To all you 29er's out there!

it's funny how the industries is going back to double crankset nowadays, i suppose the realisation that you can have the range of a triple without the weight of one, even tourer are the same (I noticed 28/46 on some tourer).

DJ - do the XT brakes allow you to attach the shifters to them? Which shifters are you using?

its the new shimano ispec system so for both xt and xtr you can remove the band from the sti and attach direct to the brakes

Hi There!

This is my sweet, Marin Pine SS 29 :)

Work in progress, I have to chage somee parts- only for looking better

So 29er heads, looking at getting some new wheels built up for my Scandal29er. I'm already settled on Hope Pro II hubs of the single speed variety, just a little indecisive on rims. Candidates are Stans Flows, or Velocity Blunt SL, or maybe P35s. Plan on keeping the bike ridgid, and going tubeless, so the Flows are the obvious choice, but the P35s are really wide and could be great, where as the Blunts are similar to the Flows in width without the bead lock lip. Any suggestions? Oh and I'm 6'6" and 115kg so not looking for a weight weenie build.

stans rims

unharmed and myself use them

seem to have endured our inept use and were very easy to install tubeless

well worth the money

(though i have no experience of the blunts)

unharmed is a large chap and we built our wheels together and have ample practice of crashing our bikes and being generally a bit shit and they have survived

So 29er heads, looking at getting some new wheels built up for my Scandal29er. I'm already settled on Hope Pro II hubs of the single speed variety, just a little indecisive on rims. Candidates are Stans Flows, or Velocity Blunt SL, or maybe P35s. Plan on keeping the bike ridgid, and going tubeless, so the Flows are the obvious choice, but the P35s are really wide and could be great, where as the Blunts are similar to the Flows in width without the bead lock lip. Any suggestions? Oh and I'm 6'6" and 115kg so not looking for a weight weenie build.

I have the blunts, in fact laced to some SS Pro IIs, with revs non brake side, supercomps brake side.

Its a very light wheelset for the strength and width. I did a fair amount of research and the blunts came out on top in terms of width, strength, and weight. To run them tubeless, you simply need a wide 'freeride' 26" rimstrip (just buy the stans freeride kit). The extra stretch needed to fit them on the 700c rim, narrows them to perfect width. You end up with a nice snug fit.

I bought my rims just before the P35s came out though. If I had the chioce agian I would have gone for the P35s. The advantages of a wider rim, far outweigh the extra weight. You get a better profile, more volume, and lower PSI. All of which mean more traction for a given tyre.

With the stans you save the weight of the rimstrip, and will be be less likely to experiance 'burping', because of the better bead lock.

Well I have put in an order of the subs from CRC, and going to give the P35's a run. Velocity do a specific tubeless rim tape for them that works very well so will give it a whirl. Since I've never tried building my own wheels, and this isn't a set I'd like to learn on I need to get them built. Living in Brisbane I can get the bike shop to send them off to Velocity and get them to build them up using Sapim CX-Ray spoke, or get the shop to do the build with DT Swiss Comp, Velocity works out a fair bit cheaper, well a lot cheaper actually. Will wait till the hubs arrive to decide.

Well I have put in an order of the subs from CRC, and going to give the P35's a run. Velocity do a specific tubeless rim tape for them that works very well so will give it a whirl. Since I've never tried building my own wheels, and this isn't a set I'd like to learn on I need to get them built. Living in Brisbane I can get the bike shop to send them off to Velocity and get them to build them up using Sapim CX-Ray spoke, or get the shop to do the build with DT Swiss Comp, Velocity works out a fair bit cheaper, well a lot cheaper actually. Will wait till the hubs arrive to decide.

Having built mine myself. I will be using DT swiss super-competition spokes for all my disc brake wheels in the future.

They are light and narrow by the rim (where the weight maks most difference);
they are fatter towards the hub (To add stiffness near the disc brake); and
the narrow threaded end means you're nipples are fatter (which is good for alu nipple users).

CX-rays are the daddy of spokes though. Just never used them off-road.

(The Hope hubs are sweet BTW)

I'm about your size and weight, JDB and I get burping on my flows if I let the pressure get too low but otherwise they've been wonderful. My Swift was rigid up until very recently and, as James said, they've stood up to our ineptitude extremely well. They were a doddle to set up tubeless as well.

Well the hubs turned up (lovely bit of gear) and are now with the bike shop getting laced up at a set of blacl Velocity P35 rims with DT Swiss Comp spokes. Should be ready to roll for the weekend. Going to run some WTB Exiwolf tyres while I figure out what to try next. Think Racing Ralph snake skins in a 2.4 flavour are rather popular big bag tyres around here.

Been very happy with my Ralphs.

WTB have updated the weirwolf. I fecking love this tyre. I was thinking the other day that maybe the dark grainy mud you get on alpine trails, was less sticky than the typical light brown UK stuff. So the more tightly packed tread of the weirwolf can be effective up here. They do seem to be Marmite tires TBH.
http://www.wtb.com/products/tires/29er/weirwolflt29er/

So, I think I've borked the splines on my cranks when one arm came loose and am looking at it as an opportunity to upgrade. Everyone seems to be saying that external BBs are the way to go so was browsing CRC and was wondering if the Hope Ceramic version was worth the extra over the Stainless version?

I have the cermic hope BB. Purely because I'm a bike whore. They are a bit lighter, and spin freely. But they wont outlast the stainless enough to justfy the price difference.

You should buy the ceramics anyway....

:-)

phil wood ceramics that is

30 quid more and no spanky colour options :-)

whoops, meant chris king ceramic bb

Surly KM xl may just a teeny bit too big for me, But hey i'm still growing !?!

Stronglight crankset?

On-one swapout Inbred 29er with Alfine 8 speed. £999. I think im going to pull the trigger.

go for it, you can join the brokeback mountain bike club when you get back here

On-one swapout Inbred 29er with Alfine 8 speed. £999. I think im going to pull the trigger.

Don't do it! Buy this and you'd still have the change for an alfine wheel!

Shiny...