I am looking at changing from my stock cinder cone wheels (deore hubs/black eye rims. The sale at superstar currently is offering sentinel rims or for £20 more pacenti rims (either 28 or 31) will these offer much improvement over my current wheelset? I am looking to shed some weight as my current pair definitely feel a bit weighty. I'm just not wanting to lose too much strength if I change. Also how do the superstar switch hubs compare to say a shimano deore or XT hub in build quality/performance/durability?
Switch hubs are much lighter than deores and are probably pretty similar to xt in overall weight for a pair. Quality - pretty good, standard sealed bearings, so run them till they die, then replace with some better ones. Better/worse that cup/cone? - that depends on your maintenance regime for cup/cone. I'd be happy with either xt or switch - no real preference either way.
Not familiar with black eye rims, but have had sentinel before and they were reasonable rims. No problems with them at all. Ran them with tubes. Currently on pacentis and they are the easiest rims I've ever had to run tubeless. Just pick the width you need. I've had to re-true mine a couple of times after crashes and they trued up easily too.
Thanks for the info there 🙂 I am looking at the 31 pacenti rims as the offer on the 28s has finished. Has anyone experience of the 31s? There is also the sentinel rims for a little cheaper but I think the pacenti look worth the extra money
I think you asked this last week too?
Still the Sentinels - they're only cheaper because Superstar buy them direct from the factory rather than from another brand.
31's are a very wide, almost DH rim and will be much heavier than the more 'trail' sentinel. Depends what you are looking for, but the sentinel is more comparable to the tl28.
Suggest you order the Switch with their steel freehub rather than the alloy one, I have destroyed 2 alloys but the steel one is still soldiering on after 2 years.
Thanks a lot for the info, yes the sentinels seem to fit the bill 🙂 the steel free body are out of stock though. Is the free body generally made of alloy or steel, for instance on on my existing deore hub?
Steel on an deore hub, you can always buy a steel freehub separately from superstar when they come back in stock
If you are light on the bike or don't ride aggressively the alu freehub body will be fine. I ran a Switch hub for a couple years doing a bit of DH a few rocky Welsh trails and it survived fine. Its now being run on a mates bike.
Also regarding the Pacenti rims they are built wider than normal so the DL31 might be DH wide but its not DH strong its more of a trail / AM rim.
~Consults notepad for component weight list~ (look, i've never owned anything nice before. I wanted to know how nice, okay? 😳 )
My Switch/TL-28 wheels came in at 820g front and 910g rear if that's any help. They seem nice so far, and the clickety-clickety hub is quieter than i expected (and thusly not annoying)