Nov. 19, 2013, 12:14 p.m. -  PinkRobe

#!markdown Inside rim width is 21/23/26 for the Cobalt/Iodine/Opium. For the Cobalt/Iodine, this is roughly what the DT 4.1 and 5.1 rims were at 5+ years ago. With regard to why bike wheels are the way they are, it's probably because the basic spoked design works pretty well. Light enough to be pushed along by human-scale power, but also strong enough to handle most human-scale stresses for years at a time. Having lots of spokes spreads the load around the rim, reducing the effect of a single point of failure. Fault-tolerance is a good thing. I can't imagine how you'd make a cast/forged wheel [like on a car] that would compete with a traditional bike wheel for strength at a reasonable weight. Carbon could work…? I guess what bugs me about these wheels is that it's just style. Are these wheels really an improvement over traditional 32-spoke wheels? Are they really stiffer/stronger/longer-lasting than a regular wheelset that I can get for the same/less weight and money? It sure doesn't look like it to me…