You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
I'm a mere mortal just like you. Who loves bunnyhopping, spinning, and hitting DJs on a normal ride out on the trails. Basically riding like a big BMX. I also case and crash from time to time (surprise surprise!). Current bike is a 26" hardtail and am curious to try wider rims. 26" Trials rear rims typically measure around 45-47mm external, and are pretty much the same as Fat rims by design. Why I mention Trials rims is because they're decently priced compared to say Fat rims like Surlys and are a touch narrower than Surly's offerings.
But how do these style of rims hold up to fast, harsh, often airborne riding? I'm not expecting Mavic 729-esque lateral-bombproof properties but still would like to run wider rims for many reasons. I'm sure there are others out there curious to try this.
Discuss!
[img] 
[/img]
Plenty of people used trials rims when fat rims were thin on the ground (it was that or weld 2 rims together). Kris Holm rings a bell, but IIRC they were heavier than even proper fat bike rims owing to the fact that fat bikes are really just XC bikes with big tyres whereas trials bikes are designed to be ridden into things.
What rims have you been using? Plenty of more normal (cheap) rims will stand upto that sort of riding.
KH rims are familiar! I met some unicyclists years ago who ran those. 36h only though. The heaviness came from them being double-walled and eyeletted. It's a shame that all 32h trials rims these days are single and non-eyeletted.
Mostly used a mix of OEM and Mavic rims measuring between 25-35mm external. But have also ridden a trials bike for the majority of my early riding years so wide rims aren't new to me. Using trials rims for mainstream mtb disciplines is new territory though so am curious to see how they hold up.
It's said that trials rims are great for straight forward/up/down impacts but not so stellar when it comes to lateral impacts. If the difference in lateral strength between regular rims and trials/fat rims is only marginal in real life riding then I think it might be worth a shot. I'm really interested to hear different opinions on this.
There's always stuff like the velocity blunt, cheaper (still £65 though) and a lot lighter.
What I think you would really need is bigger tyres (and rims that'll take them). No point having the strongest rim in the world, if a skinny little tyre isn't protecting it. Have you thought about going 650b+ or at least 2.4" 26" tyres on a wide rim?
650b+ would entail a complete change in setup which is a bit too costly at the moment.
I've been running 26 x 2.4" Ardents, 2.5" High Rollers and Minions as my go-tos for years. The profile of each of those tyres are great on the back of a 26" trials bike which is what I'm hoping to have for both wheels on the hardtail.
The Blunts are sweet, but they fall in the 35mm tier like the Spank Spikes and Mavic EX729 which are a bit cheaper. Stiffys would be preferable over them tbh, as they're a touch wider at 40mm. I checked out Velocity's other rims and the Dually is 45mm... it's the closest 26" rim I can find to the 650b WTB Scraper. £105 per rim though!
[img] 
[/img]
i run tryall 48mm's on my fat bike.
they cope just fine, easy to build too.
were 42 quid an end and about 500 grams.