Carbon rim recommendations

I am looking to replace the rims on my wheels and wondering if anyone can recommend me some rims that don’t cost a small fortune.  Light Bicycle look to be still a good option.  Looking for XC race rims, so lightweight.

If I was looking for some wheels I’d be looking at something like Silt MTB.

Any suggestions for rim only?

Thanks, Rich

Ive just brought some blue flow carbon wheels and am extremely happy with them, customer service and price are fantastic, sure there is an xc wheel option on the website

Watching with interest although with two bikes running Light Bicycle rims that I’m more than happy with, I’ll probably default back to them.

Following with interest. I’ve never had carbon rims before and was tempted by Blue Flow. Surely most UK built wheels must be Light Bicycle rims or similar anyway. No one is laying up their own rims are they?

I didn’t think the LB stuff looked all that much of a Bargain for the hassle of self import.

I ended up with some wtb zr i23 29er 28 spoke carbon rims  ended up sub 1800g boost f+r wheels with a dynamo hub – self built with double butted spokes

Paid 190 a rim as I recall and had a good warranty

Been good not needed the warranty.

If you can get a set, the Enve M50 are really good. I’ve got the M70 and they have been solid as anything.

+1 for Blue Flow. Three years, no dramas.

Enve, Christ £1200 per rim.  Nuts!  I’ve had LB and Nextie before, the latter were very solid and had a much better finish.  Similar price.  I’ll probably go for Nextie rims to be built onto my hubs.

Stealth add. I have SC reserve carbon wheelset in 27.5 flavour on dt swiss hubs fir sale ?

Not DTSwiss….

I’ve had a set of Nextie 29UM30 rims for a few years. Light, nicely made, no issues. A riding mate has the same rims, plus 3 other sets with different Nextie rims, again no issues.

That being said Roval Control 6B are only 30g heavier per rim, 3mm wider and the ride feel gives the impression they would take more of a beating. Quite a beefy 4mm bead on these.

I’ve been running The Roval control and control SL wheels, basically it’s the same rim on both sets of wheels, and they are superb, the 4mm wide bead makes them strong yet lightweight, with 29mm internal width, but they come as wheel only, the roval control are a 1450g wheelset with DT 350 hubs and retail at £1150, the SL are 1280g with DT180 hubs and retail at £2200

As above JRM ^ Roval Controls as OEM on my epic and they’ve been fit and forget.

I got elite wheels pro 33 wheelset which is around 1400g. and have had no complaints.

Rims are about 170each but the full wheel set was only 500

I bought some BTLOS rims, 30mm id, with asymmetric spoke holes for £175 a rim direct from china. ‘Trail’ front and ‘enduro’ rear. They’ve been brilliant in the lakes for the last few years. They built up really easy on some DT Swiss inspired ztto hubs and they weigh 1600g for the wheel set. Which I thought was pretty good.

Newmen? They do some good carbon rims – available via r2 bike.

@Neb

Slight hijack, how have the hubs been? Did you stick with the ZTTO freehub/ ratchet? Were they from AliExpress?

I’ve had 3 sets of Lighbicycle and always been very happy. Did break two, both times got good aftersales/crash replacement discount (first time was the very first of their mtb rims, it was stupid light and I put it on a hardtail, second was a more recent wide 29er which just got ridden a lot, both took more abuse than you’d ever want to put an equivalent weight alu rim through and had good long lives, got bashed off a lot of rocks, survived multiple destroyed tyres and “tyre free emerency stops” and suchlike.

But tbh I’d find them much harder to justify now, partly because alu rims came on in leaps and bounds and partly because “cheap chinese” isn’t so cheap any more.

@bens

Slight hijack, how have the hubs been? Did you stick with the ZTTO freehub/ ratchet? Were they from AliExpress?

They’ve been great to be honest, I did have an issue where through lack of maintenance (about 2 years!) I finally took the freehub off and found that the alu splined ring that the star ratchets sit in had stripped, I bought the genuine DT Swiss steel ring and it went in fine and the star ratchets are still working well. The fact that DT Swiss original spares fit is really useful

When I ordered them, I asked for 36t ratchets rather than 56t they come with as I’d heard about reliability issues. The 36t have been fine.

For £80 for the pair of hubs is great value especially considering the weight (only 20g heavier than DT Swiss 240s)

Cool, cheers for the info. I’ve been ZTTO curious for a while