Were looking into bringing a Carbon Wheelset into the market. After chatting to the Santa Cruz team at a recent bike show, they are still on there orginal wheelset, so theyve got to be more than up for the job. The ones that are in the prototype stage at the moment are 28mm wide, 32 hole. so very similar to the rims that people are running out there now.

Were looking at lacing them up to Industry Nine Enduro / DH Wheelset, so you can have pretty much any axel configuration you can think of. Plus due to the I9 spoke/hub design and the addition of the carbon rim, it will produce one of the stiffest wheelset combos out there.

Aiming to hit the market in the summer, with a target price of 1600 GBP.

Any thoughts/views would be appriciated.

Fine for the likes of Peaty and Minaar who could fine the smooth line through anything, but for me who bangs and twangs his way through stuff – don’t think I could do it. Just replaced the carbon bars on my hardtail for some wider alu ones as well, couldn’t get it out of my head about them breaking on steep road descents 🙁 .

I’m not a carbon-phobe however, I ride a Mojo SL 😀

What will they weigh?

£1600 for a pair of wheels :-O

I can only assume you’re on crack… and have a habit to pay for 😉

Having said that, sure some would pay, BUT there needs to be a clear benefit. Most wheels, especially of that type, flexiness aint an issue. Weight’s the selling point.

How much lighter than stans flow on pro2s + dt comps are they?

tip: they need to be a LOT lighter, and just as strong, and tubeless also.

If you’re charging that much, they’ve got to weigh a lot less than a pair of Stans Podiums on AC hubs – which are the ‘standard’ XC racer set up for people buying their own wheels.

footflaps – Member
If you’re charging that much, they’ve got to weigh a lot less than a pair of Stans Podiums on AC hubs – which are the ‘standard’ XC racer set up for people buying their own wheels.

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AM/FR and possibly DH he says…
Anyway, the Enve rims are £600 each, so that price is pretty much par, and they’re still cheaper than DT EXC1550s. Depends on the design really, as we all know there’s “carbon” and there’s carbon… Half the reason why Enve stuff is so solid is that the spoke holes are moulded as opposed to being drilled…

If you require someone to test them in the real world (ie getting used every now and again, no maintenance, left dirty and generally ridden quite badly and into things.)

I’m happyh to give it a go, for a small fee!

Your obvious competition is the Easton Havens. RRP is £1950 so a bit more than your stated £1600 but I suspect most LBS would do a 10% discount. The Eastons weigh 1450g, are super-stiff, UST out of the box, and have a 2-yr no questions asked warrantee.
Seems that’s the benchmark you have to meet / beat.

Cruzer – you see this is what you’re up against.

People just don’t get it. They don’t get that wheels shouldn’t be regarded as disposable items – after your frame and fork they are the third most important bit on your bike and can make a massive difference to how your bike performs.

Stiffness is a key feature for ALL wheels, DH, XC, Trail whatever. The stiffer the better because wheel stiffness = steering accuracy.

The carbon wheels on the market are bombproof, but people thing for some reason they aren’t.

Peaty and Minnar may be quick and they may be smooth but they subject their bikes to a whole order of magnitude more abuse and stress than anyone reading STW. To think otherwise is terribly misguided.

Weight of course is an issue. It’s as important as stiffness and it’s the main reason you’d go carbon. For DH use, they’d need to weigh in the region of 1.8kg a pair – this is more or less what Easton say their Havoc DH wheels weigh and these aren’t carbon.

£1600 seems like a lot to almost anyone because no one is used to spending £400-500 on a rim, which is basically what it comes in at. But then again, no one is used to wheels lasting as long as these will or performing as well as these will.

You biggest issue is that Easton are backing their Havoc Carbon wheels up with a two year no quibble guarantee. You flat land off a four storey house? No problem. Reversed over them with the car? No problem.

They are doing this because they know that they have to in order to educate the masses.

It’s crazy but people will spend £900 of forks, £2000 on a frame, and then £200 on a pair of wheels.

That’s maddness, not spending £1600!

