Aluminium rim recommendations or experience

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Aluminium rim recommendations or experience
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flag sonuvagun
Posted: Jan 4, 2022 at 4:53 Quote
Goal: to build up a new rear wheel for a 27.5 frame.
Starting point is to identify the best available: hub, rim, and spokes.
Requirements: Light and Durable/Reliable
Stipulation: IT CAN'T BE CARBON.

If anyone has good experiences with any rims or can direct me to a thread that covers the topic then please do so.
flag jason475
Posted: Jan 4, 2022 at 19:04 Quote
I have pretty much used Stans on most of my bikes over the years. Mostly Mk3 Flow EX and now Sentry. I stick with 30ish inner width. I am 210-215lbs and ride a bit of everything from singletrack to dh park. For me i stick with what works. DT Swiss would be my next recomendation based on reputation. As far as after market hubs, I have used Profile, DT Swiss 350 and 370's i9 Torches, I9 hydras, and original Onyx. If you ask me what my favorite rear hub is, I will say the Onyx hands down. Baby ass smooth, silent, instant, and bomb proof. With normal maintence never had any problem with hubs, other than stock shimano and sram hubs.
flag thunderball2112
Posted: Jan 5, 2022 at 19:16 Quote
I9 Hydra is phenomenal engagement
flag Remonster
Posted: Jan 5, 2022 at 19:38 Quote
I bought a pair of Spinergy wheels for my BMC hardtail and they're proving to be pretty dang sweet. I run their 24mm which they sell as a "gravel" wheel in 27.5" aluminum. The truth is there way stronger than for just gravel use. I run 27psi in the rear on my hardtail (2.25 tire no insert) and have cased it on roots, plowed though mini rock gardens, and so far they're like new. I've have probably 150 miles on them.

Pros:
Fiber spokes are lighter, stronger, and give an impressive amount of vertical compliance.
Hubs are really nice. Freebody is machined by Hadley...very high quality.
Cons:
Centerlock only
Spoke Tensioning will confuse you lbs

https://www.spinergy.com/products/gx-max-650b
flag sonuvagun
Posted: Jan 6, 2022 at 2:01 Quote
Remonster wrote:
I bought a pair of Spinergy wheels for my BMC hardtail and they're proving to be pretty dang sweet. I run their 24mm which they sell as a "gravel" wheel in 27.5" aluminum. The truth is there way stronger than for just gravel use. I run 27psi in the rear on my hardtail (2.25 tire no insert) and have cased it on roots, plowed though mini rock gardens, and so far they're like new. I've have probably 150 miles on them.

Pros:
Fiber spokes are lighter, stronger, and give an impressive amount of vertical compliance.
Hubs are really nice. Freebody is machined by Hadley...very high quality.
Cons:
Centerlock only
Spoke Tensioning will confuse you lbs

https://www.spinergy.com/products/gx-max-650b
What made you decide to invest in those? It seems like a bit of a risk unless you had had some foreknowledge.
What does your rear wheel weigh?
flag onyxss
Posted: Jan 6, 2022 at 4:39 Quote
DT EX 511 + 350 hub + some quality spokes is probably one of most known combos with good price/performance/durability etc. ratio.
flag sonuvagun
Posted: Jan 6, 2022 at 4:47 Quote
onyxss wrote:
DT EX 511 + 350 hub + some quality spokes is probably one of most known combos with good price/performance/durability etc. ratio.
Okay, what kind of weight savings are we talking about with 32 nothing special spokes vs titanium or carbon spokes or some other lightweight composite I'm ignorant of?
flag BenLow2019
Posted: Jan 6, 2022 at 7:09 Quote
onyxss wrote:
DT EX 511 + 350 hub + some quality spokes is probably one of most known combos with good price/performance/durability etc. ratio.

This meets the requirement of light, durable and reliable really well. You can't have the lightest and the most durable and the most reliable in the same package - you have to make compromises in one or the other.
If I were building a wheel I'd pick this combination with the Champion double butted 2.0 spokes and brass nips. I'd go with a 32 spoke wheel for greater durability and sacrifice the weight loss. You could choose 28 spokes if you're more concerned with weight.

And here's a thread about wheel building: https://www.pinkbike.com/forum/listcomments/?threadid=70066

There's been lots of threads about rims. DT Swiss gets lots of positive reviews. I've been happy on them. Currently on a set of Mavic hoops and they're damn good too.

Good luck.
flag sonuvagun
Posted: Jan 6, 2022 at 7:27 Quote
BenLow2019 wrote:
onyxss wrote:
DT EX 511 + 350 hub + some quality spokes is probably one of most known combos with good price/performance/durability etc. ratio.

This meets the requirement of light, durable and reliable really well. You can't have the lightest and the most durable and the most reliable in the same package - you have to make compromises in one or the other.
If I were building a wheel I'd pick this combination with the Champion double butted 2.0 spokes and brass nips. I'd go with a 32 spoke wheel for greater durability and sacrifice the weight loss. You could choose 28 spokes if you're more concerned with weight.

