Light-Bicycle carbon wheels anyone? – feedback required.

I’m considering a pair of carbon rimmed road bike wheels with Novetec hubs.

has anybody used this company, what are they like to deal with, quality, any import duties or taxes to pay?
Any feed back most welcome.

http://www.light-bicycle.com/

Mine are just about to land- they say they underdeclared the value but I’ve been snagged for tax anyway, not too bothered, only fair. They’ve got a pretty good rep and the pre-sales support was excellent so I’m curious to see how it goes.

They were really, really keen to get me to buy the “new process” rims rather than the old one, which ended up bothering me slightly as they seem a wee bit unconvinced about the quality of their old product…

I’ve built 6 mountain bike wheels with Light Bicycle rims so far. They are in fact the first wheels I have ever built. Been using the first set for more than a year now without any issue whatsoever. All rims are the 26″ wide rim. Spokes are CX-Ray. Sets come at 1380 to 1390 grams. Still straight and problem-free. There is a huge thread on MTBR under 29er components.

Cheers

I’ve got a set of the 26″ Am rims about to be built by NWMTB for me.

They took about 5-6 weeks to arrive,despite saying on the website they had a lead time of 10 days, so take their stated lead times with a pinch of salt.

You will get charged for import duty and handling fees by parcelforce, that came to about £26 for my two rims.

The rims seem pretty decent to me in terms of quality of finish, the weight is bang on what they said they’d weigh.

Will update more when I’ve ridden them a few times and whacked them off rocks, but from all the reviews I’ve read they should be fine.

a related hijack question:

Road or cx disc wheels – do these have to be built 2x / 3x or is radial OK? (sounds wrong to me but I dunno – I think I’ve seen radial rear wheels, where the drive still has to be transmitted via the build but I guess forces are less than braking)

… then again, on a radial road wheel with rim braking, the stopping force goes “back” through the radial spoke build anyway – right ? 🙄

Northwind – how did you contact them? I sent them a few questions / request for price 3 days ago now to the mail on their FAQ page – Email: support@light-bicycle.com

~Nothing come back yet. I’m not in a massive rush as I still haven’t sourced the rear hub / spokes yet

How do customs work out the charge if the items is declared as low value ? Random number generator?

They were really, really keen to get me to buy the “new process” rims rather than the old one, which ended up bothering me slightly as they seem a wee bit unconvinced about the quality of their old product…

To be fair the new process ones are an improvement but I have an old set which have been great.

As far as I understand, you can use radial lacing on a rim brake front wheel, and possibly the NDS of the rear. My Fulcrum racings are radial front, radial NDS, 2 cross DS rear.

For disc brakes, you cannot use radial, must be 2 or 3 cross.

Use the “live-chat” option and they will respond – response to email only can be a bit slow.

I’ve had a pair of the original Wider 26″ for about six months and they have been great. The rear rim cracked during the Trans-Savoie but I have just arranged a warranty replacment of the new stonger rim. They have been great to deal with and the rims took some serious abuse before and after cracking. I’m happy to reccomend them… and I would go for the newer rim design as from my discussions with them they are confident that the new design is considerably stronger.

scaredypants – Member
… then again, on a radial road wheel with rim braking, the stopping force goes “back” through the radial spoke build anyway – right

clearly that was bollocks – thanks for not telling me off

I’ve been emailing them recently – they are way faster than I am (tend to respond overnight; time zones, presumably)

Braver man than I who builds a disc wheel radially!

You’ll probably get away with doing the rear NDS radially, I’d just do 3x all round.

Edit: that’ll teach me to not refresh before posting – too slow!

Tom_W1987 – Member

To be fair the new process ones are an improvement but I have an old set which have been great.

Yeah, I might be overreacting tbh. I got the old-design one anyway as the ERD works for me, the new ones are a bit different.

The new process ones are a lot stronger – one piece rather than 3.

I’ve hammered a set of the 650b ones all season – they are excellent. So much stiffer than the Stans ones they replaced plus they still look new, despite some rocky race courses.

GB

@Northwind – how much tax?

The two pairs of rims I have bought have both been hit with charges on the way in. i think it was about £20, and that was mainly Parcelforce’s excessive admin charge.

Yeah, I think I was £7 tax and £13 handling fee, or thereabouts. Imagine my delight.

