Viewing 18 posts - 1 through 18 (of 18 total)
  • WTB rim indecisiveness
  • swanny853
    Full Member

    Right, I’ve just spotted some cracks around the spoke holes on my Freq i23 rim. No complaints, it’s not been nicely treated and I’ve had it a while.

    Anyway, I need to replace it. When the rear one went last year I bought a mk3 arch and about a week later everyone who’d bought them found they caught fire, or something. So Stans are out. I’m not sure I fancy messing around with DT Swiss’ finest star fangled nipples and washers and I’m generally happy with WTB, so I’m going to stick with them.

    Question is, which one? I’d quite like to gain a little width but even the i25s add 50g. I’ll put up with it if I have to but if I can keep the weight off I will. Asyms are even heavier.

    Anyone have experience with one of the wider KOMs on the front a longer travel 29er- my thoughts are that the i29 should be pretty stiff so it’s really impact resistance I’m worried about. I’ve got the i25s on the solaris and they’ve been fine but that doesn’t get dropped into rocks with quite such abandon.

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    KOM i25s on my Ragley Marley. It doesn’t exactly get treated with respect. They’ve been faultless. Easy tubeless too – I’m running Bontrager XR4s.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    I’d say if you cracked a Frequency, then a KOM is probably not going to be up to the job in the long run… But that could still be OK, since they can often be had cheap- as long as they last long enough, and don’t explode horribly.

    I really like my i29s but they are a little porky- they don’t come out for normal everyday riding, they’re for uplifts and that. But they make a 2.5 29er minion excellently massive and fat

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    tomhoward
    Full Member

    Got KOM i29s on my, err, fat bike hardtail. Like the width, using 29x 2.4 ardents, no issues so far!

    hatter
    Full Member

    If you aren’t keen on special DT nipples and washers then they also do pretty much every spec in a cheaper version with standard eyelets.

    vincienup
    Free Member

    KOMs are a lighter build than the Frequency Teams. The Asyms are somewhere in between.

    I love my Frequency Teams (i25 29ers and i29 650b’s).

    chakaping
    Free Member

    WTB i25 rims are £10 each for 29in and £8 for 650b on Planet X still.

    Does that make the decision any easier?

    Northwind
    Full Member

    Yeah but that’s the really basic ST- not a bad rim at all, but hefty

    swanny853
    Full Member

    I’d say if you cracked a Frequency, then a KOM is probably not going to be up to the job in the long run

    See, this is the thing. I never actually broke one which is why I thought I might be able to go lighter on the front. Don’t think I even dented one. The way I see it I’ve basically worn the frequencies out rather than broken them- I reckon any non-eyelet rim is going to fail there eventually (if it doesn’t fail catastrophically first). Put it this way- if the KOM lasted me three years on this bike I’d be happy but if it lasted me one I’d probably be pretty annoyed. On the solaris I expect the KOM to do much better.

    KOMs are a lighter build than the Frequency Teams. The Asyms are somewhere in between

    Aren’t asyms heavier in any given width because of the eyelets?

    Does that make the decision any easier?

    I’m sworn off on-one but thanks for the pointer. As NW says, the STs are hefty things.

    Strangely, according to the WTB quoted weights for the frequencies, you add 50g to go from i23 to i25 but only 20g to go from i25 to i29. Which seems odd.

    Anyway, thanks for the food for thought!

    vincienup
    Free Member

    Aren’t asyms heavier in any given width because of the eyelets?

    Lighter build of rim. It’s not as strong. The Asym *is* doublewalled, but doesn’t have the I beam that the Frequency does. Regardless of actual mass, it’ll bend sometime after a KOM but before a Frequency.

    TrailriderJim
    Free Member

    I see Whyte are speccing “STs i35” rims on their new hardtails. Are these OE only and similar to KOMs?

    ahwiles
    Free Member

    The asym rims really aren’t *that* heavy…

    My 30mm wide, 29ers, weigh in at 577grams.

    No eyelets…

    chakaping
    Free Member

    I see Whyte are speccing “STs i35” rims on their new hardtails. Are these OE only and similar to KOMs?

    As above, the ST i25 is about 100g heavier than the KOM i25 (537g in 650b), so I’d expect weight to vary on a similar continuum for the i35.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    ahwiles – Member

    The asym rims really aren’t *that* heavy…

    They’re really pretty soft, though. I couldn’t say weak, didn’t break mine but they dented if you looked at them square on

    vincienup
    Free Member

    ^ Just reread my last post and I quoted the paragraph after I meant to, but I think it still made sense.

    The KOM is a lightweight rim intended for XC race and finesse. It’s a bad choice for smashing runs unless maybe you’re very light. The Asym is similar in construction but not as light. It’s not rim for hard riding.

    The Frequency has a support beam bracing the inner walls apart from top to bottom. It’s a lot stronger, and therefore heavier, but still not exactly a ‘heavy’ rim.

    bigjim
    Full Member

    The KOM is a lightweight rim intended for XC race and finesse. It’s a bad choice for smashing runs unless maybe you’re very light. The Asym is similar in construction but not as light. It’s not rim for hard riding.

    I’ll disagree with that as would WTB I imagine, I’ve had KOMs for nearly three years on my full sus and hardtail 29ers, I weigh over 80kg and they’ve been fantastic, riding tweed valley off piste mostly but also annual alps trips including the odd bit of park and a few mountain rides and endoooooros. I have caught some water bars pretty hard on the rear and there’s a few dents and dings in it but it still holds tubeless no problemo. I’m no richie rude but I doubt many people are as rad as they think they are on here. I’ve used the KOM 21 and 25s and wouldn’t consider anything else at the moment, the ust compliant bead lock is fantastic too, tyres stay popped on even when they’re flat.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    Yep, I went with frequencies because they’ll be for harder riding and I want something I can bash off an alp for a week without worrying but for day to day wheels I reckon I’d be very happy with KOMs. They won’t last forever but then nothing does and besides, we’ll all be on metric rims by 2020 anyway.

    A lot of it’s about your tyres and your pressures too, I like a soft tyre so I’m harder on rims than I would be if I ran them harder. And how much you flat matters too, one flat in rocky terrain can put more abuse on a rim than months of riding. (I killed a flow pretty much instantly at fort william- flatted on one rock, flatspotted it on the next, BONG. Maybe something a bit less soft would have walked it off)

    swanny853
    Full Member

    Hmm, cheers all. I think I’ll give the KOM a go for the front. Living in the south east we don’t exactly have a lot of rocks to try and break things on but as it’s normally the bike that gets taken away to rocky places I’d rather it didn’t explode on an away trip.

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