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26in chinese carbon all mountain rim

337K views 2K replies 226 participants last post by  pb123hou 
#1 ·
I really enjoy the 29er chinese carbon rim thread but l didnt see anything for all mountain chinese wheels or rims. I'm looking for some 26in carbon all mountain rims that need to be wide, pretty light and strong to go on my Tracer2. Going through all the Asian carbon stores is big undertaking. That, and l dont fully understand everything about wheels. Are all the rims pretty much for xc if not can someone point me in the right direction
 
#1,129 ·
I think there's enough theoretical reason to be afraid of galvanic corrosion but the only examples I've heard of in the real world are the non-anodized nipples used in Enve wheels. I haven't seen or heard of someone having problems using DT nips with Chinese carbon rims. I don't want to bet my life on this advice but after pulling the threads out of a brass nip and having both Light Bicycle and DT tell me to use alloy that's what I'm doing unless a customer insists on brass.
 
#1,130 ·
ten months is hardly enough time to judge whether it is an issue or not. a few of those nipples could be corroding as we speak, but unseen. carbon wheels are pretty new, so we probably don't have a big enough sample size of carbon wheels built with al nipples, that are old enough. i suppose that if the wheel is rebuilt, it would be more apparent too.

one of my wheels (not carbon) is now 9 years old. it has only ever broken one spoke on it, and i don't think i've had anyone look at it (truing/retensioning) for the last 5. maybe i'm a bit light on wheels, or maybe it was just a really good wheelbuilder, or i just get them overbuilt (32 cx-rays on an xc wheel). I can count on one hand how many rims have failed - almost all my wheels exit via a sale (either wheel-only, or on a bike).

My point is, I personally am used to my wheels lasting a long time - however, sometimes i wish they didn't (harder to justify upgrading). I certainly wouldn't be happy having some corrosion spoil my wheel (unless it is just a simple nipple replace job, not ruining the rim or spoke???) after, say, 3 years of using it. I have a few bikes, and don't use any one bike that much (other than the commuter), so i'd hate for it to be deteriorating while just sitting there.

other people might use the one set of wheels every weekend and/or regularly smash them on rocky downhills, and are used to re-building reasonably often. not me though.

my opinion would be that, until we have more info on the likelihood of anno al nips corroding on carbon rims, be prepared to rebuild your wheels every couple of years, or get brass nipples.

having said all this, i got a dt-swiss carbon wheelset a little while ago. just now, it has crossed my mind that it probably has al nipples in it.
 
#1,133 ·
^Before I started building Chinese carbon road rims I started following the equivalent of this thread on the RBR forum. No mention of corrosion. I've only seen it mentioned in relation to Enve MTB wheels. Odd since you'd assume Enve uses the same nipples in their road & mtb builds.
 
#1,135 ·
Bravo ! You just figured it out. I didn't answered your previous post about this because it was all discussed only a few posts ago.

You insert them through the valve hole, then how you get them out by the spoke holes is totally up to you.
 
#1,140 ·
They use a little magnet that threads into the nipple and you use the bigger magnet to move the package around.

Btw, from an email conversation with John Neugent, owner and founder of Neuvation Wheels, about corrosion issues with alloy nipples and carbon rims, and this is what he had to say when I told him that Enve MTB wheels were the only carbon rims having corrosion issues so far :

FYI, Enve has recently moved away from alloy nipples to some type of metal. It's not clear if it's brass or titanium. Titanium would fix the problem but be pretty expensive.

Thanks - John
I think I'm gonna go with alloy nipples at first and see how they do, but still keep all my brass equivalent handy just in case I get bad luck.
 
#1,142 ·
He also mentioned that Enve seemed to have been using non-anodized nipples too if I remember. Stainless steel nipples are available too.

What about Pillar new M-Power alloy nipples ? They claim to have made some sort of hard anodized alloy nipples that are stronger than brass, yet light as alloy, and of course would be corrosion resistant ? Only available in silver or black for now though.
 
#1,143 ·
For the first time since I started using carbon rims I hit one hard on a rock. I may have bumped one before but during my race run yesterday while running 28psi in a 2.5" DHF Exo I hit the front rim hard enouh to hear and feel that sickening thud of rim bottoming out against rock. At the bottom I examined it and couldn't even see a mark. This is about the hardest that I ever hit rims so I'm pretty optimistic that carbon will have no problem holding up to my riding. It was a 380g version of LB's AM rim.
 
#1,144 ·
Well one batch of the new DH rim just got finished, now going under QC. Which means my wheelset should be shipped in the next days and hopefully I will get the booty before just on time for my b-day this September ! Guess you can call it a gift from myself :D
 
#1,152 ·
I'm no hub expert, but it seems to me that you're better off with a slightly heavier hub and lighter rims when it comes to acceleration. I like the Hope hubs. They're not expensive and pretty solid. Rear engagement is a bit slow though. Then again, after riding CK, everything else engages slowly.
 