Hi I am expecting my rims tomorrow. I got charged 28 pounds. This will be my first build, what can go wrong

Finally got a response. What version are people running vs their riding weight? At 85 kg they recommended the heavier am rim at 400-415g

Ordered a set of the new AM build rims a few months back. Lead time before despatch was about 2 weeks and then it took another 7-10 days for them to be delivered. Under declared so no nasty tax bill when they arrived, think there was still a £20 admin type fee though. Wheels built up nicely, only been out a few times on them but liking them so far. Overall great experience with Light-bicycles and the communication was good. Would recommend then highly.

I didnt choose my wheels based on my weight, I chose them based on riding style/rocks, but for the record, I’m 87kg and went for the AM rims. The AM rims wieghed bang on 380g each the wifes kitchen scales.

These are to replace some DT swiss Ex5.1/ex500 that weighed 510g each. My old rims were fairly battered looking, but still mostly straight, so hopefully these cheap carbon rims should be able to withstand the same use but be lighter.

Well they will get the odd blast round a welsh trail centre, but largely they will be used for xc racing / endurance events like the gorricks, other than some roots pretty smooth overall.

Just unboxed mine, it’s really very nice- had a wee bit of stuck-on debris which got my attention at first but cleaned off easily. I do like my crabons.

It’s going in the back of my ragley ti so will get a mix of use from boggo XC to enduro racing and a bit of ill-advised downhill.

Only went with the carbon because the ERD is more or less the same as the original Roval Traversee rim I killed, so I can reuse the good spokes- couldn’t find anything else that was true of, mostly because it’s 28 spoke. A replacement Roval rim is about £65 each assuming you can actually get one so it’s not a big increase. It’s not that much lighter than the Roval rim but I expect should be tougher.

Going to get it assembled at the weekend probably but I think I’ll take it to a pro for final tensioning

Good man NW – you can guinea pig them for me. I was tempted by a set, interested to hear how they go for you.

BTW – did you get rid of the Eclipse tubes in the end?

Yeah, I got a warranty replacement for one and just quietly binned the other after it flatted. Ironically it was the one with the obvious manufacturing defect that lasted longer, the other one split at a seam without ever being ridden. Asked for a replacement from Merlin and they said “**** no, we’re not doing these any more, too many warranty jobs” 😆

To be fair the other one did alright, I flatted it eventually on the dh bike but it had a decent innings. But not convinced it was any tougher than a normal tube really.

Too good to be true, I guess.

I got the 650b AM carbon rims off them and the whole experience was faultless, great comms, arrived promptly and built up easily, been running them tubeless for 4 months now, Ben Lomond, Gravity Enduros etc and they havnt missed a beat.

Anyone using the xc at my weight? I’ve got a second response from a different lb employee suggesting i would be okay on the lighter version?!

They are a very tempting price. Might try out the road wheels at some point.

Anyone used the integrated bar/stem??

I have collect mine today 650b in Matt black they look AWESOME!

Anybody got experience with their frames?

Pretty damn cheap, pretty damn…….?

Anyone using the xc at my weight?

They’re comparable to Crests, hardly ultralight, you’ll be fine!

“Too good to be true, I guess.”

I know who would have ever expected a good product at a decent price in the bike industry these days.

DT, I am the same weight as you and am just using the standard 29er wider rims. I have one set of old process rims, and one set of new process and no problems with any of them. The older set I have been using for over a year. I have been riding them on similar trails to your planned use – I live near a few of the Gorrick venues so most of my riding is around there. In comparison my lightweight wife managed to fold a Crest rim without too much effort a couple of weeks ago…

Anyone using the xc at my weight?

Yep. Been riding the wider XC rims for around 18 months. They have taken all sorts of abuse without issue.

Thanks all, order placed…..

got x6 wide 29er rims. been riding them for over a year and I have now cracked 2 of them. i’m not giving up on them, they ride nice. however, i’m rebuilding one pair of wheels with some pacenti dl 31’s and going to use the carbon rims on races/rides where its less likely that i’ll crack them.

I have collect mine today 650b in Matt black they look AWESOME!

They’ve made Larry come alive.

I’ve ordered a set of the 33mm AM rims and they shipped a few days ago so am waiting with baited breath. I spent ages trying to decide if chinese carbon rims were a risk worth taking or a fast trip to A&E and there really don’t seem to be that many bad reviews. I went for the new process wideer rims which are still lighter than the DT swiss 4.2s they are replacing and a should be significant deal stronger.##

Am planning to go with CX Rays and brass nipples on the build.