It looks like I’ve secured myself a Scandal 29er frame, so time to start looking at kit.

First up, I’m after some reasonably light, reasonably cheap wheels, for XC duties, 15 stone rider (at the moment), bike won’t be getting chucked down black routes, trail centre red type stuff at worst I think, no big jumps or drops etc. Tubeless ready would be nice, but not essential.

Secondly, I want some fast rolling tyres – currently thinking Kenda small block 8, but is there anything else out there as good or better similarly priced or cheaper?

I got a set of Velocity Blunt SL’s on Novatec hubs from Spokesman wheels. Theyre about 1800g and I’ve been giving them a fair pasting since last November… Theyre just about ready for a light truing now.
They are supposed to tubeless, but I’ve not tried. I run SB8’s – fine on anything hardpacked IME.
Think they £270 or thereabouts, and i found him a nice guy to deal with.
Recommended.

I’m pretty happy with my Spank Oozy 29er wheelset and WTB Weirwolf 2.3″ tyres – though to be honest I have nothing else to compare them to so not sure what that’s worth!

These get recommended a lot on ‘which 29er wheelset’ threads:

http://www.bike-discount.de/en/buy/red-power-29-xl-disc-6-bolt-54317?currency=3&delivery_country=190

In fact I just bought some myself. Not phenomenally lightweight, but very good for the money. They are going on a Scandal 29er too. As for tyres, I pretty much always use Ground Controls, not as fast as SB8’s but just a damn good all round XC tyre.