Roval wheels

Anyone got any? any good? robust? Seem very light and the reviews on line seem ok, are the rims a bit tougher than the dt swiss offerings. I was looking at the heavier duty versions

That chap Smurf has em on his Ibis. Mentions them somewhere on that Swinley thread.

I’ve just got a pair, the Controle SL XC race wheels. Not put many miles on them yet but they’re light (1520g the pair inc QR) and stiff. Wide rim too for an XC wheel, 21mm so it’ll take 2.3″ tyres easily.
I’m running them with standard tyres and tubes at the moment but I’ll be putting tubeless on at some point.

It’s basically a rebranded DT wheel, the DT hubs are excellent. Front one has a carbon shell. The Traversee wheel (the slightly heavier “trail” variant of the Controle) has changeable end caps to accomodate QR, 15mm or 20mm thru-axle. The Controle is QR only.

Hi. I’ve got the Traversee on the Ibis as I wanted the 20mm hub on the front. Can be converted to QR, 25mm (Spesh’s own fork standard) and 20mm. Wouldn’t surprise me if they made a 15mm one in due course.

Just under 1600g a pair, tubeless ready, look ok, not too expensive. Roval were bought by Specialized a while ago. Hub internals are DT Swiss. On the Traversee the rims are black, hubs are silver and half the spokes are black and half silver (in 2 blocks of colour if you see what I mean). Not an issue but a bit of a surprise when I unpacked them.

I’ve not noticed any flex / issues. I looked at loads of wheel options and came to the conclusion that for the weight, price and versatility, they were the best option for me.

smurf

I’ve got the Traversee wheels too and like Smurf I’ve not had any issues with flex. Only had about four rides so far though.

But “heavier duty” isn’t really the way I’d describe them. They’re very light wheels, more like XC/”trail” wheels that can take wider tyres and a variety of hubs.

Really easy to switch over the hub fittings. Wide rims give even thin 2.0 tyres a great profile.

Step away from the credit card… 😀

I’ve had a set of the traversee wheels for about 6 months. They are nice and light but I’m not impressed by the sealing of the rim strips if you run them tubeless. I’ve found after a few months, air starts to leak underneath the rimstrip and out past the valve. I didn’t notice it at first and rode a rocky descent with too little pressure and dented the rear rim. The strips now don’t hold air at all and I am running them with tubes. I’ve just bought some Joes’ rimstrips, I will see if they hold pressure better.

I’ve also had a problem with the rim strip on the Roval Traverse. On the rear wheel, under cornering the tyre leaked air and blew off the rim. I’m planning on substituting the OEM strip for a Stans one.
Other than that they have been excellent.

Been useing the traverse for just over a year and would recomend them to anyone . Ive not had any problems with the strips and only had to true them once ( this was after I split the front tyre and carried on with it flat).
Not sure i would bother with the light weight ones as these have been bomb proof and light enough.

I’ve also got some Controle XC SL, and they do seem good. Even the QR ones have a very large end cap, which mates with a large surface area on the dropouts of Spesh or 2009 Rock Shox forks to give a really stiff interface.

Awesome wheels. V light and tough. Have them on my 5″ Motolite and regularly hit 3-4′ drops no problem. Run them tubeless and rarely have to pump up (but I also ue sealant). Only time they went out of true was when I stuck a foot into the front on a bizarre crash – trued out no problem.
Cased the rear one v badly trying to clear a ditch which I hadn’t spotted. Thought the wheel would just collapse under me but came out the other side perfectly true and no puncture! Just done a week in the Lakes riding a load of rocky stuff and again no problems. For the weight, I don’t think anything else gets close.