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Anything better than 350 hubs, EX511 rim on competition spokes for my big riding pal? He's a 240lb lumberjack.
i use wheels built by Spa cycles Harrogate.
kinlin rims built with sapim strong spokes and shimano 12 spd hubs at present.
never broke a spoke on their wheels builds in over 15 years.
and 240lbs is not very large.
Haha...240lb is lightweight
Any modern 32hole rim wider than 25mm will be fine for him.. If he breaks anything its purely down to riding style and no amount of special builds will compensate for that.
Im north of 350lb and don't break wheels👍
Perfect components with a crap build will be rubbish. Rubbish components with an ace build will last longer but perfect components with an ace build, which tend to cost the most, are the best idea.
Spa cycles are very well regarded and if ton rates them they must be good.
What kind of riding?
If he's a lumberjack riding massive drops from his secret northshore bike park, deep in the forest, high up in the mountains, he might need something more than if he is just out on a sunny day on a nice smooth cycle path.
As a 120kgs biffer, who rides Wales, Alps etc: it’s not the spokes, but the build that will be an issue.
Rims should be tough, but spokes.... I use dt double butted. Always been fine.
Did he break any spokes?
Single butted 13/14g (Sapim Strong, DT Alpine) or triple butted 13/15/14 (Force, Alpine III) are the main alternatives to DB but a difficulty then is manipulating the 13g elbows to fit the flanges well. I had to massage alpine IIIs with a soft faced mallet whereas I can press a 14 gauge elbow into shape with my hands.
36H rear would be another obvious option.
If he has a Boost frame and fork and you want 'belt and braces' just look at the DT Swiss Hybrid E-MTB wheels, they're all rated to 150 KG's, steel free hubs, bigger bearings, reinforced rims, thicker spokes etc etc etc.
I'm WELL north of 240lbs and use the HX 1501's on my E-MTB after knackering the OEM wheels in short order, haven't had to so much as turn a nipple in anger so far.
Checked and 275.
My wife would probably be fine with my weight estimation skills.
He is on a set of 350 with xm481s. 2nd owner and he ran them for a further 2 seasons of squamish winch and plummet tech and machine flow riding before snapping his first spoke and has been chasing spokes with increasing frequency ever since.
Now it's time to rebuild and whilst the rims still round, he'd prefer a bombproof build and the additional 45g rim weight is significantly less than the weight of the sweat the he'll wring out of his gloves at the top of the climb. Looking to rebuild onto the existing 350 rather than a while new wheelset as the front is still good and the rear hub is entirely serviceable.
Totally agree on the build quality points. One local shop upsold themselves as being the only ones who can cut spokes so would be able to build a better wheel.. pretty sure blanks are typically straight gauge though so I'm unsure how that gets a better result over ordering in the correct length butted spokes?
Lots of very good wheel builders in town to choose from too so build quality not the concern.
Thanks for the Alpine/sapim strong suggestion. The Force might be an interesting option
One local shop upsold themselves as being the only ones who can cut spokes so would be able to build a better wheel.. pretty sure blanks are typically straight gauge though so I’m unsure how that gets a better result over ordering in the correct length butted spokes?
You can order Sapim double butted blanks in 3 lengths and cut down as required (310-272, 272-240 etc), you can cut down DT spokes as well, but they no longer sell blanks. Plain gauge spokes can be cut to any length.
Custom cut spokes can be exact length for a perfect wheel, eg 295.5 rather than 295 or 296 (not normally the failure point unless you are silly though). Shop with a spoke cutter will normally build a lot of wheels, so hopefully good at it. Plenty of good wheel builders without a spoke cutter though due to cost.
What spokes has he been breaking (just curious), has spoke tension ever been checked?
Personally I would go DT Comps or Sapim Race (both double butted 2/1.8) and a decent wheel builder.
I use Big Al at Wheelcraft,he builds all my wheels using tandem spokes