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Internal width vs weight: Arch/Flow

1316 Views 8 Replies 6 Participants Last post by damdam5, Nov 8, 2021

damdam5

Discussion Starter · Nov 6, 2021

I am going to be building up a new set of wheels soon and wanted to target 30mm internal width. These would see use on 2 steel hardtails both a single speed with 120mm travel and one with gears and 160mm travel. The riding is lots of up and down and fairly technical, probably nothing beyond "light enduro" if I had to guess. Not sure where those lines blur anyway between "trail" and "enduro".

Due to the climbing (and single speed setup) I initially wanted to stay under 500 grams on the rim but hard to find something in 30mm at that weight. I did find a Pacenti PI-30 which is only 470 grams, asymmetric, welded, and 30mm but alas, its out of stock. I am now looking at Stans Flow vs Stans Arch. The Arch is a little thinner in internal width (28mm vs 30mm) but the weight is nice. The Flow is a little heavier and the right width.

I am currently running DHF 2.5WT on the front which apparently is optimized for 30 - 35mm widths. I am running 29mm internal now and it does look a little bit rounder than ideal compared to the rear which is a 2.3 Aggressor. Also if width gives a little more "cush" that could be nice on a hardtail. Seems like everything continues to trend towards wider, so I am wondering if its a bit limiting to go with 28mm for the weight savings. I am also considering going with a slightly narrower tire next time around to have a little less weight and rolling resistance so maybe the 28mm is fine.

Any thoughts from you all on the pros and cons of prioritizing weight vs width or vice versa for rims?

Thanks!

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ocnLogan

· #2 · Nov 6, 2021

Personally I’m way more worried about the wheels being the right width for the tires I want to use, and then being strong enough to resist damage, than I am about 30g.

For a full squish bike I think you can make the argument for narrower rear wheels if you want to save some weight, For a hard tail I’m not sure I’d make that same argument though.

So something like a DT Swiss xm481 front wheel (30mm internal), and then an EX471 in the rear (25mm internal) could make sense as an example, but on a hard tail you may want something with more volume in the rear.

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cmg

· #3 · Nov 6, 2021

as l dont really know you, let me put it like this, you are talking about maybe 400gr savings...............
l could lose 5 kgs and it will help a lot more than 400gr on the bike, but as l said l dont know you.

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damdam5

Discussion Starter · #4 · Nov 6, 2021

Yeah, I was leaning towards Flow over Arch for these reasons, so good to hear you all chime in. There just seems to be a lot of fuss around rim weight (I am coming from more of a XC background and gradually leaving that behind), and I haven't ridden more than one rim set at 29er so I can't personally atest to any noticable differences in adding 50-60 grams at the outer diameter of the wheel. I did notice quite a difference on tires going from XR4/XR3 to DHF/Agressor but it was very worth it for the durability and cornering improvements. I've probably lost weight as a result of that change, lol. Now that I think about it, that change was probably 150-200 gram per tire (which is further out in diameter than the wheel) and also more rolling resistance tread wise. So when framed like that the wheel difference isn't much in comparison. Thanks for the talk!

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frdfandc

· #5 · Nov 6, 2021

Personally I'd go with the Flow over the Arch. Especially on the front. I'd take the width over the weight savings for better tire stability.

Right now I'm riding Crests on my hardtsil and thinking of going to a Flow on the front for a wider tire patch up front because I'm going SS with my hardtail.

Sent from my moto e6 using Tapatalk

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trulede

· #6 · Nov 7, 2021

The problem will be the tyres. +50g on the rims and then +400g on the tyres. Its a real problem these days, seems an E-Bike related trend. Add some more sealant and that's 500g+ more than a light carbon XC rim.

That you will notice!

There is no reason you can't have a 30mm wide rim built into a lightweight strong wheel, however, the rim will cost 4 times as much as the (for instance) XM481.

I have a Newman carbon rim on my single speed, apparently good for ASTM 4, and it's around 150g lighter than the XM481 I have on my Enduro bike. The tyres on the SS are 400g lighter. Both are hard tails. Unfortunately the difference is noticeable ... especially if you are coming from a light fast XC bike.

