Rims for Carbon-Ti hubs

[Kingston]

I have a set of Carbon-Ti X-hub 24/24, but need a pair of rims to built set climbing wheels.
What is most important to me when riding the mountains in southern europe is to have confidence in the wheel system (wheel and tyre) when descending. Meaning not feeling to flexy when going down fast or cornering.
I prefer 28-30mm tires in tubeless setup. Don't mind having some aero advantage, since I am not going uphill all the time.

R2-bike reccommend me to go with Duke rims, but I seen a few less positive comments on these rims.

Anyone with rim reccommendations for semi-aero lighweight wheelset for 28-30mm tire that feels great when descending?

[Matte86]

I am 62kgs, so maybe my feels about the Duke rims being flexi are ‘biased’, but I have the world runners in the 27.5 depth and both in a gravel setup and with Turbo Cottons 28 with Reveloop tubes felt great
Those are laced with DT Aerolite 24/24
Duke 2023 catalog is off online so it could be they are prepping a new one for soon to be released updates
If you can hold on and wait, maybe they offer something new and/or you could get a discount on 2023 rims

[Mr.Gib]

@Kingston, your weight is the most important variable. You are right to be concerned about stiffness. Descending on flexy wheels is horrible.

I often recommend 28 spokes above 75kg, but considering your hubs are 24, I'd highly recommend something stiffer than cxRay, like Sapim Sprints or similar. And brass nipples to avoid a spoke failure in the middle of nowhere. Deeper rims help with the increased bracing angles, but not a good idea when it comes to descending. 45mm+ is great until your facing a 20km descent in a wind storm. Maybe deeper on the rear. But I'd stick to 40mm or less at the front unless you are a big person. It's at this point where a WW poster is required to recommend 30mm wide rim from Farsports or Light Bicycle.


FWIW I just built up WR38 from Light Bicycle on some spare hubs (Industry Nine Torch 2:1) and the rims are really impressive. 440 grams each. They are 32mm wide but if your bike has room, they are a killer combo with 28 or 30mm 5000s TR. I also use the same rim in 50mm Flyweight version as my main set on Carbon Ti hubs, and they have been without fault over several thousand km. Very impressive for a 1350gm wheelset under my 75kgs.

[Kingston]

@Kingston, your weight is the most important variable. You are right to be concerned about stiffness. Descending on flexy wheels is horrible.

I often recommend 28 spokes above 75kg, but considering your hubs are 24, I'd highly recommend something stiffer than cxRay, like Sapim Sprints or similar. And brass nipples to avoid a spoke failure in the middle of nowhere. Deeper rims help with the increased bracing angles, but not a good idea when it comes to descending. 45mm+ is great until your facing a 20km descent in a wind storm. Maybe deeper on the rear. But I'd stick to 40mm or less at the front unless you are a big person. It's at this point where a WW poster is required to recommend 30mm wide rim from Farsports or Light Bicycle.


FWIW I just built up WR38 from Light Bicycle on some spare hubs (Industry Nine Torch 2:1) and the rims are really impressive. 440 grams each. They are 32mm wide but if your bike has room, they are a killer combo with 28 or 30mm 5000s TR. I also use the same rim in 50mm Flyweight version as my main set on Carbon Ti hubs, and they have been without fault over several thousand km. Very impressive for a 1350gm wheelset under my 75kgs.

Thanks.

I am 70kg, and the hubs is coming from a wheelset I broke hitting a pothole on a descend, so I have been on 24/24 hubs before. THe broken wheelset was with LB rims and they did fine, so I should probably look that way again.

[okx]

I have ~6k km on duke 36mm deep rims (light version) - zero issues.
But this may be, because i'm only ~52kg...
But they are ok only with 26mm tyres. For next season I would like to try something more suitable for 28mm tyres...

[Jasonlelam]

I read somewhere (just forgot), some model of carbon ti hubs have a sopke tension limit of 90kgf the max...that is pretty low, unsafe IMO.