Carbon rims seem to be trickling down from uber dear, to sort of affordable. Given I’ve already put a few dents in my rims, I like the idea of building my hubs into some Carbon rims when the time comes. What else is out there worth looking at?

Given I’ve already put a few dents in my rims, I like the idea of building my hubs into some Carbon rims

Erm…

Well my thinking is that they will take a whack without bending. Granted there’s a chance they could crack, but it’s less of a concern for some reason 🙂

Aren’t Bird (as in Aeris) making a carbon wheel set now? Think they were about 800 all in with hubs

I would purely out of interest say Ibis wide ass rims if you can cut a deal on a set.

Or possibly check out my DT Swiss EXC 1550 wheelset for sale.

It depends if you want to go fat ass tyres with even more tread to ground contact or if wanting more conventional looking and also practicle looking rims.

Personally I’m not a fan of Enve due to the deep rim look. Perhaps yes for a roadbike.

I think at 100 around rim?, LB are almost affordable for serial wheel breakers. My old ones were ace, by the looks of it the new deeper profile, beadless rims are stronger and stiffer.

There are plenty of alu rims costing around 60-70 these days. I do worry about the manufacturing process, I’ve heard bad things about carbon production giving Chinese workers silicosis etc…..it’s the reason why Commencal is sticking to alu frames.

Is it really £100 per rim now- blimey that’s cheap! They must surely be cutting some kind of corner(s).

It’s actually worth the op getting their strongest looking option at that price.
Not sure if I’d have confidence in beadless rims mind.
Aren’t beadless for tubeless setups mind?

Beadless appears to be great for tubeless. Not sure about tubed setups? I think the extra strength is worth the faff of tubeless.

LB say they are fine for tube use as well.

Haven’t used tubes for years, and don’t ever plan on doing. The light bicycle ones do look great VFM – not sure which I’d go for though. The lightest 650b option is still marginally wider than my SRAM roam wheels, so probably those? What are most people buying from them?

LB are $400 a par. So more like £125 plus any tax each..

Been blown away by the quality, robustness, stiffness, hubs and build of the Superstar Carbon AM wheels for such a brilliant price. Survived the Scottish Enduro Series and Tweedlove EWS without a single issue and still straight as a dime.

http://www.superstarcomponents.com/en/am-carbon-wheelset.htm

I’ve got 3 LB rims on the go, I’ve not tried the competitors so they might be better or worse but I’d definitely buy another LB. My oldest one is the old, weaker process but it’s still proved strong like ox and light like squirrel

Could look up Yishun Carbon, they make rims for other companies, I went for Roval Fatties SL carbon set up, they come with both sealing strips & little light weight plastic plugs to seal the spoke holes, very stiff, no bead hook 30mm wide internally, tyres sealed very easy & I did try to break them recently during a weeks fun in the High lands doing Torridon etc & they were superb though look decidedly second hand now, nowt a set of rim stickers won’t sort out though.

straight as a dime

Sorry for bring pedantic, but it is “straight as a die”.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/as-straight-as-a-die.html

I’m currently waiting on some lb rims. Got the toughest am rims bc13. £280 + any duty for the pair. 440g each, so maybe not the lightest, but I was worried about damage!
Will build onto some switch evo hubs I have and bought the spokes and nipples for £30 from rose

+1 for the Superstar Carbon AMs. Totally transformed my bike performance compared to the Flow EX on Hope I had on (now using them for uplift days and they’ll be my winter rims).

I ride some rocky trails where you just can’t help have some small rocks jump up and hit the bike, my shins or the rims at some point during the descent and I’ve already got quite a few tiny rock ding marks on the carbon surface (they’re not gouges and feel like scratches). They’ve held up brilliantly to the abuse so far. I am careful to check my PSI before each ride as I definitely don’t fancy hitting the rim on the bead because they’re carbon.

They grip the trail so hard the tyres wear out faster than the same tyres on alloy rims on the front. That or I’m cornering harder than ever!

Negatives: Total **** to go tubeless with them – lots of patience required – my top tip is use Gorilla tape… yellow tape wasn’t pliable enough. I also wasn’t sure the spokes were tensioned properly so I took them to my LBS to check and they confirmed they were way out so I had their wheel builder fix them. Still worth it on the bargain price. I also had to buy a 142x12mm rear axle for the hub as SS sent me 135x12mm despite me ordering the right one. Even so… they’re high quality rims and the hubs have been excellent so far.

I’ve no regrets. They are brilliant wheels. They make my bike an absolute blast to ride up and down and I can ride all day as I just don’t get the energy zapped from my legs so quickly. Highly recommended.

+2 for SUperstars carbon wheels, love mine. chucked everything i have thrown at them, still run perfectly true. I had no problems running tubeless with Ardent and High Roller. Superstars yellow tape and valves. I would buy another set in a heart beat!

Have a look at Nextie. I’ve got a 40mm front 35mm rear hookless on my Stooge. The quality seems a bit higher than my older LB hooked rims and they went up tubeless with Gorilla tape and a track pump. The bead lock is so effective I battle to unseat the tyre by hand. They’re 420g each.

@russyh it’s funny how some SS wheels are easy to go tubeless and others aren’t. Both my Carbon AM rims had immaculate finishing on every spoke hole but had horrible finishing on the most important hole… the valve. The hole wasn’t round and so the tubeless vale rubber seal couldn’t cover it. I had to pack extra layers of tape over the vale hole to get them to go up in a trial and error fashion. I don’t put sealant in until I can get a proper air seal with my track pump and then it goes in through the removable valve core to keep the beads seated.

