[Closed] New 34mm light bicycle carbon rim

If they are the new asymmetric rim light bicycle have launched them at a higher price of $259. Add postage, import duty and VAT and that may end up at about £240 per rim at a rough guess so £400 gives a healthy margin. Not sure what price I'd want to charge to make it worth doing but as a buyer I'd be looking at the Derby rims available for £300 rather than LB at £400. (In truth I wouldn't, my second pair of LB rims are on their way to me now)

Has anyone ridden these back to back with Enve rims? Is there any appreciable difference??

There is a massive thread and the conclusion I came to was that in a double blind test you can easily tell the difference by the weight of your wallet 🙂

Edit: there were comments from people who had ridden both but I am not one of them

Has anyone ridden these back to back with Enve rims? Is there any appreciable difference??

Iirc 2 people had ridden both, 1 said he could tell the difference, 1 said he couldn't.

Unless you have same spokes, same builder, same tension etc, it's gonna be tough be objective

HTH

Kimbers is about right, here is the thread if you have time on your hands 🙂

[url= http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/light-bicycle-carbon-rims ]http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/light-bicycle-carbon-rims[/url]

Out of interest, who is selling the LB rims?

It's ubyk
http://www.ubyk.co.uk/m/product_list.php?CG_ID=2&CS_ID=10&CSS_ID=76

They are big on finance

Interesting, I was expecting one of the benefits to be UK stock with immediate delivery but they quote a four week delivery time. I will stick to ordering directly from LB

yep see no benefit at all from buying from them, 400 quid per rim!?!?! are they insane?

makes no sense, but some mug will buy from them no doubt

There's no doubt in my mind that enve wheels are better than my light bikes equipped wheels. The construction techniques ensure that, but we're well into marginal gains territory here, and it comes with a massive extra cost and proprietary parts for what is essentially a consumable.

One unlucky/ill-judged landing or rock strike and you're looking a multiple hundreds of pounds and a couple of weeks minimum for the parts.

The benefits of a conventional build, with easy access to spares and an affordable replacement cost of apprx £130 a rim are more valuable than the slightly better improvement in performance.

It's not like I'm a pro-racer searching for those extra seconds.

id have a set of LB's tomoz, if the affordability of replacements was realistic to me, along with the time waiting for replacements etc

until somebody in the UK sells them at a reasonable price (if it ever happens!) with replacements as readily available as a alloy one I think ill steer clear

id love to try some, really would, but the cost of replacing them in the unlucky situation of a rock strike would be absolutely devastating in terms of the wallet and the time waiting for replacements

obviously if I was minted this wouldn't be an issue, but it is, and its why a lot of people I know haven't made the switch

I'm really tempted as I have a spare new pair of DT240s hubs at home & would like to build up some 29er carbon wheels, would like to see feed back from people who've ridding on LB 29er hoops before spending more hard earned cash. I have a superb pair of Roval Fattie SL wheels 650B & they carry a specialized warranty, it's a faff sending a rim back to China & after reading some reports of failures within a few rides.

I'll do some more digging & check out others alternatives.

I have a conundrum which I think is related to this thread.

Last year I took ownership of some of those ludicrously cheap (and ludicrously light and stiff) Easton EC70 carbon wheels – they were on offer for about £400 in 26” flavour.

They have been great for about 6 months including 1 trip to a stupidly rocky part of Spain. Unfortunately on the 2nd trip to that same rocky awesomeness (last week) I came a cropper on the first descent. Got a bit out of control in a steep rocky chute, saw a rock that could have been designed specifically for the purposes of dinging a rim (sharp, protruding and angled at about 45 degrees to my on rushing bike). Powerless to do anything other than ride over it while thinking light thoughts, I was not surprised to hear a crack followed by escaping air from the back wheel.

My initial emotion was anger – at myself for entrusting my holiday to stupid carbon wheels. There was a big crack running along the fold of the rim about a spoke separation in length. I could see daylight through the wheel and the tyre was egged out. My initial concern was making it back to the chalet – I didn’t think I would be doing anymore riding. I bounced the wheel a few times and was surprised to hear the escaping air slow and eventually stop. I span the wheel – it was still pretty much true. I pumped up the tyre and nursed it down the rest of the rocky descent. When I got to the bottom the wheel was still intact. To my complete surprise I then proceeded to do 2 more days of pretty extreme riding (7000ft a day) and rode all the gnarly trails I was planning on. All the time I was expecting a long walk home at any moment; but it never occurred.

When the incident happened I told myself immediately that rims are a bloody stupid place to put carbon and that as soon as I got home I was going to get some nice Stans Arch or Flow instead. To be fair the impact would have flattened the bead of a metal rim but almost certainly not destroyed it. Unfortunately when I counted the spokes on my buggered wheel it came to 24. I have done a bit of searching and can’t find any descent, reasonably wide and robust rims drilled for less than 28 spokes. Since my wheels are 26” I know I can pick up some nice hope/Stans wheels on ebay quite cheap but the trouble is I really like the Easton hubs and I have fitted the SRAM XD driver already.

Bottom line is I really want to keep these hubs…but the only descent rims I can find that will do a 24 hole drilling are Light bicycle (got there in the end) – and they are of course carbon which I said I would never touch again. I suppose I will only find carbon rims with such a low spoke count because of the increased stiffness of carbon over aluminium…but I just hate the fact that I can’t just ding a rim anymore – carbon just cracks. They do look nice though, and a reasonable price..

