Most importantly, you must go for red hubs with those floating rotors – they look ace together

not going to comment on the inane “do my collars match my cuffs” but the 40g difference isnt the only downside to white rims. My olympics* are getting corosion where the paint has bubbled. Whether thats down to rubbish paint job I don’t know but not had any corrocion trouble with the black anodised rims.

*white ones were on offer at the time.

521s are overkill in my opinion, I’ve got these and flow and the flow are almost always strong enough

though to be fair the 521s I have are about 6 years old and look brand new so if you really are after indestructible…….

This may throw a right spanner in the works but you’ll soon be able to get anodised rims from Hope. They wont be offered in the ‘Hoop’ format that you see on all the shitebikewebsites.com so you’ll have to go to a Hope Tech ‘Pro’ shop to get them but they don’t half look sweet!

I’ve seen a few pairs of custom wheels come out of Biketreks in Ambleside, from experience the shop has a strong relationship with Hope so you can rely on them sorting the bits you want! I love my Ltd Edition Tech brakes!

Thanks ill check biketreks out.

@Nosedive can you tell a difference weight wise between the 521’s and Flows?

I can definitely tell the difference in weight, the 521s seem a little slow to respond on anything except DH tracks, it felt like my Pitch came alive with the flows on it. I am not sure what the actual weight difference is but I also needed a rim strip in the 521 to run tubeless which I didn’t need for the flow so that saved a bit of weight as well.

I have a feeling that nosedive’s 521’s are the ‘old’ 521’s if they are more 6 years old. For some reason Mavic updated all their range, keeping product numbers but moved rim specs around – so the ‘old’ 521 became what is the 721 today, which is my default DH/heavy duty rim that’s hard to beat.

EX721 is the DH rim – a more noticeable 590g verus 470g of the black Flow. 521 is the trail rim that compares to the Flow.

Pros/Cons of Flow v’s 521 already posted – I’ve dinged my Flows already, surprisingly easily, but the tubeless is still sealing and holding up well.

good point. they are the old 521s. your old 521s to be exact. (in a triggers broom replaced the hub and the rim kind of a way)

Here is an alternative. Mine (black) have been going strong for a while now.

http://superstar.tibolts.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=40&products_id=496

your old 521s to be exact

Thought they might be! 😆 Mega rims for the tough stuff!

Just bought some Black Pro 2 Evos on Stans Flow rims from my LBS, Marshalls in Welwyn.

I’m very Happy with them bargaintastic !

Here are the weights as per my scales with standard Hope rim strips in

Front 870g
Rear 1002g

so 1872g the pair!

They ride very well. Only mod I made was to add extra grease to the freewheel to reduce the loud hope click a bit…

Ive bought the flows now ….Black with red hubs – Just waiting for them to arrive.

Im not sure how old the 521 is i have ,I bought it off ebay a while ago.

Is it only really possible to tell from weight?

Hi J273
hope you don’t mind me asking but where did you order your wheels from in the end?
I’ve been watching this thread with interest as I’ve been looking at new wheels and like yourself wasn’t sure if white wheels and white bike might look a bit tacky.
So many options available and so many people selling them, I didn’t want to jump in and buy a set that have been built up shit
Regards
S