Afternoon,

I was just about to strip an old set of Flow on Shimano wheels to rebuild on Hope hubs I already have, but I’m hearing too many bad things about trying to get WTB’s working on Stans rims properly. I really quite like WTB tyres right now so I’m considering carefully whether I want to reuse these rims or not.

Looking around CRC, there are a couple of WTB rims I’d be interested in – the Frequency i25 and the Asymetric i29. I’ve used WTB rims before and like them a lot, and they work well with the tyres obviously. I understand the idea of Asymetric rims and on a 29er (which is what this build is for) they should be the ideal choice – so why are they so rare? Never built Asym before but Musson covers it so I imagine I’d be ok – is there any real reason not to? They’re significantly wider and slightly cheaper than the Frequencies. I’ll be running 1×11 if that makes any difference to anyone’s opinions.

I’m also looking at these rims. Will they work with procore?

Dunno, I had some Bonty Mustang asymmetric 29er rims and they built up nicely, the asymmetry works at both ends to even up the spoke tension. I guess there must be some trade-off in terms of the rim not being quite so optimally designed, but surely that’s nothing a few grammes of extra aluminium won’t cure?

Similarly offset rear ends, worked a treat on my Demo 8 (though 26″ wheels obv).

Don’t know about procore… Just built a set of asym i35s, tbh apart from a wee bit of extra thought about getting them the right way round, but less thought on spokes because they’re all teh same length, they’re just rims from that point of view. Performance wise I’ve not ridden them yet but I’d be surprised if I notice any benefit from the asymetry, not to say there isn’t some that manifests in longterm strength or whatever… The Asym is anodised and generally feels a wee bit higher quality than my old Frequencies, though remains to be seen if it has the Frequency’s bombproofness. Basically this isn’t very helpful is it? TL;DR, I’d get the rims with the right weight and price and width and not worry much about symmetry.

It is good to have all same length spokes though if just for spares.

Thanks!

I was talking this over with my brother last night and we concluded the i25 is probably the way forward this time simply as the 35’s might be a bit wide for a mk 1 Solaris once they’ve got 2.3/2.25 tyres on.

Just need to find 291mm DT Comps now. They seem out of stock everywhere…

I’m running 1×11 and Asym 35’s. 900 miles in so far, running plus tyres on a Solaris.

I like them. Taken a few big hits, nicely finished…

BUt – the WTB badge is a sticker, which is starting to pull away from the anodised part. No biggy. Just annoying.

Oh…and Schwalbes and WTB’s all go up tubeless very easily.

I built up a pair of i29/i35 wheels. Easy to build (as long as you get the asymmetry the right way round!), and I’ve been riding them for nearly a year no problems. Absolute pig to get the WTB tyres on though! (trailblazers in this case)