Looking to reduce a bit of weight off the bike.

Weighed the wheels to see if they were worth changing;
Rear 4.5lb with rotor but no cassette (Sunrace 11-40 FWIW) – front 4.85ib = 9.35lb for the pair.
WTB rims tubeless with Butcher/Purgatory Grid tyres.

I’m aware of rotating mass and wondered would I notice getting some strong but lighter wheels.
If so, what’s worth looking at? Stans/Hope seem a good combo but all a bit unknown to me…

The tyres are a kilo each so you’ll be able to save a lot of weight cheaply if you move to lighter tyres.

You really need to compare your rim/hub weights with the ones you’re looking at to understand how much you’d gain in weight saving. ime Hope hubs aren’t massively lighter than a lot of OEM alloy hubs with alloy freehubs and you may only save 1-200g on a rim swap and have les strong rims.

Cheers wwaswas…so you don’t think there’s much to be gained by swapping the wheels out?
Kind of hoped it would turn my bike into a dream machine 😉
Some research beckons me thinks.

What’s your weight and do you do big jumps/drops ? HT or FS ?

Which WTB rims? And what are the hubs?

You won’t save weight on the tyres without compromising puncture resistance.

You should be able to save a bit from that unless you’re smashing them quite hard off rocks all the time – and if you were I’d think you would have problems with pinch flats as it is.

It all depends how much you want to spend, of course.

Cannondale Trigger FS with WTB ST i23 650b rims and Formula DC-51 15mm thru axle front, DHG 142x12mm rear hubs. I’m about 15 stone but I am not really a jumper/dropper. The tyres are heavy but think if I go lighter I’ll have issues I don’t currently have 😕

Hub weight is not worth bothering about over a good hub IMHO
Its not part of the rotating mass (except in a tiny way) so unless you want to hit a specific weight for the bike not the first place I’d try and save weight.

Rim and Tyre weight are part of the rotating mass and obviously the bigger the wheel diameter the bigger the effect.

Spoke weight is in the middle…

I honestly couldn’t tell you exactly what my 27.5 carbon wheels weigh … and its meaningless anyway as swapping tyres would change it but they are about the same as my kids 24 inch alloy wheels (perhaps very slightly heavier) and they are 1.3kg from memory (2.8lbs for the pair) so perhaps my 27.5 work out at 3 lbs ???

Thing is I probably couldn’t ride my kids hubs for long as I’d break them…. they are fantastically light but not very strong…. and a broken hub is very expensive to replace (depending on spokes but best part of £100 just for new spokes at RRP then you need a new hub) I didn’t buy my wheels but they are over £1400 to replace new RRP… no way would I pay that… (indeed more than double what I paid for the whole bike)

So I’d worry more about rims, tyres etc. if you want to replace rolling mass…. as with anything your back to strong/light/cheap….

As it happens at New Year I succumbed to a new set of “replaceable wheels” (based on if I break the carbon rims they won’t be replaced) and paid £100 (in the sales) for a set that are very noticeably lighter than the stock ones that came with my T-130 (to be fair I didn’t take the tyres off the stock ones but its a very noticeable difference)

Has I planned better (and not just succumbed late new years eve) I’d have paid £150 instead and got some Stans rims instead…. which were also on sale.

So perhaps what you could do is work out if you always want the same wheels/tyres…. and have a heavyweight set and lighter set ??? When you want super grippy just put up with the weight but perhaps have a lighter set ????

If there are gains to be made elsewhere on the bike I’d put the money there first.

What he said. One place I couldn’t really give a toss about weight now, is tyres and wheels. I want the things to be able to stand up to my hefty ass and clumsy daft descending. 😀

I dont think you’ve given us the full information, but I would say light rims/tyres/tubeless can make you go alot faster or make the ride easier.

At some point in 2010 I swapped my wheels for stans, got some Schwalbe XC tyres and went tubeless. After making all 3 changes in one go (from DT rims, mid range tyres + tubes) there is no argument I was faster as my Gorrick results immediately improved.

Obviously depends on what sort of riding you do, and there are payoffs in strength/reliability/grip/puncture protection/etc.

If there are gains to be made elsewhere on the bike I’d put the money there first.

Kinda depends though…. even ignoring rolling weight my £100 sale wheels dropped a lot off the bike
The 2.4 Hans Dampf on the front is way grippier than the WTB on the stock wheels…

Out of curiosity I just weighed on luggage scales: (Front wheel with tyre and rotor)
Giant P-XCR Carbon with 2.25 Racing Ralph = 2.004 kg (Replacement cost £700)
Superstar £100 sale rims/hubs with Hans Dampf 2.4 = 2.180 kg
Whyte with WTB i23/Whyte hubs and 2.25 TrailBoss 2.370g

Rotors are 160 on the Whyte/Giant and 180 on the Superstar….so I’m rounding off and taking 10g difference which makes the £100g rims with way better (IMHO) tyre 200g lighter than the stock…. so roughly rounding up that would be 400g for the pair for £100 … which even as non rolling mass seems a decent price to drop 400g ???

Ditch the valve caps – simples! 😀

Same as scu98rkr, I’ve got one bike and two two sets of wheels. My xc mince set were not that expensive superstar superleggera titanium hubs, Stan’s alpine rims, sapim spokes and tubeless schwalbe Racing Ralph or Rocket Ron (sorry can’t be arsed looking). It’s like riding an ebike (I’ve never ridden an ebike) but massive compromise in strength and grip Vs my heavy set with maxxis highroller.

My fat wheelset are so heavy, they create their own gravity field. 😉

Approx.
3800g wheels
2220g 4.0″ JJs
590g tubes
400g 11-34 cassette
250g rotors
200g skewers

Whereas my FatNotFat (which spend a lot more time fitted)…
2300g wheels
700g 28mm Grand SPort Race
375g 11-30 cassette
250g tubes
250g rotors
200g skewers

~7435g vs 4075g

Here’s some weights of my wheels for comparison, without cassette, disc or tape:
DT Swiss BR2250 26+ (Big Ride hubs)
Front – 2304g
Rear – 2483g

DT Swiss XM551 27.5+ rims on Hope Fatsno hubs
Front – 2032g
Rear – 2155g

When you switch your wheels, don’t forget to adjust your rebound damping by a click or too as the change in unsprung weight can markedly change your suspension action.

My fat wheelset are so heavy, they create their own gravity field.

Approx.
3800g wheels
2220g 4.0″ JJs
590g tubes
400g 11-34 cassette
250g rotors
200g skewers

Thats a fair heft…

Carbon 90mm wheels, ready to ride (disc, tyre, cassette, qr)
Front 2600g
Rear 3100

7460g vs 5700g

What I read in this thread is that XC race tyres are faster than heavy grippey tyres

Which isn’t the same as saying lighter wheels are faster

Confirmed here. Well sort of I’m a bit dubious of the method

http://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/mtb-reviews

A Hans Dampf seems to need about twice the power of a rocket Ron at the same speed. For 2 tyres that could be nearly 50W..

I think a couple of 100g grams of rim is irrelevant compared to that

A Hans Dampf seems to need about twice the power of a rocket Ron at the same speed. For 2 tyres that could be nearly 50W..

That explains why my orange 5 feels slow..
Had a suspicion it was the tyres making it an effort to ride.
What should I swap to with a rock razor on the rear?
Hans Dampf trailstar @ 25psi 44.5watts!!