I’ve been planning on building a rigid 29er for ages, and have now ordered a boot zipper. “Woot”.

I’ve got a pair of nice early model Pro2 hubs on Mavic 719 rim wheels in 26″ hanging up in the shed, along with a pair of lightly used 317 29″ rims that came off another bike.
I can’t decide: cut up the 26″ wheels and build new ones buying spokes and 2x hub conversion kits, or sell the perfectly good 26″ wheels and buy a new wheelset. (Superstar?)
My plan is to build this thing up as a bit of a beater, so the most cost effective option is preferred, but reliable hope hubs would be nice!
Not sure I would get anything for the 26″ xc wheels, but seems a shame to break up some good wheels…

You’ll get not a lot for the 26″ wheels, certainly less than the cost of a new pair of hubs

Spokes £40 CRC have revolution’s on offer and £30 for conversion kits, boost I assume. Rebuild is what I’d do and maybe get a couple of quid for the 26″ rims. You’d sell them easily enough on ebay.

Just missed some absurdly cheap wheels on offer on planet x

I’d sell them and get a new wheelset.

If you’re not after trendy wide rims there usually seem to be plenty of bargains on boost wheels.

Sell them and get a set off ebay or the likes, you can pick up a decent set for 100-150 off ebay, sell the others for 50 quid or so and you’ll still be better off than buying the conversion kits, spokes, nipples, etc and time taken to build.

You’ve left out an obvious option, flog and build up the rims on some new or lightly used hubs.

If the hubs are good I’d rebuild, you can get halo spokes for as little as 20p each at jejames.

I just did exactly this, had some old 26 inch wheels in the garage albeit with 15 year old chris king hubs on, got them built onto some 29r 719s that i got off ebay all in cost rims spokes and build was £110. they now reside on my cx bike with road tyres on for a super smooth winter commute.

Keep an eye out on here I’m sure there where some boot 29er wheels for like £100 the other day, Specialized taken off a new bike.

Ss did have some “essentials” in 29er size, 21mm rims on boost novatech hubs for £100. They were then 30% off that with a code…