MTB rims for the powerfully built... How do you know which?

[Kermit power]

OK, last of my threads on wheels and the components thereof for the moment, or at least until I start a thread about spokes!

Having started out thinking I'd knackered my hub, and now feeling reassured that I haven't, but having also been afflicted with newandshinyitis as a result, I'm going to have a crack at building myself some new wheels based on my existing 32 hole Hope XC hubs.

The rim I want to build on is a Pacenti TL28, but I'm not sure whether I'll knacker them or not?

I'm somewhat on the chunkier side of the riding community at 120kg, but on the flipside, I'm pretty conservative on what I'll do - basically singletrack with the odd drop off of no more than a foot. No jumps or big drops at all.

The Mavic XM117 rims that came with the bike 7 years ago are still basically round, and I've never managed to so much as break a spoke on it either, so would I be OK with the Pacenti rims which, despite only weighing 390g are billed as being suitable for "everything short of big drops and jumps"?

I'm currently leaning towards the view that if Martyn Ashton could land on a standard roadie rim from several feet in the air, then despite being twice his weight, I'm unlikely to come close to damaging a mountain bike rim from 6 inches. Would anyone care to reassure me on this before I hit the order button?

Maybe worth adding that I'm riding a Spesh FSR XC-Pro, so full suss to help cushion the rear a bit more.

And another edit!! These are "tubeless-friendly" rims. I assume this means that I wouldn't actually have to run them tubeless? Might be nice to try, but I don't really want to replace the tyres straight away for cost reasons.

Edited by Kermit power on Tuesday 8th April 18:26

[romee2000]

I can only comment on the tubeless side of things.....tubeless ready means they can run both. So you are ok to stick to the conventional tubes and tyres until you go tubeless. I never had many punctures even though I do mainly downhill and freeride stuff with the odd trail so never bothered with going tubeless. A lot of people go tubeless for the weight saving advantage but to be honest on an XC style tyre (less than 2.4) the weight saving will be minimal.

[Kermit power]

Question answered.

Pacenti very efficiently emailed me back within 2 minutes to say only the 28 hole rims carry a weight limit at all, so the 32 hole ones should be fine. Given that these are guys from the land of the litigious, I'm happy to take that as a vote of confidence!

[Kermit power]

Blimey! Buying spokes is a pain in the arse!!!

How come so few people stock them?

[shalmaneser]

Chain Reaction is my normal port of call. There are lots of lengths to look out for!

[james0]

The build is far more important than the rim, speaking as a heavy rider fancy rims mean nothing if badly built

[Kermit power]

shalmaneser said:

Chain Reaction is my normal port of call. There are lots of lengths to look out for!

That was my first thought too. Hardly anything in stock!!! DT Swiss Competition Black? Any length you like so long as it's 302mm!

[ndg]

I use Rose in Germany for spokes. Shipping costs grate, but still cheaper than sourcing in the UK overall.

[Kermit power]

ndg said:

I use Rose in Germany for spokes. Shipping costs grate, but still cheaper than sourcing in the UK overall.

I was all set to do so, right until they offered me a €10 gift certificate for liking them on Facebook and then not giving me an opportunity to redeem it on the website!

Instead, I ended up getting ACI Alpina black double-butted spokes for 40p each from cyclebasket.com. The website is a bit of a retro tour of how you would imagine the internet would've looked if it existed in the 80s, but they were cheap, and I've not been able to find anyone with a bad word to say about ACI Alpina online, so I was happy to take the saving over Sapim or DT Swiss.