I’ve got a hankering to build another wheel:

Hope Pro II
Stans Notubes Olympic
DT Swiss Aerolite spokes

Are these spokes worth the extra money and are there any problems with them from a build/reliability point of view?

what are they, bladed ?

can’t imagine aerodynamics comes into mtb wheel performance very often unless you’re running ded skinny tyres AND riding really fast

Why?

Why what?

Looked at them myself some months back for my new XC wheels.

They are slightly stiffer if tensioned to the required level – which is too high for the Stans rims. There only about 5 grams lighter per 32 spokes but around £150 extra.

Not worth it – spend the extra money on lighter hubs or rims.

Only bladed issue is that you use a bladed spoke key to stop the spokes twisting as you wind on tension.
DT make a spoke key specifically.

I have 2 sets of 240s on 4.2D rims with aerolites and a set of EX1750’s (240s on 5.2d). All using prolock alloy nipples too. Super nice wheels.

No broken spokes

One set of the 240’s/4.2’s I gave to the GF. This set is built with less tension than the set i’ve kept for my race bike. Seems like you can get plenty of spoke tension in the aerolites without worrying. I asked for more tension in my set as I was getting a noticeable amount of lateral deflection through the front end and I wasn’t sure how much of this was forks, bars stem and how much was the spoke tension/lack of.

If you don’t want the aerolites, I have an older set of 440fr’s on 5.1d’s that were built with triple butted supercomps with alloy nipples.. these also have been almost bomb proof with spoke breakages only coming late in their 3rd season of extensive Whistler use. I was pretty impressed by that. Super comps are likely the cheaper option without much weight penalty.

Why use aero spokes though?

Are cx-rays not stronger and lighter, competitions as strong and cheaper?

For the same reason that mavic and Specialized do I guess.

They do? Not finding them.

EDIT – I see SBC ones, I guess mavic use aero alloy spokes, don’t see steel. Not convinced I’d do what a manufacturer does…remember bio-pace?

Still don’t see the point.

CX-Rays are indeed slightly cheaper than Aerolites, but much harder to get hold of.

My last 3 sets of wheels have had bladed spokes (2 CX-Rays, 1 Aerolites), I wouldn’t bother again. They do have a far far far higher fatigue life, which I’d say is the advantage from an MTB perspective, so probably worth it if you break a lot of spokes, but an Aerolite is just a flattened Revolution, so they’re basically the same weight!

If you really want to spend some serious cash you now get white Aerolites though, about £5.50 a spoke!

Edit: they’re a bugger to build with too, as they twist constantly, I’ve always used a block of wood with a slit cut into it to try and hold them still.

I thought you were talking about aero spokes.. not what material aero spokes are made of…

Anyway, specialized top end MTB Roval uses aerolites.

Fulcrum use bladed steel spokes, alloy bladed on their top end wheel.

You need this… stops the spokes twisting. It comes with DT’s aerospoked wheelsets, and available seperately too.
As I understand it, round spokes twist too when being tensioned.. so perhaps using the spoke holder removes the step of having to ‘untwist’ round spokes.. making building easier??

bearback how do the 5.2 rims on the ex1750 differ from the 5.1 rims mate. Cheers

sorry, typo.. theres no 5.2

ah right lol cheers

Well alloy spokes are hardly aero are they, they’re too fat!