I’ve setup tubeless countless times and never had anywhere near the problems I did with the SS carbon rims.

On my Stans rims I can setup Tubeless from scratch in a few minutes and it’s never failed to install first time on two sets of Flows and the one Crest front wheel I accidentally bought on eBay and haven’t ever used but I did set it up tubeless (no sealant) in case I needed it.

I used Hans Dampf SS TrailStar on the front and a Maxxis DHR II TR EXO on the Rear… both tyres I’ve installed on a Flow EX rim in minutes tubeless. You don’t even have to be careful and it works.

I had to be super patient and super careful with the Carbon AMs. Most reasonable people would have given up.

I’ve not had any issues with them since the install but I’m not looking forward to needing a tyre change on them hence keeping the Flows as drop in replacements.

I would stay away from LB rims if in honest! I have managed to crack my rims after just 5 rides……..

If we never bought anything that a sample of 1 person had broken quite soon after purchasing, we’d probably never buy anything.

I’d avoid mavic rims if I were you, they fold like cheese ime 😉

My lbs have lasted much longer ews, DH, Enduro etc

LB’s seem fine to me, 31 rides, 500 odd miles so far.

mrski1 – Member

I would stay away from LB rims if in honest! I have managed to crack my rims after just 5 rides……..

and LB’s response was what? As there after sales is reportedly quite good.

http://www.rockguardz.com/carbon-rimz.html IIRC are just LB rims but with a 2 year warranty… TBH that’s not the greatest deal ever compared to buying direct, but if you want/need piece of mind

mrski1 thats the 2nd time I’ve seen that pic, but not heard how it happened. Can you enlighten us please!

I would stay away from LB rims if in honest! I have managed to crack my rims after just 5 rides……..

pop them an email with a pic and an explanation and id be surprised if they didn’t ship you another, their customer services aint bad

Actually it was someone else with the rim cracking pic, not mrski1

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/light-bicycle-carbon-rims/page/5

I assume these have taken a fair old whack to a rock?

Had my LB’s since April and they have held up well to the rocky riding here in HK and the Chiang Mai DH trails.
Only thing I would say is be a bit careful about their complete builds, my local LBS are convinced they are hooky Hope hubs although TBF they seem to be holding up OK.
Mavic is the French for cheese or at least from my experience it is.

Fellow LB rim smasher here – 4th ride. (Admittedly in Torridon but wasn’t on a water bar and had a thick-ply tubeless tyre on with 35psi).

Looks the same as the above picture, cracked and delaminated inside.
Front wheel is fine.

No help from Light Bicycle as I built them up so long after ordering (which I guess is fair enough).

mrski1 – Member

I would stay away from LB rims if in honest! I have managed to crack my rims after just 5 rides……..

Do you expect rims to last x number of rides?

Or is it one single impact that usually does for them? And you never know when that might happen?

that sounds bitchy, built up after a while of having them…! BS excuse on lbs part.

yes MAVIC rims are utter pants, even their DH wheels sheer off, their factory build are atrocious and ridiculously expensive for what they are.
Always had issues with Mavic rims etc.

I’ve been quietly impressed with my DT Swiss EXC rims but have yet to get proper air miles on them yet.
But initial reports are great if they can stand up to my weight then that’s mightily impressive.

hopeychondriact – Member

Is it really £100 per rim now- blimey that’s cheap! They must surely be cutting some kind of corner(s).

Good, square rims never really took off.

Ebay has cabon wheelsets <£200, now that’s scary (and tempting on the road bike).

Lol you’re funny.

I would certainly expect them to last longer than 5 rides (approx 45 miles), especially as previous wheel sets have lasted countless more miles. I would understand if the wheels had covered a lot of distance in hard conditions for were fatigued, but for them to crack so soon is not acceptable in my view.

*whoosh*

I’ve got/had a set of LB CX rims. The front failed inside the warranty period and was replaced. The rear failed yesterday. I will send them some pictures, but as it’s outside the warranty period I’m not expecting anything

I won’t be replacing the rear with Chinese carbon

For what its worth, I bought one of the first pairs of Derby rims. Been running them in the peak district, wales/scotland uplifts for Dh and they’ve been totally solid. Multiple rock scratches now, but no gauges. Plus (and this is in fact utterly stupid) the first ride I had forgotten to properly tension the wheels (ma first build), to the point several spikes unscrewed themselves.. The wheels held straight. No matter what happens, Dervy has earned my unswerving loyalty for carbon mtv rims..

(I weigh in at 14.5 stone, plus kit)

I just heard back from LB, the best they will do is a rim with 15USD discount as part of a ‘crash replacement’

I would understand if the wheels had covered a lot of distance in hard conditions for were fatigued, but for them to crack so soon is not acceptable in my view.

but anything can break at any time if you hit it hard enough

i don’t go out on my bike expecting stuff to break, but i do understand that it could, or if i hit a rock or crash etc etc then something could/will break

I just heard back from LB, the best they will do is a rim with 15USD discount as part of a ‘crash replacement’

at a guess then, you told them what actually happened, whereas you have not told us,

I just heard back from LB, the best they will do is a rim with 15USD discount as part of a ‘crash replacement’

Well that sounds reasonable, looks like you hit it on something after all.

As others have said, it doesn’t make any difference if it’s ride 1 or ride 100, if you hit it on something hard enough, it will break, just bad luck you broke it so soon.

Or did it spontaneously crack with no impact?