I had a pair of Carbon Havens in my hands in California last week, priced at £1400 a pair. The only thing stopping me was the lack of space in my bike bag otherwise I wouldn’t have thought twice.

A set of wheels that goos will transform your bike every bit as much as swapping out from a hard tail to a full suss would.

So, what rim are you thinking and what will the weight be? Would be looking personally for trail use. Maybe more of a market there – your average DH racer isn’t usually well heeled and there are plenty of us well heeeled weekend warriors looking to spend their money on something.

Plus due to the I9 spoke/hub design and the addition of the carbon rim, it will produce one of the stiffest wheelset combos out there.

I smell BS…but pleas explain if I am wrong.

Aiming to hit the market in the summer, with a target price of 1600 GBP.

WWWWWWWWWWTTTTTTTTTTTTTTFFFFFFFFFFFFF??????????????

You are joking? No doubt people exist who will buy them. If you’re going to use carbon for rims then make them light!

My crash test dummy services are available at the moment im not testing any wheels at the moment. I am well known for finding the weaknesses in products.

Given carbon tends to crack rather than dent when the rim bottoms out, I can’t see why anyone spending their own money would want to use a carbon rim for DH/AM. All my AM wheelsets are dented where Stans has burbed mid rocky descent and I’ve flatted at full pelt. I’ve seen carbon rims hit the road on road bikes and the wall just shatters and writes the wheel off (£1500 lightweigt wheals and a pot hole in a road race = unhappy rider).
Admitedly these ones should be tougher than Lightweight wheels, but then you’ll be on rougher trails..

cynic-al – Member
Plus due to the I9 spoke/hub design and the addition of the carbon rim, it will produce one of the stiffest wheelset combos out there.

I smell BS…but pleas explain if I am wrong.
Aiming to hit the market in the summer, with a target price of 1600 GBP.

The I9 system is uses spokes that work in compression as well as tension, making them extremely stiff, plus the spokes are quite a heavy gauge of aluminium as opposed to comparatively elastic steel spokes.
Plus carbon rims can be manufactured to be very stiff, yet with a compliant edge to cut down on pinch flats…

cruzer
Edge/Enve Composites?
If so, any idea what the handlebars will retail at?

Really?

A quick google doesn’t confirm that…do the nipples lock in to the rim?

Do you know what? I stand corrected! I don’t know where I got that idea from… 😳
They are mighty stiff though… I know a couple of folk with i9s who love them…

cynic-al – The I9 system elemenates the nipple and the J bend from the wheel all together. The Spokes are made from aluminium which is 3mm in diameter (on average 50% thicker than the steel equivilant). Check out there website for more info on the hubs. as skidsareforkids said, it produces a much stiffer and stronger wheel. you can put alot more tension in the I9 system than you can with anyother hub/spoke system out there.

Well… you’ve bought into I9’s marketing BS then 😉

Tighter spokes do not necessarily make for a stronger wheel – it simply passes on the forces causing problems at the rim or hub. I9 also have a reputation for bearing “issues”… have a search.

Limiting yourselves to one hub/wheel design might not be clever especially if that company have a reputation for poor customer service 👿 (not aimed at anyone… but some companies are better than others).

Your going to have some stiff[/u] competition…ENVE, DT EXR1550, Easton Haven Carbon, and Reynolds have an AM wheelset (with a list price of £999… ). On one are also touting carbon rims later this year.

Having said all that… a carbon rimmed AM wheel set is currently on my shopping list for this year. The benifits of a strong and light wheel package might well be worth the cost of the divorce

Ah the nipple and j bend…the scourge of cyclists worldwide.

…and the tension is way higher than other wheels, but allows the spokes to act in compression.

Smells like….

The only wheel I’ve had without normal spokes was an early crossmax – I snapped some of the little spoke holding turrets off. A normal hub is a very clever design… why go re-inventing the wheel? (sorry 😛 )

You’re asking on the wrong site I’m afraid, the luddites of the cycling world hang out here and don’t understand carbon.

