle mounts to cause a problem I reckon.