Submitted by
mtn_biker17
a Racer
from New Braunfels TX, USA
Date Reviewed: August 20, 2010
Strengths: Everything.
Weaknesses: Kinda of hard to mount a tire.
Bottom Line:
I haven't had any problems out of mine. I built them up my self, I have kept perfect tension in the spokes, I have got a few scratches but no more then any 2 year old rim. I would buy theses again.
Bike Setup: Dmr Trailstar, Mar 55r, dmr hubs, sram x-9.
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Submitted by
SwissDH
a Downhiller
from Geneva, Switzerland
Date Reviewed: May 29, 2010
Strengths: It's resonably light and DT Prestige
Rolls fast
Good looking
Wonderful to race !!
The alloy is made so you can't pinch flat (race rim)
Weaknesses: The alloy used is soft and you can get flats even at a resonable pressure. I got a big dent and the wheel needs serious truing after only one session
Bottom Line:
I will swap rims with EX 729 even if I don't like Mavic and keep these to lace 'em and make a light wheel with Hope Pro II hub for racing.
You should buy it if you'r really light or for racing
Reinforced eyelets. Yes, the reviews are correct. Theres a reason beyond corporate sponsorship that you see DT Swiss FR 6.1Ds on Gee Athertons Animal and Kirt Vories single speed dirt jumper. The deep dish sidewalls are soft and prevent pinch flats in races and competition. But if you drop your PSI to 20psi, you'll have more chances of bending the sidewalls, sure. I however do not compete nor do I drop my PSI for nobody so I simply use them for quality, width, depth and looks, but of course. At that, they are expensive rims and you won't find them on bammer rides which I enjoy since I am an elitist snob. They also stretch out high volume tires to look more like balloons which I admire. DT Swiss has since released an update to the 6.1 but with different graphics but cant report on the differences since I haven't tried them. To be honest, there are a number of rims out there that can come close - even the $20/rim Mavic X321's were a great value in comparison and were almost the same profile. Can also go with Sun MTX or Double Tracks which are deep and tall, and about 50% cost. The DT 6.1s are for ballers and those that can afford it as you can read below. And any negative "sidewall flat spot" stories are irrelevant if you run higher than 30psi. See those pro rides at: http://forums.mtbr.com/showpost.php?p=5703457&postcount=16
Submitted by
pagrappler09
a Downhiller
from pittsburgh, pa, usa
Date Reviewed: August 24, 2009
Strengths: none... looks? says dt swiss so ppl will think its good?
Sidewalls are so soft you dont get pinch flats... but im not loaded with cash, so not really a strength for me. tubes- $5 Rims- $100 you decide...? lol
Weaknesses: Just another over-priced piece of garbage from dt swiss. The only good things you hear about dt swiss come from the company, on the trail, nobody likes them (from what i hear)
Anyways, these wheels survived snowshoe because i ran 8zillion psi because the rock section was brutal, then i went to 7springs, and ran 35psi, which isnt very low for dh, by the end of the day i went from zero dings to 8, 3 of which were very severe... And 7springs doesnt even have that much hard core downhill??? its all hard pack bmx dirt.
IMO- DT Swiss= junk. If your considering them, dont... unless you like lacing new rims to your hub...
Bottom Line:
great if your sponsored by dt swiss and doing downhill, because you wont get pinch flats, and they will hand you a new wheel at the top of the lift... THEY SUCK if you pay for your own sh*t...
Bike Setup: 08' Bottlerocket with Totem Soloair. X5, raceface, fr 6.1d wheels. hayes stoker trail
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Submitted by
camus
a Cross Country Rider
from San Francisco, CA, USA
Date Reviewed: September 7, 2008
Strengths: looks decent
Weaknesses: rim is a POS, dinged up from some XC riding, folded over from hitting a rock and blew a $40 lift ticket
Bottom Line:
These wheels came on my 2007 Nomad. I've probably got less than 30 somewhat easy rides on my bike. Both rims had some minor dings. I was able to ease these out with a crescent wrench tightly fitted on the edge. Didn't think a lot of it although in my 15 years of riding, I don't ever remember having to do this to other rims.
Today I went riding at North Star. Was cruising a pretty easy yet rocky trail. Was running 25-30 lbs in my rear Michelin. I hit a rock and next thing I know my tire is leaking like a sieve.
I get down to the lift and the freakin' whole side of the rim is folded in. Hell, I didn't even know a rim could do that. It didn't even feel like that hard of a hit.
Using a large screwdriver I was hoping I could ease the side of the rim up so I could seat my tire bead again and continue to ride.
I hear a loud *ping* and a big chunk of rim goes flying and now for sure the rim is trashed. $40 lift ticket wasted since I only got three runs in that day.
Shame on Santa Cruz for putting such junk on their bikes and although I never even heard of DT swiss before I got this bike, I certainly won't buy any of their crap after this debacle.
Submitted by
Grant
a Weekend Warrior
from Sydney, Australia
Date Reviewed: March 21, 2008
Strengths: lightweight for size
Weaknesses: soft alloy dents very easily, customer service from distributor
Bottom Line:
They might be good DH race wheels for sponsored riders who don't have to buy new rims when they smash them up but for a rider like me they aren't the right choice. I was sketpical of the light weight and heavy grinding at the rim join when i bought them but went for them anyway. I dented the rear rim on the first ride and the front rim a few rides later. The tyres held on fine though. After showing the bike shop it took the distributor nearly a year to replace the rims, by which time i'd already bought a set of Crossmax SX wheels. I gave the wheels built up with the new 6.1s away.
Submitted by
Andrew
a Weekend Warrior
from Akl, NZ
Date Reviewed: March 8, 2008
Strengths: They look good when new..
Weaknesses: ..just don't expect them to stay that way for long.
