Without a lot of the fanfare that's accompanied many new rims onto the market, Easton has quietly muscled its way up the mountain to, or at least exceptionally near, the top of the component rim heap. With rims for every application for which we build, they're exceptionally high quality rims that we love building and are excited for people to use. They are available in Select and Select+, Select Disc, Select MTB, and Custom builds, and we also ship standalone rims.
A knife for every fight
When we first started working with Easton rims about a year ago, they were a little bit of a tough sell even with their evident quality and great specs. Several people mentioned bad experiences with Easton hubs, and also trouble with lower spoke count builds that were marketed as being appropriate for really heavy riders. We understand the sentiment, but neither of those is at play here. And yes, we can get R90SL road rims in 20 hole. At first we couldn't but we've been stocking them and shipping them for a good long time now.
So what do we like about them? Right in the front door, they're great looking. The finish is superb and the graphics are tasteful and removable (just like me). They're light enough but they're not trying to press it in a "hey look at me, I'm so light!" way that's going to wind up giving trouble down the road or trail.
As a product lineup, they've got the use gamut covered. From road racing to fat bike, they've got a width and a diameter that makes perfect sense across the board. Totally complete product range. What might confuse you a little bit is that the mountain oriented stuff is branded RaceFace while the roadie stuff is Easton. Same company, same everything, it's just a continuation of brand heritage.
A lot of builders out there are starting to consider the R90SL as - blasphemy, heresy, sacrilege - superior to the HED Belgium+. Not sure I can call it superior, but enough people will have heard me describe it as a peer and probably an equal. You really just don't see better made aluminum rims. And that goes right across the board to the other rims as well. I use a set of ARC24s on my cross country bike and ooh la la are they nice.
The R90SL is perfect for any kind of road use, from racing to touring to "groad" (h/t Caley Fretz, a portmanteau I can get on board with). It's also an excellent CX tubeless rim. For dedicated gravel and XC use, the ARC24 is our top recommendation. And then for burlier MTB uses it's a matter of matching width and diameter to your bike and tires.
We have a bunch of Easton builds on the board (part of the reason that this will be shortish - we're slammed) in everything from R90SLs with T11s to R90SL disc with CLDs to ARC30s with I9 Boost hubs. I'm sure they'll all pop up on our Instagram feed so take a look there.
Not that many wheel companies have seen the benefit of offering well made component rims for custom and semi-custom builds, but Easton has done it and we thank them for it.
2 comments
Dave,Cool stuff; I'm curious what your thoughts are on the new Pacenti Forza (SL23 successor) vs the Easton R90SL's. They seem like they're going for a similar market
Hi Dan -There are all sorts of rims going for that market for sure. For us, we haven't become all that familiar with the Forza yet. We've built several and they've been nice, but the reason we've built those several is because several SL23 rears needed to be warranty replaced because of spoke hole cracks. Couple that with a really crappy situation last summer in which, after being told we were selling more of their rims than any other wheel builder, we were told with no notice that SL23s were out of stock and not available until an unknown future time, and we're not in a rush to get back on board there. Our enthusiasm for the Easton product and their ability to effectively supply us with quality product is unmitigated, so for us it is a simple decision and a clear preference. Dave