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All my rear rim's (🙄) get badly dented and then struggle to hold air tubeless.
Tough, lightweight, cheap-ish rim options?
Tough and light aswell as cheap is a big ask if you ask me
Dt Swiss ex 511 tough but not light and not cheap
But should stop your problem as long as your sensible with tyre pressure
Under £60 a piece for the 511's so not outrageously expensive.
Any other options?
WTB Frequency is tough- they do bruise a bit but they're not sensitive about it, the rear on my Big Jobs Wheelset that I use for uplifts, alps trips, stuff like that has a whole bunch of dents but still works perfectly tubeless.
But DT just seem to be killing it at the moment, I don't like their bloody silly nipples but they do make awesome rims.
As for tyre pressures, I tend to run about 45psi in the rear and 40psi in the front. Tyres are 38mm Vittoria Terreno Mix.
I think my problem is that I often ride my cross bike on rooty, rocky local trails and try to match my mountain bike speeds with little finesse. Plus with all the leaf litter about at the moment it's hard to miss the roots and rocks.
Maybe a mountain bike rim might have tougher beads.
How about a cheap Chinese carbon rim?
Imminent death awaits?
How about trying the new Rimpact Gravel insert, if I still had my gravel bike they would be top of my shopping list as I always used to run lowish pressures for my weight.
As its a gravel bike and you don't need a 30mm inner width rim, how about a DT Swiss 471, 25mm internal I think, not a bad weight and should hold up well!
Tough, lightweight, cheap
Choose two!
Spank rims have been good to me so far, often discounted at the large online retailers, naff branding though.
EX471 and an insert would be my approach.
For a 38 mm tyre on a cross bike what about something like the DT Swiss RR 481? It's a bit narrower than the options suggested above but should be fairly tough still.
https://www.dtswiss.com/en/components/rims-road/cross-road/rr-481
The other thing I'm surprised no-one has said yet it you might want to think about putting a bit more air into your tyres as it sounds like your pressures may be a bit on the low side for the riding you're doing.
EX471/511 are light, for their toughness. It's all relative.
If you can get an EX511 for less than £60, just buy it quick and feel smug.
There's a reason everyone recommends them.
If you can get a Rimpact or similar to fit then I’d do that - I’ve got them in both bikes, one pair stopping the made-of-cheese Levo stock rims from further dings and one pair keeping my hardtail’s rims happy when ridden on extremely spiky terrain.
Yes - where the devil are you seeing the ex511 at £60?!!
Big fan of inserts too.
Yep, +1 on the Rimpact insert
Would recommend using them front and rear.
Nothing Stans! Flow mk3 must be made of cheese, I and lots of others have dinged them too too easily!
I actually prefer a mildly cheesy rim and an insert in the rear. I like ARC 30's at the moment.
I'd rather have the odd dent I can easily bend back than have a higher chance of cracking the rim or pinching the tyre sidewall, both of which can be ride enders. The insert helps to prevent any huge dents as well.
I think my problem is that I often ride my cross bike on rooty, rocky local trails and try to match my mountain bike speeds with little finesse. Plus with all the leaf litter about at the moment it’s hard to miss the roots and rocks.
Maybe a mountain bike rim might have tougher beads.
Stop being so hamfisted and be a little bit more mechanically sympathetic with line choice?
If you are denting rims, more pressure, some sort of decent insert (to help).
DT Rims are tougher than most, XM421 is 25mm wide, XM401 is 22.5mm.
Sorry, hadn't read your follow-up post OP.
You probably don't want EX511 rims on a CX bike.
The DT XM series (as suggested above) would be a great choice though.
I believe Rimpact do a CX/gravel-specific insert now as well.
I think my problem is that I often ride my cross bike on rooty, rocky local trails and try to match my mountain bike speeds with little finesse. Plus with all the leaf litter about at the moment it’s hard to miss the roots and rocks.
I keep thinking I should pick up a hardtail or short travel bike for winter or make the trails I ride more fun and think I would kill it doing the same, there is a reason I used to own those bikes and now dont!
WTB tough seem to be ok on my ebike running around 18 psi.
Lots of options there to mull over. Cheers for the replies.
As for picking smoother lines, I do mostly when I'm having a bimble about but they tend not to be the fast lines. Probably doesn't help that my mountain bike has 3" tyres so I get used to riding over pretty much what I fancy.
My Spank spike race 33 (28 internal) are holding up well, bought cheap at CRC, tough and light, the commencal team used em in 2018, if Spank rims survived fort bill under Remi and Amaury, they're good enough for me.
If it’s for a cx bike then most of the chunky rims listed are probably too wide.
If you really think you’ll be brutal then gone EX471 is 25mm inner but similar strength to the EX511 (probably stronger in fact).
If you want to go down in weight and a bit of strength then the XM421 is 25mm internal. I think it’s a chunk lighter than the EX471 - I’ve got XM481’s on my full suss and built up some 421’s for my hardtail. They ought to be strong enough.
Under £60 a piece for the 511’s so not outrageously expensive.
If you really think you’ll be brutal then gone EX471 is 25mm inner but similar strength to the EX511 (probably stronger in fact).
or Spank Race 28 (24.5 internal).. I got the last 3 all under £25 on Amazon (so long as you wait and don't care about colour)
but where did you see the 511's @£60 !!!
Nothing Stans! Flow mk3 must be made of cheese, I and lots of others have dinged them too too easily!
Guess what rims Gee is using...
He's paid to use them and has a pile of spares. Real world experience says they're not great.
Gee is on Flow EX3s, which are considerably tougher and heavier than standard Flows. Whole different kettle of fish.
didnthurt
Full MemberHow about a cheap Chinese carbon rim?
Imminent death awaits?
I think it's a moment that's passed, personally. I got some of the very first Lightbicycle ones before they were a known brand- purely because they were the right erd and I could get them drilled to the right spoke count, for a wheelset that I was having trouble getting a replacement rim for. And they were just incredibly awesome- broke one eventually at BPW on the hardtail, but there's no aluminium rim in the world that would have done the same job, at the same weight, for any length of time. After that got a slightly heavier set that I sold on after I think 3 years on the enduro bike including 2 EWS rounds and 2 years of the SES and sold in good condition. After that got a set of 29er ones which are still going strong.
But. The known quantities are now pretty expensive, and the cheap ones feel like way more of a gamble- essentially these days they're more likely to be cheap for a reason, whereas "back in the day" they were cheap because it was a new thing and even the very best were an unknown quantity.
And in the meantime, alu rims got miles better. Though, also expensive to be fair.
So I'm a fan as you can tell, never regretted any of the ones I got and they've been better than any alu option would have been, at the time. But I'm really not sure I'd do it today.