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I'm planning to rebuild my venerable old Soda as a flat bar gravel bike - rigid forks and "road+" wheels & tyres (plenty of clearance for a 27.5 Gravel King)
I had been planning to use WTB KOM i23 rims, which I can usually get cheaply, but they're out of stock with my supplier at the mo.
Looking around, the Crest Mk3 is significantly lighter than the KOMs. Is it up to the job of gravely stuff both in terms of ding resistance and stiffness (mostly Peak district area, plus some lightish bikepacking/touring). Whilst neither I or the bike weigh a lot, I'm not one to hang around when descending, and most of the routes I'm likely to use have some pretty decent water bars to contend with.
Thanks!
I'd say they are, but why don't you use Grail's, the proper Stans gravel / road / CX tubeless rim?
Grails only appear to be available in 700C and I need 650B to fit in the (26" MTB) frame.
Dunno. There are some DT rims that look decent and well priced. Might be worth a look R470, R500, Rweightingrammesfora700cwheelbutknockabitofffor650b
Given your usage though, I'd be tempted to go up a notch to Arch or similar.
Or crests and a skills course! ;-p
I think the first batch of Mk3's had issues with cracking around the spoke holes. Subsequent batches were supposed to be stronger but also heavier.
Had mine replaced under warranty. I race mine on a 29er full sus. I'm not particularly heavy and tend to pick smooth lines. They need truing often. I wouldn't recomend them.
Arches are normally the kind of thing I pick for MTB rims.(I'm using KOM i25s at the mo), but seeing as these new wheels won't get the same kind of abuse, I was wondering how light I could sensibly go.
In MTB terms, I find the KOMs are pretty stiff, but dink fairly easily. The Crests are just under 100g a rim or ~20% lighter, which is a lot of metal missing, so it's about gauging the durability appropriately.
I've never had a problem with crests (can't remember what version they are) and I'm 95kg. That is with 2"+ tyres though, ding resistance is going to largely correlate against tyre size rather than rim weight in the first instance so it depends how narrow your tyres are going to be.
I used crests for years on my mtb and still use them daily on my commuter with occasional off road detours and I'm pretty heavy, but with 2.1 tyres