Which rims for a tubeless wheel build?

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Not overly keen on those super light rims, they are quite thin walled and crack more easily than others... some are hardly stiff enough.
You are all obsessed with these ultra light wheels, which frankly are crap to ride... I think 1500 grams is the right weight for a decent light set, any less and you have to make huge compromises for a handful of grams.
I would go for A 23, it is easily converted to tubeless and builds to 1500 grams

This is far to sensible a response Ugo. As you know from when you offered to build me a perfectly fit for purpose wheelset with sound thinking behind it, most of us pick a different option entirely for the bling and kudos

The man wants to save 150g, now lets help him

Term1te wrote:

Its the tubeless aspect I'm interested in. If the best rims to build up a wheel to go tubeless are 500g each, that's not too much of a problem. I've got lots of sensible wheels, most of my riding is on a bike with a dynohub (SP dynohub with Open Pro, builds a lovely wheel with some very bright lights). I built up a pair with Novatec lightweight hubs and Halo Mercury rims a few years back. Really nice fast set of wheels ridden all over the Alps without a problem, and they come in at under 1500g. I guess if you try to go sub 1000g your in trouble, but would the IRD cadence rims really be that bad? Having said that I've just looked up the A23s, which look tempting.

The A23 is a nice stiff rim, but if you can manage to run tubeless on the Archetype, that is an even nicer and stiffer rim ( and a few grams heavier). I don't like Kinlin products, whichever way they are branded: Halo, IRC... The drillings are agricultural with alloy filings left attached and the quality is very average. Planet X model B are Kinlin rims and they are very average

Term1te wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Term1te wrote:

Its the tubeless aspect I'm interested in. If the best rims to build up a wheel to go tubeless are 500g each, that's not too much of a problem. I've got lots of sensible wheels, most of my riding is on a bike with a dynohub (SP dynohub with Open Pro, builds a lovely wheel with some very bright lights). I built up a pair with Novatec lightweight hubs and Halo Mercury rims a few years back. Really nice fast set of wheels ridden all over the Alps without a problem, and they come in at under 1500g. I guess if you try to go sub 1000g your in trouble, but would the IRD cadence rims really be that bad? Having said that I've just looked up the A23s, which look tempting.

The A23 is a nice stiff rim, but if you can manage to run tubeless on the Archetype, that is an even nicer and stiffer rim ( and a few grams heavier). I don't like Kinlin products, whichever way they are branded: Halo, IRC... The drillings are agricultural with alloy filings left attached and the quality is very average. Planet X model B are Kinlin rims and they are very average

Thanks for the comments. Do you think there would be an issue running tubeless on the Archetype rims? I agree about the drilling on the Halo rims, I've taken a rat-tail file to a couple of holes.

Archetype are relatively new... I only read somewhere they can be run tubeless, which makes sense as internally they look like the old A 23. The old A 23 were not without issues in running tubeless, which is why they have introduced the new design.
So best to ask someone who has actually tried if/how it works

The new A23 rim for tubeless is the one I would go for. With A291 and F482 novatec hubs and sapim Laser spokes front and NDS rear and Sapim Race spokes DS rear with alloy nipples would give a light weight set in 24F/28R form. That would work for my weight at least. These would weigh in at 1460g. In fact I might built those up. Add another 40g or so for brass nipples.

Kinlin rims are cheap and lightweight. I have a pair and they seem fine when riding. The good thing about klinlin rims is there weight is consistant and they do build up well with even tension and small radial and lateral true tollerances. The quality of the drillings is of little consequene to me as it does not effect the built much at all.

Velocities rims are a much higher quality product though. Nothing wrong with light weight wheels either so long as they are reliable. Ride quality most comes from the tyre width, tyre TPI/suppleness and pressures used. Rim and spoke choice do affect ride quality but to a lesser extent but it not due to vertial compliance as the rim when load cannot flex enough vertically to notice. I do think certain combinations of spokes and rims do not dissapate the sub mm amplitude vibrations as well as others. We can feel sound after all and such small amplitude vibrations are sound. It think that is people describing when talking about ride quality of a wheel.
Changing to wider more supple tyres helps in this case.