light bicycle carbon rims

I have just built my second set, 38mm wide, 29er with Extralite hubs and DT revs. I always added 3mm to the quoted ERD.

Interesting choice – ultra light XC hubs with a wide and heavier rim?

Yep, I’m not a ‘gnar’ rider but liked the idea of wider rims for XC. The rims were surprisingly light at 400g each. Total weight is 1400grams.

Which hubs? Just the Ultrahubs? Or the Hyper ones? I’ve flirted with the idea of some HyperHubs a couple of times. It passes though 🙂

HyperJ – lovely hubs. Will take some pics and post.

Mmm. Gotta be the ones to have.

Indeed, with the good Euro rate, R2 bikes were the place to buy them. I sold my Enves to fund this little project. The new build is actually lighter than my Enves XC/DT Swiss combo.

Not surprised, it’s not like the Enve rims are that light.

are these the ones you’re all talking about?

http://www.light-bicycle.com/enduro-downhill-mtb-26er-carbon-rims-38mm-wide-hookless-tubeless-compatible-strongest.html#.VQ8x6vl_ug4

thanks

Yes, but 29er AM version.

Just looking for some feedback from people….

I’ve got some 35mm LB 29er rims on the way, it looks like they’re generally 2-3mm out. Is that the experience of most on these rims?

I’d prefer to get the right lengths, instead of messing about.

Evening all!

Looking at building up a 650B set of these, but unsure whether to go for the 30 or 35mm rims, for general trail use/abuse on a full bouncer?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, also some real-world build weights with Hope Pro II’s would be good!

Thanks very much, Ben.

PS; Ooh also forgot, pics, anyone with pics – Quite like the raw carbon weave finish, which is the nicest one to go for?

I just received some 650b wheels with their 38mm rims and bladed spokes on Hope hubs. Front is 770g and rear 880g on my scales. So wide my bike now looks like a tractor but I haven’t ridden them further than up the road and they aren’t on the bike I’m taking out tonight so no real feedback yet.

About 1650g all in then, so pretty light. I’d probably not be bothering with bladed spokes (do they make that much difference?) just standard silver DB.

I picked up my 35s at the weekend, they are 29ers so not particularly relevant but I’ll give you my weights anyway!
Hope Pro 2 front and back
Sapim Race spokes.
1740g

The bladed spokes weren’t much(if any) different price wise so I thought why not. I did ask them to add some spares to my order just in case I need them but they aren’t straight pull or anything awkward to replace. I thought pretty good for weight considering the width. Hope hubs aren’t the lightest either but, well, they’re British aren’t they 🙂 or maybe Blitish now they’ve been to China and back….

Yeah cool. Can’t say I blame you!

Still unsure which width to go for, but if I do go for either of the slimmer width rims, they should weigh slightly less..

But wider is the new fad 🙂

You may also like to know how long mine took to arrive. I ordered on 24 Feb which was the tail end of Chinese New Year so there was a backlog when everyone returned to work. My wheels were posted on 31 March and arrived in the UK on 5 April. It took until 9 April to receive the letter asking for duty to be paid and as soon as I paid (on line the same day) the wheels were delivered next day. I was able to choose a day for delivery, it would have been an extra £10 if I wanted a Saturday.

The wheels appear to be well built. Tubeless set up was easy enough with some long Stan’s valves (my 38mm rims are quite deep), tape from Bird MTB and some Geax tyres that were incredibly cheap from On-One. The tyres were tight to get on by hand but fine if the bead is in the well of the rim. Tyres also take a bit of unseating by hand due to the bulge in the rim but again not a big problem just meant a two handed job. I didn’t use a tyre lever at all.

PS; Ooh also forgot, pics, anyone with pics – Quite like the raw carbon weave finish, which is the nicest one to go for?

Whatever you like the look of. It’s cosmetic. The matte UD is pleasingly stealth, but doesn’t scream carbon fibre if that matters to you. Also marks/scratches quite easily fwiw.

They all mark quite easily! My 3k matt ones show up scuffs.

