Do I want wider Hope rims?

It is making more sense to replace the DT Swiss e1900 wheels on my FS bike than repair them.

The bike is a 170mm travel, low, slack job. It gets ridden reasonably hard for 3-4 rides per week throughout the year, mainly Surrey Hills with a few trips away. It was bought to be an occasional big-bike but has become my most ridden one, so I do a fair few XC miles on it and climbs between trails.

I will be replacing the stock wheels with a set of Hope wheels (Tech Evo Pro 4).

The bike has enough clearance for the wider 35mm rims. Should I consider these over the standard 23mm internal diameter ones?

I’m a little worried about tyre choice being limited by the wider rim.

I  appreciate the extra grip and fun from wider tyres having owned a fat-bike for a few years; but not sure if I want to go chunky on the FS.

Is 27.5 quite-wide-but-not-quite-plus just a passing phase, or something worth buying in to?

The 35mm hope rims are made of cheese, from what I hear

I like hope stuff. But unfortunately there rims are a bit pants, they are heavy and a bit soft, personaly i would go hope hubs on dt swiss xm481 rims.

I wouldn’t buy hope rims, as above. WTB are proving to be a bit cheesesque as well.

There not light, but I did half stage 1 and 2  of ard rock with a flat tire and rim is still fine few scratches so I wouldn’t say they are like cheese, they give you a good tire profile

Maybe go in the middle and go for a rim with a 30mm inside diameter. Get some decent rims built up on Hope hubs but swerve the hope rims themselves. As above the xm481 is pretty strong but quite light for us width – I’m planning to build some of those up on pro4’s later this year.

If you want something even stronger than ex511 DT’s are meant to be the dogs – same diameter but heavier duty.

Replaced my hope rims with ex511, way better imo. Hopes were on their last legs after being trued a lot. DT Swiss have stood up to a lot of punishment and not flinched in the last 3 months since they were built

not sure about weight but I couldn’t care too much about that anyway to be fair!

My WTB STp (?) i29 rims that came with my Whyte S150 certainly seem to be made of cheese. On the rear I just noticed bulges at several spoke holes with one cracked as if spokes are pulling through. I’m not particularly hard on bikes and there’s no sign of any major trauma. Rim also got a dent when almost new from a very trivial hit, though this isn’t where the spokes are going. Maybe badly built from factory, but never seen anything like it. So…I’ll be avoiding WTB rims.

I’m on Hope Tech Enduro wheels that came on my bike. Rims are pretty narrow so I will rebuild once needed (rear rim is pretty dented but holds sure fine). I’ll be going DT Swiss rims then, rather than the wider Hopes.

Depends what size tyres you want. 30mm will easily accommodate 2.6 and might give more choice.

I run a 35W (35mm) on the front and a EX511 (30mm) on the rear.

I only ever ding rears, and I don’t need the rear to be really wide either, so that suits the EX511 which is tough.

But I like the 35mm width on the front, in terms of tyre profile with a 2.4 or 2.5 tyre.

Wouldn’t bother with Hope rims as others have said, they’re heavy, soft and just not that great. I like Stan’s rims personally, Flow MK3’s would suit the bike, but as others have said DT seem very durable, not that expensive and widely available.

I got hope tech enduros. The 23mm ones. The rims are rubbish. I’m constantly finding loose spokes and dents. I’m looking at replacing the rims with DT471 or 511s. I haven’t been impressed with the pro4 rear hub either. Freehub bearings and pawls had completely lunched themselves within 1500 miles. At least the hub is easily serviced.

My WTB STp (?) i29 rims that came with my Whyte S150 certainly seem to be made of cheese. On the rear I just noticed bulges at several spoke holes with one cracked as if spokes are pulling through. I’m not particularly hard on bikes and there’s no sign of any major trauma. Rim also got a dent when almost new from a very trivial hit, though this isn’t where the spokes are going. Maybe badly built from factory, but never seen anything like it. So…I’ll be avoiding WTB rims.

Aye, me too, I’ve even got bloody dings on the front, I’ve never had that with Stans rims!

Thanks for all the advice.

I was originally looking to get a full wheelset to match, save hassle and it usually less expensive than building a wheel.

After reading the posts above, I’ve now ordered a DT Swiss EX511 rim for the rear to be built up on a Hope Pro 4 Evo hub.

30mm does seem like a better width as it allows me to keep with my current tyre choices.

I’ll keep the DT E1900 front wheel as it is  for now and replace when that with Hope/EX511  once it gives up.

Good choice – that should be a really nice wheelset! Strong and not too heavy.

Good choice, 471 or 511 on Pro 4 or 350s would be my current build of choice.

My Hope 35W wheels are perfectly fine. They’re not cheese like in the slightest. I’m a fat, ungraceful, talentless, lump. I’ve never bent, dented, or otherwise damaged Hope rims.

Stans are Dairylea in comparison. WTB are great but expensive as a rim only.

The Hope 35W rims were an option on my current bike so I went with them as I liked the wider rims on some of the demo bikes I tried.  They do provide a good tyre shape with 2.5’s but any smaller and you risk squaring them off too much.  I planned in the cost of new rims at some point anyway as I had also heard they were soft but they have held up fine to a few uplift days and a week in Chatel for me so far.  They do have quite a few deep gouges from rocks but are still true.  But then I am soft on equipment (combination of being small with not much excess weight and good technique) and used to run the Enduro rims on my old bike with no issues either so others might bend them easier than I do.  They are heavy and will be swapped out for something in the 27-30mm width range when they buckle or look really tatty as that opens up more tyre options for me.

Apart from their weight I’ve actually been rather impressed with them!

I just bought a set of ex 1501 for £360 to replace a set of spank oozy trail 295 that have got shagged nipples.

I’ve got hope tech 35W on my B+ SolarisMAX which has just been ridden over some nice old school natural singletrack and straight edge water bars (on the Affric Kintail Way the wrong way) fully bikepack laden and not showing any obvious signs of damage…

that said, when going for custom hand built I went DTswiss rims for my 29ers…