Mountain Bike Wheels
Our mountain bike wheel section has, as of this writing, 27 rim/hub combo options in it. Throughout the day, it will get somewhere around double that. By the time it's done, it might have quintuple that. We have a lot of standard options, with rims from RaceFace, Stan's, and Enve, and hubs from Hope, White Industries, Chris King, and Industry Nine. And of course we have other options available as custom builds.
As we've griped about before, between axle options, and color options, and rotor mounting options, and rim diameter options, and drive options, it can get pretty blurry pretty quickly. We wish there was a cleaner merchandizing presentation, but where's the fun in that?
Three or four years ago, 24mm internal was like crazy wide. Now the 23mm-internal Stan's Crest is the narrowest rim in the lineup. With the added width comes the benefit of better tire support, but it also comes at the price of some grams. In both respects, there is no "more is better" (width) or "less is better" (weight). If you're using 2.25" XC tires, a Crest or an Arch (coming soon) or an Enve 525 build is often going to be a better fit than a 30mm RaceFace ARC30 build. Too much rim width creates a squared-off tire profile, which can cause some really regrettable tire behavior. On the other hand, if you're using 2.6" tires on a longer travel trail-oriented bike, a wider but slightly heavier rim is going to be the right support base for them.
Videos
Videos can be expensive and time consuming to make, so we've only done a few. We just posted one yesterday about how to install our center lock rotor disc shims. Some day we will do a proper channel and everything, but for now here you go
A Few Quick Hits
Just getting through my twice-a-decade-get-sick installment, I wound up reading like way more than my usual improbable amount. The new Phil Gaimon book is a droll read, definitely worth it. One thing I notice is how much equipment damage he mentions. In one section, cracking carbon tubular rims seems like an every race thing. He mentions it in passing and with discretion, but you don't normally hear about this stuff in equipment sponsorship stuff. He also rips one team director apart, which is personally funny because I wound up talking to the guy about sponsorship at one point and felt like I needed to take a bleach bath after the conversation. Total sleaze was my impression, backed up by Phil.
Also finally read Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard. He's always been my top answer for the "name one person living or dead with whom you'd like to have dinner" question, and Patagonia has always been our corporate role model. Read that and you'll get a lot of the perspective from which we try to approach the wheel business.
And then I spent some time on forums. Man, the internet is in a foul mood these days. Forums can be a great source of info and feedback and banter, but holy cats the dogma, vitriol, and willingness to speak first and know later is sometimes shocking.
Finally, what a day of racing at the CX Nationals yesterday.