I don’t have carbon rims, most of my rims have little dings in the rim where the soft aluminium has bent. This is a bit piss-poor considering I’m not Steve Peat, I weigh **** all and it’s 2011 already!

A carbon rim won’t bend. So make it strong enough that it won’t shatter on me and it’s a winner. From a technical point of view at least, I can’t afford them, but would want some if I could.

Make them look good though yeah.

I wouldn’t spend that much on a set of wheels, not even close.

I think maybe someone in the SC Syndicate team was pulling your leg about the rim durability too. It’s been mentioned a few times they went through a hell of a lot of rims on one particular race weekend (well into the teens). For fast & smooth riders that is worrying, as your Average Joe is a dirty hack & will be smashing them into everything….

Rim to spoke is important – I’ve not given it much thought other than the obvious drilling/molding big holes in a carbon rim for a normal nipple does not sound clever.

Some of the carbon rim options currently mean you have to remove the tyre etc to true the wheel… not a big problems as long as the rim is strong and you don’t have to tweak the wheel often (how often do we tweak our wheels these days with disc brakes anyway???). Or you could have the nipple at the hub end, or on the spoke somewhere?

Be interesting to see what you come up with. To get me to part with £1600 it will need to tick a lot of boxes.

Strong
Light
Back-up and customer support – for big and little things
Availability of spares – it took me two months to sort out my crossmax’s everytime they died – back before they were as common as now. I put me off buying fancy wheels. When my Hope wheels go wrong I know I can fix them myself or get spares easy – this is very important for me (unfortunately I know they will go wrong… but what kit never has problems???).

On the subject of back-up and customer support check out some of the reviews of Easton’s first wheels and bearing problems… no wonder they dhttp://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/carbon-wheelset-for-amfr-and-possibly-dhecided to give a two year garrantee on a £2000 wheelset. I’m also wary of the new Reynold AM wheels as they have fitted hubs that have no history – which strikes me as a recipe for first year disasters. Hubs are as important as the rims – do I9 hubs have a great reputation or are they well known for eating their way through expensive custom bearing sets…

FWIW it seems to me carbon could be a perfect material for rims, if the price can come down, should be able to get them very light (or stiff) no?

I think most people are sceptical because of the very high prices involved, not because of fear of carbon.

MTBing isn’t really like road or tri bikes where it’s normal for middle-aged men to spend thousands on a wheelset to get a tiny advantage.

I’d have no qualms about riding on carbon rims, but they’d need to weigh a few hundred g less and only cost a few hundred quid more.

Interested to know how many pairs you;d expect to sell in UK cruzer?

In April I’ll buy a pair of Easton havon carbon wheels. I’ll be getting them cheaper however it’s only there garrentee which has finally allowed me to justify the purchase (not that’s it’s justified in the slightest) but it’s given me the peace of mind to allow me waste my money.

I was going to go for enve rims because they allowed me to choose my hubs and spokes, it’s nice to co ordinate your colours however I’m going for the Easton wheels due to the no questions asked replacement.

hmm,

time-trialling; basically a bit dull, the whole point is set a time, if wheels A are slightly faster than wheels B, then they can be justified.

(if you’re happy paying £Xk to save Xseconds, then that’s great, go for it, reap the rewards.)

mountain biking; mostly about enjoying myself, if wheels A are only a bit lighter/stiffer than wheels B, then how much more fun will be had?

it’s harder to quantify, so harder to justify. especially if wheels A are £1600/pair…

imo.

i’m sure they’ll sell, but i don’t see any advantage in them. my ‘light’ wheels are already light enough, any lighter and they can get nervous, tricky to control, and scary in the air. my shed isn’t exactly full of broken wheels, and i can honestly say i’ve never noticed wheel-flex to be much of an issue…

if you have, then great, but i haven’t.

😕

i wish you every success!

A carbon rim won’t bend.

half the problem – the forces exerted on the wheel have to go somewhere. wheels flex, they’re supposed to.

most pro downhillers prefer a soft rim that will ding to a harder rim, since to them a pinch puncture is far more of a problem than a new rim – indeed, a lot of the pro level race wheels are made up softer than retail kit for this reason.