#1,153 ·
That was on the 22nd, almost a full week ago :

Hello David,

You will get the tracking number this week, there are quite a few rims almost finished.
We have to do QC check first.

Thanks,
Nancy
Still no updates yet, anyone else waiting on DH rims in the USA ?
 
#1,154 ·
Well looks like I spoke too fast, this morning at almost noon, I get a mail saying everything is ready and packed, except for the nipples that Nancy got for me and that the packing department can't find now. I should get a tracking number early tomorrow morning, so hopefully when I get up at 4:30 I'll have news from them :)

Lelandjt, how's the rims doing ? Did you log a few more podiums in already ?
 
#1,156 ·
Great. Happy to hear that. I also have good news as well, my order is ready to ship and should be here in less than 2 weeks, unless it gets stuck at the US border, which would be a huge bummer because I'm leaving back for Canada in less than 3 weeks. Taking a gambling here on shipping them to my US home.

Should we start a thread for the DH version or is this one took the path of the whole 26" LB rims offering rather than only the AM rims ?
 
#1,158 ·
Lelandjt - I am thinking about building up a new wheelset with the 33mm wide downhill rim. Since it appears that you have the most experience with them and LB carbon rims in general, could you answer a few questions for me. First, what method do you use to run tubeless? I currently run my DT Swiss rims tubeless with gorilla tape and stan's valves. Does this setup work on the LB rims, or do you have to run a rim strip system? Also, if you are building a wheelset without nipple holes in the bed, what method do you use to thread the nipples from the valve hole to the lower nipple holes? Do you think the increase in rim strength is worth the increased pain to build the wheelset? I weight 205lbs without gear, do you think the rim is strong enough in the AM build or should I go with the heavier DH rim? Thanks in advance. Dave
 
#1,159 ·
I used Gorilla Tape or NoTubes Yellow Tape and NoTubes or American Classic valves for all the LB AM rims I've built and they've seated up tubeless no problem. Gorilla Tape is 20g, Yellow Tape is 7g. I think Gorilla tape is a little porous as I've seen evidence of sealant leaking through so my vote is for NoTubes Tape. To really make it stick put a tube and tire on after taping and leave it inflated for an hour to press the tape down.
I used a derailleur cable to bring the nipples from the valve hole to their individual holes when I built my DH rims. You stick the cable in the nipple hole, push it to the valve hole, pull it out with tweezers, and slide the nipple down it. This was slow and tedious but now I don't have to tape the rims. I don't think there's a measurable strength increase by going with the un-drilled rim bed.
I can't speculate on the strength of the DH width rim in the 370g build. It does seem almost too light for such a wide rim but if they're making it I guess it works. Perhaps ask this same question to LB and see what the experts say. If you want the piece of mind the 430g version is still really light.
 
#1,161 ·
Really high spoke tension. Like the most I feel the spokes and nipples can take. I think the ERD is correct but definitely round up on the spoke lengths. My front wheel came to 249mm and I rounded down and used 248s. They were too short so I just rebuilt the wheel with 250s.
 
#1,163 ·
The new 26" DH rims at 33mm wide and 30mm deep are clincher rims. They first intended to make them 35mm wide and hookless, but many people chimed in and since they mostly didn't knew any better, they asked for clincher instead of hookless. For myself, I didn't voted on these as I wasn't knowledgeable enough on rim bead to argue with the Internet genius. Since then I've been reading a lot about hookless designs and how tire/rim interface works and I would definitively go for hookless rim any time.

I've been working all summer on bikes with hookless rims and I can tell you there is no need for a clincher hook at all. Plus hookless wall are easier and stronger to manufacture, plus make airing up a tire a snap and will self-center easier.

Nancy told me that 29" hookless rims should be available end of September. I guess I won't be riding hookless for a little while since I'm on 26" and just got the new DH rims $$$.

Btw my stuff should be here soon ! It just arrived at NYC and probably gonna get to my place by Monday.
 
#1,164 ·
I'm having a hard time getting these LB wheels to seat tubeless and even with a tube.
I've blown up and destroy a racing ralph going over 55 psi. So I got some 2.4 Nics and 2.35 Hans Damp and they still won't seat at 50psi. I tried both tubeless and tubes. I tried with the bonty rim strips, stans tape, and Gorilla tape. I've used soap/water with a air compressor to no luck.

I went back to my stans flow got the tires seated tubeless in less than 5 mins. Does anybody have any advice on tire that would be easy to setup tubeless on these carbon wheels?
 
#1,165 ·
Continental tires work great. The only problem with them is they generally are kind of flobbery (they like to remember their folded up shape but they are very round and true tires after they get mounted) so if you mount them with a tube and let them sit a day you will then be able to mount them tubeless super easily. Floor pump easy, compressor with no soapy water or anything, will air up instantly dry and mount.

Schwable tires are a little too tight for these rims but I got them to work by mounting them to some old DT Swiss rims with tubes to stretch the bead out and then it was much much easier to mount to these rims. Still worse than the contis though.
 
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