And here's a thread about wheel building: https://www.pinkbike.com/forum/listcomments/?threadid=70066

There's been lots of threads about rims. DT Swiss gets lots of positive reviews. I've been happy on them. Currently on a set of Mavic hoops and they're damn good too.

Good luck.
Thank you for the link, and I did check it out, but sometimes threads get a little too long to be easily filtered.
Yeah, a lot of positives for team DT Swiss.
And yes, you're entirely right about making sacrifices.
Right now, the current rear wheel weighs in at 2.3kg
That's with 2.3 DHR II at about 805g tubeless and an slx 11x42T cassette and a Deore M618 hub
The goal is to see how much weight can be shaved off while having as good or better reliability and durability.
It's kind of a slow and steady project so at this point I'm trying to narrow down my search.
flag onyxss
Posted: Jan 6, 2022 at 8:02 Quote
Look at DT e1700 or M1700 wheelset to get aprox. weight for DT combo.
flag BenLow2019
Posted: Jan 6, 2022 at 8:10 Quote
You can go to the manufacturer website for all the components you're interested in and get the weight of each thing and make your own spreadsheet to compare them. Make a column for hubs, rims, spokes, nipples and just fill that thing in and look. Durability and reliability will be a bit subjective and you'll have to do more searching.

You don't want to include the tire and cassette because those are static and won't change when you build a wheel - I suspect you'll just move the tire and cassette over to the new wheel.

This site lets you plug in the various options to calculate weights: https://wheelbuilder.com/wheel-weight-calculator/

And here's some articles that did nice wheel reviews: https://www.bikeradar.com/advice/buyers-guides/best-mountain-bike-wheels/
https://www.bikeperfect.com/features/best-mountain-bike-wheels
https://www.mbr.co.uk/buyers_guide/best-mountain-bike-wheels-360715

Have fun!
flag sonuvagun
Posted: Jan 6, 2022 at 8:36 Quote
BenLow2019 wrote:
You can go to the manufacturer website for all the components you're interested in and get the weight of each thing and make your own spreadsheet to compare them. Make a column for hubs, rims, spokes, nipples and just fill that thing in and look. Durability and reliability will be a bit subjective and you'll have to do more searching.

You don't want to include the tire and cassette because those are static and won't change when you build a wheel - I suspect you'll just move the tire and cassette over to the new wheel.

This site lets you plug in the various options to calculate weights: https://wheelbuilder.com/wheel-weight-calculator/

And here's some articles that did nice wheel reviews: https://www.bikeradar.com/advice/buyers-guides/best-mountain-bike-wheels/
https://www.bikeperfect.com/features/best-mountain-bike-wheels
https://www.mbr.co.uk/buyers_guide/best-mountain-bike-wheels-360715

Have fun!
Much appreciated.
The durability reliability factors are where I'm hoping to do the most filtering with this query, but as it turns out, I may not have taken spokes into as much consideration as deserved.
Spread sheet: it seems there's no avoiding this.
Thanks again for the words of wisdom.
flag Remonster
Posted: Jan 6, 2022 at 9:06 Quote
sonuvagun wrote:
What made you decide to invest in those? It seems like a bit of a risk unless you had had some foreknowledge.
What does your rear wheel weigh?

A couple of things steered me towards Spinergy...weight, cost, and rep.
1) Weight - their XC 29" wheelset (GX) with 28 spokes is 1,622g. DT Swiss Equivalent is XR 1700 Spline and they're a couple grams heavier, and almost $200 more.
2) Spinergy has been around a long time. They were big in tri/road in the 90's. They're making a resurgence in mountain with their new 44 hub.
3) Fiber spokes, although unique, are not new. Berd is probably the more marketed fiber wheel. PinkBike actually did a review on them last year: https://www.pinkbike.com/news/review-atomik-berd-xc-wide-wheels.html

I don't know what my rear wheel weighs alone. I should have weighed it, but you can always email Spinergy and ask. They have great customer service.
flag Azmtbkr
O+
Posted: Jan 7, 2022 at 7:29 Quote
Here are my picks for a strong, light, and reasonably priced wheelset:

Rims: Spank or Stans, Spank rims are underrated IMHO if you can get past the goofy name and graphics. Spank also makes rims for NS which are a real bargain, my primary wheelset consists of NS Enigma Dynamal rims which have been super solid for the last 3 years.

Hubs: SRAM 900, Shimano XT or XTR. Can't go wrong with DT Swiss 350 hubs either. Universal Cycles is closing out XTR hubs if you need Shimano Microspline.

Spokes: Sapim D-light, these are light and strong without being stupidly expensive. D-lights are getting harder to find in the US, I typically order them from Bike24 in Germany and have never had a problem.
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