Recently took the plunge on some Hope Pro Evo 2 hubs front and rear to build up onto my Trek Scratch but unsure what rims to use. Have been running rim strips in my Bonty wheels for the last few months and completely sold on tubeless (apart from falling out with them on the trail today) and so have been looking at either;
# Mavic 819
# Stans Flow
Have built a few sets of Mavic wheels up and love how they build up and know how durable and strong they are with a bit of TLC, haven’t used Stans rims before but have friends who rate them and know how to smash a wheel. Want to use them for fairly aggressive riding, mixture of Lake District rockiness type trails and some trail centre stuff (when the weather isn’t too good) as well as a tickle down Fort William World Cup track. Will also be spending a season in the Alps on them this year so looking to make sure they are going to last. On an easthetic note i was looking to have white rims which rules out the Mavic at the first hurdle, but if they are going to be the best for the job then i would sacrifice form for function.
Open to other suggestions on rims if people have info to back it up.
Cheers!

if people have info to back it up

You’re in the wrong place chum.Facts are for WIMPS

I’m in the same boat having used rims trips for the last year on my old hoops (old ones with dt swiss ex 5.1). I’ve been looking at flow ex and made a few posts about questions on here. The best tip i got was about tubeless ready spec tyres. Do a search on my login.

I’ll buy some in the next few weeks. They’ll be used here and the alps.

Not sure which way to take that but thanks for the input

819’s are about half the width of Flow’s, but on a Scratch I’d have thought Flow’s were the answer.

Cheers jsm, I’ll have a spy. Already have Schwalbe tubeless tyres running with the rim strips, happy with the tyres just interested in shedding a bit of weight by swapping out the stock wheels (have very low opinions of Bonty hubs too)

Flows/Flow Exs for sure- remember that the claimed weight for an 819 is a fib, it doesn’t include the insert things needed to build the wheel. Flow Ex is wider, lighter, and stronger. Well. Easier to dent than the Mavic, 819s are hard. But more durable overall. And just as easy to tubeless up, once taped (got both)

My experience- got a set of Flows 3 years ago. They spent 2 years in the Hemlock- 2 trips to france, UK downhill, did the endurance downhill at fort william, lots of enduro racing and everyday riding. Moved them to the downhill bike, where they see much less use but another run at the endurance downhill and a couple of inners dh races, and a sack of uplifts. I have just found a wee crack at the valve hole of the rear one, and I do not blame it at all, it’s had a full and interesting life. I’ll be replacing it with either a cheap Flow or a new Flow Ex.

Oh- remember the white ones are a bit heavier 😉

Cheers Northwind.

I have heard that about the white ones, paint density or something, they say you can pull bigger wheelies with white rims though 😉

I have – oddly I admit – a flow EX on the rear and an 819 on the front of my Enduro, so I can compare. I would definitely go for the Flow, mainly for the extra width and a much better tyre profile. I run Hans Dampfs front and back and they work so much better on the Flow. It really makes a huge difference to the performance of a tyre IMO (I know the HDs are really too wide for the 819). I got the 819 on a 20mm XTR hub virtually new for £40 of the classifieds though – hence the strange setup.

As good as the Mavics are in their own way (very stiff rim, hard alloy) I think the Flows are a definitely a better option. A rim like the flow using Mavic’s materials would be pretty unbeatable I reckon, but I’m not sure if you could build it as light using what may be a harder but more brittle alloy. Not that I really know much about that..

Hope that’s useful.

Chose flow ex’s on hope hoops over mavic’s and I’m very happy with them 🙂

Worth considering Arch EX? Very light, but supposed to be tough. Same profile as a Flow roughly, just scaled down a bit.

Got a set of flows on my bike they have been on since hope started selling them so a good few years of lakes and scotish riding.

They are pretty tuff come up a fair bit wider than the Mavics 819 and that gives the tyres good shape (imho).
Be careful who builds them as as i understand they use a little less spoke tension, I have seen a set that were cracked around the spoke holes suspected over tight spokes. The rims do not have eyelets.

I have dinged my rear and as previously mentioned they alloy feels reasonably soft and I managed to straighten it out ok. Last time i tried that on a mavic 321 rim it cracked!
Tubeless…. well if youve done it before you know how it works, can be a ball ache to get the tyres to beed up (especially with the wider rims) but once there on no problems with the yellow tape and valves.

Mavic also do the 823 if you want wider.

I have one on front for bashing round the Peak District and it’s been perfect for the last couple of years.

Not had any Stans so can’t compare.

I built some new wheels up beginning of the new year.
After looking at both stans and Mavics (took dt swiss off)
I opted for the flow ex’s. Rim width was the main factor.
I’ve had no problems so far with the stans but its early days yet.

They’ll be doing the mega & mountain of hell this summer so we’ll see how they hold up to that.