Umm... they're black?

Durability

I've ridden these for 4 years and only that long because I've nursed them along for the last 3 years. Friday was their last day of use as I put another dent big enough to not hold the bead of my tire and double flatted out of race. Good riddance. They've always been fragile, getting dented within the first month of use on XC trails (racing) but I've coerced them back into shape barely and used lots of Stan's to get them to seal. I have a 5" bike and weigh 150 with a finesse riding style (having started on hardtails) and I've ridden lots of rims at least this hard and never had a problem. There are many dents in these and they're just not durable enough to warrant putting on your bike. Find something else.

Similar Products Used:

Mavic, Enve, Bontrager, Head

Light weight, easy to lace, strong, take high spoke tension, (and most importantly) they look nice

A bit narrow, no 36-spoke option

I need to come clean with a potential conflict of interest. I bought the parts for these wheels at a ridiculous discount while attending at DT Swiss wheel building class at United Bicycle Institute. While I have no affiliation with DT Swiss or the school, I feel I should say something.

I laced a pair of XR 400 rims to DT Swiss 240s hubs (ISO disc, 32 spoke, three-cross, double butted Sapim spokes) a couple of months ago. I ride around Austin on an aluminum hard tail Rocky Mountain with a steel Surly fork. My 165 lb (75 kilo) frame rolls around on a Continental Town and Country in the rear (inflated to 4 bars) and a Panaracer Fire XC pro 2.1 (inflated to 3.5 bars, super durable, grips on everything, inexpensive, red sidewalls).

I ride through the unpaved, rocky and muddy alleys as well as everywhere else on paved streets and decomposed gravel bikeways. Sometimes I have the rear rack or back pack full of groceries, tools, cameras or whatever, adding vertical and lateral weight.

I had a chance to do actual mountain biking on rocky, technical trails in central Texas, and hope to do more in Colorado and Utah and Nevada (most likely on my way to Burning Man, where I plan to ride this bike around). At some point I plan to ride these wheels on the Great Divide Trail, eventually. I have no qualms about riding anywhere, weighed down with gear or faster and less laden.

I don't see how someone can dent one of these with normal or even aggressive riding. The sidewalls of the rim are shorter than older designs, which seem to make the rim less likely to pinch flat or dent from reasonable impacts. Crashes and super-epic cliff riding are another story and

My main complaint is the narrow width of the rims, which makes mounting fatter tires an interesting problem. Luckily my ancient frame won't fit 2.7" tires. 2.1" are solid with some mud clearance and seem to be about the biggest tire I can run. Maybe it helps shed mud, which seemed to slide off when I rode through some post-flooding silt mud.

If I remember, I'll update this after some rougher riding and some time.

Similar Products Used:

Sun Ringle Rhyno Lite

weight

soft

I have built wheels whit the rims and after one year of riding forest XC
I can say I am very disapointed with weakness of XR400.
Although they are stiff during relaxed ride,
they cannot withstand more agressive ride.
Mine have got 2 indents on front (one after snike and one found after season)
and 3 on rear wheel (one snike and two other hard roots passing).
They are bad choice for agressive XC with down rides on tough trails (smal stones , roots)

I DO NOT recommend them. It's expensive piece of sh*t (or butter - if you prefere)

Affordable, Light weight, and Quick

Weak and easily bent

I recently bought an SB95 equipped with DT Swiss XR400s (29") and ended up bending the front rim in only 10 miles. The milage break down is 9 miles on beginner loops and one on an intermediate loop. Now to be fair, I weight 273lbs at the time of this review. So I wrote it off as just not being suited for Clydesdales but after talking with other owners, I have learned that people weighing 200-220lbs are experiencing the same issues just prolonged.

Bottom line, these wheels are quick and light but limit the potential of the SB95. Their better suited for light weight riders and I would think twice about using them for XC, All MT, an Enduro.

Light, fast

1) Expensive.
2) Kind of flimsy
3) See #1

Less than impressed. At nearly $100 per rim, I expected more, and was let down. I'd been riding Mavic 819 UST rims, and was convinced to give the XR400's a shot. They're marginally lighter (when accounting for the rim strip, etc that I don't need with Mavics), but my rear wheel is beaten all to hell (3 major dents in the rim) after only a year. My Mavic's were beaten on for years and years without issue. I'd rather pay the weight penalty than have to worry about smashing these expensive hoops again.

I get the "Bontrager rule" - light, strong, cheap: pick 2. Apparantly with these rims you only get to pick one. Not strong. Not cheap.

Similar Products Used:

Mavic 819 UST

These rims are stronger than DT Swiss XR350 and a little bit heavier. They remain very light rims but really strong. I use them on my trail bike and they can manage 2.35 Nobby Nick tires. I made a lot of jumps with them and some little drop. No problems.

The surface color is thin like the XR350. They are not enduro rims.

These rims are no pro XC rims but I'm using them ad trail rims on an heavy bike. They manage the bike, the tracks and the large tires (2,25 and 2,35) without problems.
I suggest them if you wanna some strong XC wheels or some light Trail wheels.

Similar Products Used:

DT Swiss XR350, DT Swiss X420SL