What to do…?

Personally, I have no problems with light bike rims. Two sets now for about two years.

I've cut through spesh grid tyres, and Hans Dampfs ( one spectacular hit making four holes in one go) with no failures where I was expecting them. There was a bit of damage at the impact site, but it's barely more than a cosmetic mark.

Rims break. ALU ones fold and bend. Carbon cracks. It's the nature of the materials. My point is that I've dinged the LB rims just as often as my previous ALU rims, but guess what? They're still perfectly round withe the sidewalls and beads intact instead of bent, and flattened in multiple spots. Sure, carbon cracks, but you can be sure that a hit that makes carbon crack is likely to have put such a large dent into and ALU rim as to make it non recoverable anyway.

FWIW, a chum of mine cracked his LB rim over a year ago. He superglued.it back together and has been riding on it ever since with no problems.

ALU ones fold and bend

Yes but you just bend them back out with an adjustable spanner - I have wheels that I have done this to many, many times

There was a bit of damage at the impact site, but it's barely more than a cosmetic mark

Thats quite reassuring though - means you can bottom a rim sometimes without it cracking - the hookless LB rims do look more substantial than my Easton ones

What to do…?

Replace your wheels with some 26" bargain set that must be out there. It is the sensible choice.

I'm in a sort of similar position as I have a set of 26" Hope Pro 3 SP3 wheels and have swapped to a 650b frame. I've been running the 26" wheels all autumn and winter wondering whether to go for new wheels (Pro4 and XM481 probably) or chance some 38mm LB rims with 24 spoke drilling. They are so chunky I hope 24 spokes won't be an issue and I may even get away with using the same spokes because they are so deep.

I will have some 26" 24 hole Stans crests going spare, you'd be welcome to them but the incident you describe would most likely have written them off

True enough. But they're never perfect again are they? Have you ever looked at the stress marks in the ALU after you've re-bent them.

Alu and carbon both have their merits. I don't dispute that, but modern carbon gets a bad rap because people don't understand it's failure mode. Yes, it fails catastrophically, but it does so at a higher limit, and all those 'sub-critical' hits that build up damage on an ALU rim over time don't even get noticed with carbon.

I've got some nextie 35mm 29" rims. they're well good.

https://www.nextie.net/mountain-clincher-35mm-NXT29AM35

Having had a few sets of carbon wheels I went back to alloy on my 26" bike - the stiffness/weight benefit wasn't enough to justify the risks when ploughing through rocks with low pressure. I cracked one LB rim and friends have done similar on rocks in the lakes/peaks. On the 29er it is different as the stiffness and weight benefits are greater in having carbon.

The miracle wheel - stayed up tubeless!
[img] [/img]

24 hole Stans crests going spare

I have a set of 26" Hope Pro 3 SP3 wheels

I have the same, they are the best wheels I own. My worry is that when the rims finally give way the whole wheel will be useless. There are no 24 hole rims around these days and I'm way too clumsy to go for carbon rims. 😳

@Nick: check your FB messages 😉

SRAM Roam 26" Carbon Wheels are cheap at RCZ

http://www.rczbikeshop.com/default/mtb1/wheels-and-tyres/wheels-26/shopby/sram.html

£500 a pair with code RCZWHL - code knocks a large chunk off the price

code knocks a large chunk off the price

Wow - where did that code come from!!
The price goes from E1224 to E489 !!
That cant be right - can it?

[i]If they are the new asymmetric rim light bicycle have launched them at a higher price of $259. Add postage, import duty and VAT and that may end up at about £240 per rim at a rough guess so £400 gives a healthy margin.[/i]

When I enquired about a set of wheels they also offered a service that paid for all customs fees, at another $135. So by the time you've added VAT onto it all that $260 could easily cost you $360-400 per rim, and so not really as expensive as it looks as they'll also be responsible for any warranty issues been the 'retailer'.

I'd expect the cost for two of those rims to be roughly

Rims at $259 X 2 = $518
Postage & PayPal $65
[b]Total $583[/b]

Converted to £ at $1.4/£1 = £416
Duty at 2.5% = £10
VAT at 20% = £85
[b]Total = £511[/b]

For two rims. Or £780 from Ubyk. I think that is a realistic amount for Ubyk to charge but I'd rather go direct and save money. I don't think I will get better back up from Ubyk as LB appear pretty good and they'd have to supply a replacement to Ubyk anyway.

When I enquired about a set of wheels they also offered a service that paid for all customs fees, at another $135

I can't work that out, financially, logistically, legally. 😕

Wow - where did that code come from!!
The price goes from E1224 to E489 !!
That cant be right - can it?

code is in a RCZ email - expires Friday midnight or something

rule with there website is never pay the ticket price, there is a code for everything

cheers

dirtyrider

Trouble is now I cant decide between the Roam 50 for 380 euro a pair
or the Roam 60 for 766 euro a pair

the Roam 60 is carbon but is actually slightly heavier than 50 - its supposed to be stronger than the 50 too counter intuitively. Iv read a few reviews and nobody seams able to brake them despite bottoming out the tyre on numerous occasions.

Still cant make up my mind