Thinking of buying a Trek Ex 9 that has Roval Controle SL E5 wheels and Bonty XDX 2.2 tyres on it. I'm 17 stone and would be doing trail centre red/black routes. No big drops. Are the wheels likely to be strong enough or am I just too big for them?

Cheers

Depends how light you ride, but they go for good money second hand, so you could always swap them. I've got the traversees which I think are better for heavyish blokes and more agressive xc, but several friends have got controles and haven't broken them.

I weight the same as you Bear – I had the Traverses for around 18 months and they held up pretty well considering the abuse I put them through. I ended up swapping them out in the end because they were just too flexy.

That will be your biggest issue with wheels that are even lighter than the Traverses; they are going to wallow all over the place and heaven forbid you get a landing anything other than pin point perfect. They might not collapse on you, but you'll probably not feel particularly confident on them.

Bol's point is well made though – I sold mine honestly on eBay, highlighting the dings in the rear wheel, and still got £230 for them.

I'd say probably fine, until you **** up. Strong enough for normal use basically but not a lot of headroom for bad landings, riding into trees and suchlike. But you could probably get a decent price for them used.