It’s crazy but people will spend £900 of forks, £2000 on a frame, and then £200 on a pair of wheels.

I agree, if you look at the road market, spending serious money on wheels is commonplace (indeed, even on a four grand bike, the wheels are still a vital first upgrade) – however we are where we are, and educating MTB riders on this will take time and money.

I think you’d be surpised how small the actual numbers for top end MTB wheels are!

why do i need educating?

my £200 wheels are already strong/light/stiff/fun enough already?

educate me.

?

mind you, i’m very happy with my £200 road wheels; tiagra hubs on open pro rims, Dt spokes, handbuilt by a master of the art.

lovely.

It’s crazy but people will spend £900 of forks, £2000 on a frame, and then £200 on a pair of wheels

Lotsa folk are buying £300-£500 lightweight wheels going by the posting on here.

Thing is, once you get beyond about £350, for an xc rider, diminishing returns come sharply into focus.

is a carbon fiber rim really all that difficult/expensive to manufacture? if a full carbon bike frame can be chucked out for £400 I’d have thought a carbon DH rim could be made to sell at around half the price of the Edge DH rims (if there was sufficient demand).

Enve\i9 had started working together but that project didn’t happen 🙁 I was quoted $2700, so £1600 seems about right.

The rims will need a custom mould for the i9 spokes. So what rims are you using and any more details?

If you need a test rider, I’ll happily let you rebuild my 2x i9 wheels to your carbon rims 🙂

I’d be (sort of) happy to pay the price Easton are asking if their warranty wasn’t so short 🙂

2 years isn’t enough in my opinion, for a material which to most riders eyes is largely unproven in rims of this sort. Considering that the material cost of failure to them is only likely to be one rim and a set of spokes (I can’t really see both wheels failing at the same time) I think they’re being a bit short with the warranty if they’re trying to get the public onboard.

The wheels sound great, and probably are- if I didn’t have the nagging thought that 2 years and 1 month down the line I was potentially going to be on my own for a very expensive rebuild in the event of failure- I could look at them and say ‘things aren’t going to get much better than this for a longtime’ and justify them as wheels for life.

£1600 is an insane price. Spending that on a whole bike is alot, never mind on just a set of wheels.

GW – I’m sure there are lots of important reasons why they couldn’t be half the price or less, but I’m also sure it’ll happen anyway.

I guess it’s about getting the manufacturing sorted – it’s only in the last few years cheap carbon frames have been available, and it’s taken years to get there. Carbon rims appear very much to be in their infancy.

£1000 for a set of Easton Havens in the US of A… given that I’m about to spend £700 on a set of I9’s, seriously thinking the extra £300 could be justified! I’m in NYC at the end of this month, so could bring ’em back VAT/duty free as well (probably…)

I don’t have alot of input in this but I have already sold 2 pairs of Easton Havoc carbons. To put the size of the market in scale it was the first 2 pairs sold in the UK. Extra only had 10 pairs in stock for the next 3 months, so you won’t be selling loads of these wheels.
There was also no settlement discount on them so I’m guessing not alot of money is made on them even at nearly £2k.
Both sets were sold on their merits of the 2 year warranty.
Made in Mexico of all places!

I’ve got a set of the carbon Havens. For me the two key things were weight and 2yr warrantee. Stiffness is also a positive, but ranks below the other two.
So far so good – they spin up significantly faster than the Crossmax SX’s they replaced, UST tyres go up very easily with a track pump, and they feel nice and stiff. I’ve only hit one really rocky section so far, and combined with the BOS Devilles, they tracked very very true.
For me it was a worthwhile upgrade but accept that at that price-point some will think it’s bonkers!

GW – part ofthe problem will be the lack of demand. Not many people spend £600 on a pair of wheels let alone 1k – 1.5k so they will never get made in the quantity to make them viable.

Yes they are expensive and won’t be for everyone, but some people can afford them ( not so sure about justifying them) and I for one will be buying them.