How strong are XC wheels

gcwebbyuk

Just wondering how much of a bashing XC wheels can take.

I dont exactly hammer them, just sometimes the urge comes to do little jumps/bunnyhops off of things and I worry I will buckle them.

Am I being silly or should they be able to take a small amount of abuse?

Bikerbaboon

loads of things affect wheels. generaly..... your weight, the landing, the hight to the drop, how light you are when landing. that gives you the load they you will put hte wheel under when you land any jump or drop.

Give it a go if they break then you have gone to big :shock:

Bikerbaboon

im 12st and i am happy to go off 2-3ft drops to a transition. any bigger and i will chicken ourt

gcwebbyuk

Ah thats ok then, I am just shy of 13 stone but we are only talking 1 foot jumps at best!

nicklouse

not relavant. they are XC wheels designed to take what you find riding XC. the better the wheel the stronger/lighter.

your current wheels are? weak and heavy relatively.

gcwebbyuk

Current wheels are standard stumjumper HT comp wheels

.blitz

A flat landing will buckle almost any wheel but XC wheels on a FS bike can take a beating. My original XT wheels were great but when the time came to replace them I got some Mavics. I don't take them down big jumps but 1ft drops are fairly routine and they are still 'ping' tight and true.

jayson

A wheels strength depends greatly on the quality of the build more so than the exact components used to build it. A well built and properly tensioned XC wheel will be as strong as a poorly built all mountain/trail (or whatever else u want to call it) wheel.

My bike had XT hubs handbuilt by Merlin into Mavic 717 rims and they never strayed from being true not even once in over 4 years and im the worlds biggest clumbsiest muppet when it comes to riding.

ride_whenever

check out the wheel strength sticky in the workshop, very informative

as above, build makes a big difference. My 717 on deore hubs from merlin regularly do 1'-2' drops to flat and are still as true as the day they arrived, i've had "stronger" wheels go out of true due to being unevenly tensioned.

Mc Smiley

XC wheels are usually stronger than you think, i saw a guy do a 4ft drop to almost flat on a cannondale with a lefty fork. Although it probably isn't advisable all the time, i was even told my rockhopper could do this drop, this by the xc captain of my club... but no way was that happening :oops:

Admittedly they were quite smooth but certainly not the lightest guys in the world

JackBenson59

My wheels on a GT avalanche 1.0 seem to take a fair bashing. As did the ones on my old Specialized Hardrock. So as long as you aren't doing jumps over about 4ft you should be fine.

stevieboy

I can confirm that Mavic crossrides are tough wheels, even though I destroyed mine last night.

I came off big style, doing about 25mph (confirmed on polar graph readout) down some singletrack, hit a stump with my pedal (it was up), got spun round and smacked a tree rear end first. Ok the rim is broke, but it only bent about 1/2" out of true. Given the speed i'd expect the wheel to have broken spokes and all. Luckily I just need it re-rimming.

So +1 for strength of the Crossrides 8)