Just to reinforce the points being made here.
I’ve run Flows for the last four years on my trail bikes. They are super tough for their weight and strong enough for light DH use by a smooth/light rider.
I’m niether of those things but so far I’ve never managed to ding, bend or crisp a Flow; although I’ve never actually crash tested one.
Just recently I bought a new set of wheels and decided to give Mavic 819s a chance. I had them built up using Hadley hubs, DT Swiss Competition spokes and shod with Maxxis Ardent LUST 2.25s
On my home scales, the complete wheel, with tyre is 80g heavier than the Flows, which are built on Pro2 hubs, same spokes but with a Maxxis High Roller set up tubeless with a rim strip and liquid.
So the morale there – the Flows are wider than the 819s, lighter and easily as strong.
I doubt the Flows are as strong or stiff as a Mavic 721 though; the 721 is a full on DH rim and as such it weighs considerably more so you’d expect it to be stronger and stiffer.
Just a final word about what people should be looking for from a wheel as people are often preocupied with ‘strenght’ when actually stiffness is probably the more noticeable quality. Put a bike sideways through a hard turn and you’ll feel immedaitely the difference between a wheel that is strong but not stiff and one that is both.
I ran a set of Specliazed Roval Controles for a little while and while ‘strong’ enough not to collapse on me, they were a flexible as a piece of paper and the ride quality was poor as a result.