Two days of trail riding and a bit of freeriding and my rear has 3 sizeable dents, another 3 or so smaller ones, a small flat spot and its slightly out of true. I don't case/do drops to flat or anything silly like that. I've ridden the same trails/jumps/structures (and bigger stuff) with the rims listed below and have never had a problem, so I don't believe its my riding. They're not exactly cheap either.
Bottom Line:
Not suitable for freeride/downhill, and probably a bit heavy to be a trail rim. I can't reccomend these at all, don't waste your money. Read the other reviews here and buy something else, like a Mavic 721/729 (as I suspect I will be very soon).
Strengths: light weight Excelent pinch flat resistance looks good
Weaknesses: i am a all-mountain lite rider so no problems yet. no drops over 2 feet.
Bottom Line:
I will say, for a heavy duty x-country rider. These rims are lite and strong. I don't do anything close to downhill so I can't say how they hold up to big hits or drops. I would say buy these rims for lite all-mountain riding. My friend who turned me on to these rims has a few minor dings, however maybe a slight bend is better than a cracked rim?
Bike Setup: 2004 Heckler Marz Z1, Fox DHX 5.0, XT brakes, CK headset, XO rear der, XT front der, X9 shifters
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Submitted by
Blair
a Downhiller
from Banff, Alberta, Canada
Date Reviewed: August 18, 2007
Strengths: Light, Look good, Very pinch flat resistant (I've run ~10psi through rock gardens and down Kicking Horse), seem to stay true fairly well.
Weaknesses: Rim walls dent super easy like everybody else is saying Changing tires is a pain but the rims are so flat resistant I haven't had to yet this year.
Bottom Line:
So... to start with, if you're going to buy these, you have to treat them as being disposable downhill rims. Expect to change them at least once a season.
That said, I'm going to buy another pair next year (unless I go tubeless) because they are really light, and I have mangled the rim walls but not flatted yet. Nothing pisses me off more in the middle of a run than flatting so I don't particularly care that my rims are taking on some damage... especially when you consider that 15psi is about the maximum that I run.
I'm a relatively clean rider but have hit these full force into a lot of rocks and I'm stoked on them. If you're somebody who is usually hard on rims you might want to look for something else.
I'm giving these a good rating because I knew that they were going to be 'disposable' when I bought them, but the other qualities made up for that by far as far as I'm concerned.
Similar Products Used: Mavic ex729, Atomlab Trailpimps
Bike Setup: Commencal Mini DH
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Submitted by
Ryan
a Downhiller
from Calgary, AB, Canada
Date Reviewed: August 8, 2007
Strengths: - Light - Flat-spotting could help prevent flats
Weaknesses: - Flat-spots like that's its job - Expensive - Terrible tolerance control
Bottom Line:
Think back to the last time you hit something really, really hard, expected your wheel to be destroyed, and - to your complete amazement - your wheel was not only intact, but untouched.
If you run the FR 6.1D, the incident you just recalled will be the last time that will ever happen.
I'm 160 lbs, smooth, and, frankly, a complete chicken. I'm a downhill sissy. Even with two Soft springs in my 888, very little compression damping, and the bottom-out boost turned completely off, I've still only bottomed my fork once. I run my Minions (2.7 F, 2.5 R) at 30-35 psi, which should be *plenty* for me. I run tubes that are as thin as ultra-light cross-country tubes (250g for a DH-width tube) and I've never flatted, yet, somehow, my rims have small to moderate dings all over them.
If this wasn't bad enough, the tolerance control is terrible. My rims are undersized and I can change any downhill tire by hand (I've tried Intense, Maxxis, and Kenda). My girlfriend had the same rims from the same season of production and the same tires (not the same models, but the very same tires) were so tight on hers that her rims and tires were destroyed in the process of changing her tires. I'm talking three-bent-metal-levers-and-a-hole-punched-in-the-rim tight. To the credit of the LBS (Bow Cycle), she got 'em replaced with Mavic 729s and life has been good since...for her.
I'm not even hard enough on my wheels to evaluate whether they're stiff or laterally strong, but I suspect they're not.
Think of every positive characteristic a rim could possibly have. These are light, but that's their only virtue. Given the lack of strength and narrower than DH-average width, though, it's not even fair to call these "light", since it's more appropriate to compare them to light freeride rims that typically weigh 10 to 60 grams less.
So, these are either overpriced, overweight, and somewhat fragile all-mountain to light freeride rims or they're overpriced, narrow, slightly light, and astoundingly fragile downhill rims.
There is not a single way in which these rims are superior to products from DT's competitors. Check out something like a Mavic EX729 or EX823, WTB LaserDisc FR or DH, or, well, pretty much anything else.
Bike Setup: 2006 Iron Horse Sunday Elite, fully stock, except for super thin DH tubes, Soft 888 springs, and 300 lb/in DHX springs.
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Submitted by
Jordan
a Downhiller
from Glenview, illinois, USA
Date Reviewed: July 31, 2007
Strengths: Looks good.
Weaknesses: Side walls are weak as hell. Flat spots turn up from riding over a curb.
Bottom Line:
Before I bought dt swiss rims i looked on the website and saw bad reviews i thought people were just stupid and cased on everything with no air pressure. I was rong. They really suck. I brought them to whistler on my vp-free and i took them on freight train and they looked brand new when i got off the lift. I started down freight train and after the little ladder drop 2 ft. Smooth Landing. The group i was riding with stoped the weight for everyone and some one looked at my back wheel and said how did you do that. I said Do What? I looked at my back wheel and the rim was crushed in three spots. But paint was not removed. So nothing hit them the just suck. LISTEN TO MY REVIEW SAVE YOUR SELF AND NEVER BUY THIS RIM. DT-SWISS makes good hubs!
