Wide Rim Revolution or Fad?

Also, prudent manufacturers are waiting for the small guys to do all the experimenting and see where the pendulum swings back to determine what the correct width to make rims at. Typical really with alot of new ideas.

absolutely. but bike manufacturers haven't proven very "prudent" along the lines you suggest over the past few years. the recent fungal bloom of new standards propagated by the biggest players makes it hard to understand why they've taken a wait-and-see approach wrt to rim width

…existing historical bias towards weight and placing actual ride quality at the low end of priorities.

So true. Very much the case with suspension. Shitty inline airshocks shipping with $3.5-4K frames that are like the headphones that ship with your iphone. I've been enjoying coil shocks on my trail bike for years and never once noticed that my bike was 400g heavier. Sure can tell when I sit on other people's bikes that their suspension sucks. The performance gap is slowly closing however, with many more frames/bikes shipping with reservoir air shocks. Ironically this also closes the weight difference gap at the same time.

Also, prudent manufacturers are waiting for the small guys to do all the experimenting and see where the pendulum swings back to determine what the correct width to make rims at. Typical really with alot of new ideas.

Funny thing is they won't try a wider rim, but they'll build new forks and frames around a wider hub. Guess there's no money in having 'choice' when it comes to things where consumers could actually choose.

I do know that our Enduro team prefers to run Arch EX rims. Strange, but the strength to weight ratio is what they prefer for a race wheelset. They have the option to go wider but since there's alot of slowing down and speeding up going on in Enduro, the lightest possible wheel one can get away with is preferable.

no shit eh? interesting - do they size down their tires accordingly, or run the same rubber? i have a set of arch ex wheels gathering dust, bought them for the hubs but have never run them… maybe i'll give them a go. i'm running the same tires as yer man, not sure i'd want to go any narrower

^he running dhr f[HTML_REMOVED]r? how's that working? have yet to try one.

^he running dhr f[HTML_REMOVED]r? how's that working? have yet to try one.

great ime. ken's called them drifty under braking, but to me they've got the cornering chops of the dhf and the straightline braking chops of the hr - pretty nice combo. as a rear its a bit draggier and less prone to drift in the corners than i'd prefer, but small sample size theatre suggests the exo casing solves the squirm-in-the-corners feeling i was getting from the purg control i was running before

no shit eh? interesting - do they size down their tires accordingly, or run the same rubber?

No. They run 2.3 and 2.4 casings from Maxxis. Admittedly the 2.3s are narrow but the 2.4s are big.

Funny thing is they won't try a wider rim, but they'll build new forks and frames around a wider hub. Guess there's no money in having 'choice' when it comes to things where consumers could actually choose.

I was speaking wrt. rim makers. For example, for a company like Mavic, it requires a huge investment in time, capital, and re-jigging long held company beliefs based on years of testing to steer the ship in a new direction.

After running meaty 2.4's all year I just went down a size to 2.3's and the difference is remarkable. As in, really good, less drifty, less floaty. More responsive all around.

Plus, I upped my pressure from about 28 to about 32 just as interior trails are getting blown out. Such a retro grouch.

I'm a little slow upstairs, but I figured out that if you have super wide tires, then super wide rims make more sense. But I hate super wide tires, so having wide rims and smaller tires does not compute.

Side note: Arch EX's are decent but hard to live with. Ironically they aren't that great set up tubeless as the tires are very hard to mount and burp quite easy. I have also blown two tires off the rim from inflating them. First time I have ever done that. The Spank Oozy's I am running right now are 100% better and problem free. Easy set up, easy tire changes, yet holds a tire better.

Recently built up one of these Blunt SS on the rear, still need to build the front.

No real time it yet to comment.

http://www.velocityusa.com/product/rims/blunt-ss-584

Wider than Flow EX and lighter than Arch EX.

We'll see how strong they are.

Recently built up one of these Blunt SS on the rear

how are your pacenti's holding up?

Man I shit hauled the Arches on my Surface. Mucho better with 30mm LB AM rims now. Running pretty much the same tire combo between rims as well.

I like the DHRIIs as well. Have a 2.3 on the front of the Surface ATM. Had dual SuperTacky 2.4 wire beads on the V10 but those effers were impossible for myself to mount onto the LB 33 rims so now I'm running 2.35 Magic Mary VertStar SGs and have a wack of brand new DHRIIs and DHFs I think. Those MMs are a large tire, can't believe there is a 2.5 as well.

I thought about it a lil today, either on my road ride or on my mtn bike ride or maybe it was the post ride pop.
But isn't the lower pressure being run in tires now due to the increase in size of the tires. I mean I have an older 2.35 DHF and new Minions and they are no way close to the same size. In fact I bet the Etrto sizing is vastly different

If anyone wants 26" Arch EX to try out I've got a used set I will sell for cheap, PM me.

how are your pacenti's holding up?

I can't say the Pacenti's got a proper life.

The spoke length on the initial build was too long so they don't have a good proper tension. I exploded the rear hub then rebuilt it with same spokes and new hub. Crashed the chain over the cassette and broke several spokes so decided to pull the hub and rebuild it into the Velocity.

A couple small dings in it but nothing worse than I did to my old Flows.

Front is still running as I have not had the time to pull the hub to built it onto the Velocity.

If not for the too long spoke issues I would likely have kept running them.

Plastic moto levers?

Is getting a tire on/off a hassle?