Heres some pics of mine built on my old Pro 2s by Eighteen bikes, we also have a pair of the Superstar AMs for Abigales bike once she gets round to fitting them. They will be going on her Enduro so will be able to do a like for like comparison as we both weigh the same.

They were on here for a while till I sorted some 15mm adapters for my Roval Traverse

They are fitted with Enduro Pro 2.3 tyres which look massive compared to the same tyre fitted on a different rim

Oh, forgot about the picture request. I can get pictures at the weekend if I remember but I went for matte UD with no stickers so they look very, very plain. I wanted low key as I’m not very #enduro (and I had some wheels stolen in the past) but it’s just a cosmetic layer so pick what looks good to you.

Yeah,I’d probably go for the ‘flashier’ carbon weave effect finish, it’s hard to tell which finish looks like what on the LB website though.

I’d probably just buy the rims only (potentially next week) and have the rims built up over here onto Pro II hubs.

Wider is cooler, but can they be too wide, altering the tyre design profile etc? (Trail Kings F&R)

Pichure.

Scienceofficer they the matte UD version?

Currently leaning towards the middle-ground of the 35mm wide rims bought via PayPal, shipped and built by LBS onto Hope’s.

Edit; some rim widths and idea of which finish would be good with pics, ta!

Mine are 26″ 33mm AMs with a matt UD finish and no stickers. Like to think I went for the stealth look but bought the rims from the classified but unused so had no choice.

Yes, matte UD.

They do mark easily, but it is plastic after all.

UD Matte

Those are 35’s in the picture.

Yeah pretty set on the 35mm’s from this thread. Have to decide on best finish and method of payment first!

For reference I Ordered some on the 5th of march and they arrived this morning 15th April). It would of been a few days sooner but I was on holiday when the customs letter came.
Customs clearance ended costing £37 based on them being declared as $150.
I haven’t seen them yet as I’m at work but I went for the 35mm wide, AM, 27.5 UD Finish with no Graphics. RM650BC05
In total they cost £317.39.

Andy

Did you just pay by standard PayPal Andy?

Pretty much exactly what I’ll be ordering, so should give me some idea towards cost.

Took the plunge last month on the 30mm wide 650B AM wheelset with Pro2 hubs/DT Swiss spokes to replace my existing DT Swiss XM1501’s.
Managed to get a few km’s of local riding on them before flying to Chiang Mei and knocking out over 100km of DH trails there over 3 days, apart from one massive burp when running through a rocky piece of trail they were excellent.
The only thing I found though was, with an already stiff carbon bike from and handlebars, the first day was a little tough on the arms.

For the money paid, and being around 40% the price of the equivalent ENVE wheels here, they are a bargain.

For the money paid, and being around 40% the price of the equivalent ENVE wheels here, they are a bargain.

40%? Are you paying massively over the odds for LB, or are Enve really really cheap? Where’s “here”?

Yeah I paid through standard paypal.
The whole process was easy really and the delivery time wasn’t a problem as I’m waiting for the nomad frame they are going on to be delivered and that was ordered at the same time.

Njee, I paid 7k HK$ for the LB’s, ENVE’s would cost me around 18k HK$.
That works out around 610GBP/1570GBP, not exactly 40% but close.

That works out around 610GBP/1570GBP, not exactly 40% but close.

Cheap Enves then! Enve rims are £850 each here!

Njee, Bikes and most parts tend to be 30% cheaper in HK than the UK, I couldn’t afford a Mach6 (or the bikes before that) if I still lived and worked in the UK!

Just a quick update, just got some 35mm 29er LB rims, they had an ERD that was 596mm, which is about 7mm out. I bought spokes which accounted for a 3mm difference in ERD, and they laced up perfectly with no thread showing.

The build quality on the 35mm looks excellent, certainly a lot better than I would have expected for £260. They built up incredibly easily, I was concerned with the spoke tension and how much to put through them, but looking on forums LB recommend a max of 180KGf, which is probably way higher than I could even crank the spokes to.

Rickon, how come the 29″ rims work out so much cheaper?