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ocnLogan

· #7 · Nov 7, 2021

trulede said:
The problem will be the tyres. +50g on the rims and then +400g on the tyres. Its a real problem these days, seems an E-Bike related trend. Add some more sealant and that's 500g+ more than a light carbon XC rim.

That you will notice!

There is no reason you can't have a 30mm wide rim built into a lightweight strong wheel, however, the rim will cost 4 times as much as the (for instance) XM481.

I have a Newman carbon rim on my single speed, apparently good for ASTM 4, and it's around 150g lighter than the XM481 I have on my Enduro bike. The tyres on the SS are 400g lighter. Both are hard tails. Unfortunately the difference is noticeable ... especially if you are coming from a light fast XC bike.

Ive found that tires are so condition/terrain dependent that I almost don’t think that has much bearing on the wheels selected.

Case in point, even World Cup cross country riders were riding Schwalbe Dirty Dans (the more aggressive big brother to the already very aggressive and heavy Magic Mary) at a few races this year. Of course those races were absolute slop fests as you’d expect I’d they were running what are effectively mud spikes, but that’s kind of the point.

That said, casings are kind of independent of the tread pattern. And casing is where most of the weight comes from. But that is also kind of dependent on rider size, and how fast you are.

While I’d love to drop some weight by going back to thin casing (EXO) tires, it’s not worth dealing with the flats, or tire squirm I get in the corners (I’m heavier ish, not particularly fast).

Broad strokes I agree with you. That it’s the rim and tire combo that gives you the rotating weight, and should be optimized together. But often your tire choice is somewhat independent of the rim, as you likely don’t actually have tires that will legitimately work for your terrain and riding that are 400+ grams different in weight.

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edubfromktown

· #8 · Nov 8, 2021

damdam5 said:
I am going to be building up a new set of wheels soon and wanted to target 30mm internal width. These would see use on 2 steel hardtails both a single speed with 120mm travel and one with gears and 160mm travel. The riding is lots of up and down and fairly technical, probably nothing beyond "light enduro" if I had to guess. Not sure where those lines blur anyway between "trail" and "enduro".

Due to the climbing (and single speed setup) I initially wanted to stay under 500 grams on the rim but hard to find something in 30mm at that weight. I did find a Pacenti PI-30 which is only 470 grams, asymmetric, welded, and 30mm but alas, its out of stock. I am now looking at Stans Flow vs Stans Arch. The Arch is a little thinner in internal width (28mm vs 30mm) but the weight is nice. The Flow is a little heavier and the right width.

I am currently running DHF 2.5WT on the front which apparently is optimized for 30 - 35mm widths. I am running 29mm internal now and it does look a little bit rounder than ideal compared to the rear which is a 2.3 Aggressor. Also if width gives a little more "cush" that could be nice on a hardtail. Seems like everything continues to trend towards wider, so I am wondering if its a bit limiting to go with 28mm for the weight savings. I am also considering going with a slightly narrower tire next time around to have a little less weight and rolling resistance so maybe the 28mm is fine.

Any thoughts from you all on the pros and cons of prioritizing weight vs width or vice versa for rims?

Thanks!

I run a mixed set on one of my rigid SS 29er's - ArchEx front and FlowEx (Chris King SS hub) rear as the primary. Also have a stoopid light set of 10+ year old Crest wheels (DT 240s SS hub) that I run on it as well (depending on the terrain). Both wheel sets have held up spectacularly and remained true while carting my 195 lb carcass around

A Flow rear with 2.35" tire just clears my chainstays which provides a bit more cush/girth (setup tubeless) over an Arch rim width.

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damdam5

Discussion Starter · #9 · Nov 8, 2021

edubfromktown said:
I run a mixed set on one of my rigid SS 29er's - ArchEx front and FlowEx (Chris King SS hub) rear as the primary. Also have a stoopid light set of 10+ year old Crest wheels (DT 240s SS hub) that I run on it as well (depending on the terrain). Both wheel sets have held up spectacularly and remained true while carting my 195 lb carcass around

A Flow rear with 2.35" tire just clears my chainstays which provides a bit more cush/girth (setup tubeless) over an Arch rim width.

Thanks for the information. I've decided to just go with Flow for both, the weight penalty isn't much compared to the differences I've already experienced with heavier tires.

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