All this talk about 355's and Flow rims is boring me. Anyone running Arch rims and are they strong enough for the odd trip to the Alps and a bit of drop off stylee action? As I understand it they are just a slightly stiffened version of
the 355's? I'm about 14 stone and I'm more of a blast straight through or jump it type of rider.

I run the Arch rims on my HT, i am slightly heavier (about 14.5st) and have had no problems with them so far. Not ran them for long but have battered through rock gardens with no ill effects.

May make it to Inners/Glentress tomorrow to see how they cope with some jumps and drop offs will post update if i do.

I thought about them… But the weight difference up to Flows isn't huge, around 50g an end which is a small penalty for a bit of extra peace of mind/incompetence protection.

Also I was put off by them being designed for "aggressive cross country".

Still… I think the Arch is the design that Specialized ripped off for my Traversees, and those have been great- on paper they should be fragile and flexy but in practice the only time I ever managed to damage them at all was on the fort william 4x track, which is a bit above and beyond the call of duty 😉 So I'd expect good things from the Arch too.

flows every time. If a few grams weight is your only issue, go right ahead, but at 14st then I am sure its not.

i've had some 29er arches about 2-3 years. needed a little truing now and again, i think they are pretty strong. i also have flows and they are quite a lot wider and feel stronger for very little weight gain. i 've never had to true them up. for 14 stone in the alps i'd recommend flows, in spite of the boring factor.

Looks like the Arch is a narrower version of the Flows hence the weight difference: link to Stan's cross-section images

Edit: they're not as deep either, oh well!