Folks, front wheels don't see nearly the kind of heavy loads or abuse that rear wheels do. It's not silly or weird to use different rims on the front and rear of your bike - for example, I run a Crest on the front, and an Arch on the rear on my XC bikes, because that way I don't have to build a new rear wheel every year, and I save some weight on the front wheel. And in my experience, front wheels are basically unkillable unless you run into a tree, or land sideways off a jump, and at that point, ALL front wheels taco, no matter what rim you're on.
You can of course use rims from different manufacturers, beefier rims, whatever. I sell *custom* frames, and with that, you can get a *custom* wheelset - that means mismatched rims are not a problem at all. If your friends give you too much crap about it, just take the stickers off, and nobody will ever know.
6 comments:
I always liked 28* front & 32* rear....
It's just better match or best match.
Most of the trials riders use front XC rim and rear DH rim.
Thomson setback seatpost and skinny
lycra looks much odd to "ordinary" people.
Sheldon Brown says "If you have the same number of spokes front and rear, either the front wheel is heavier than it needs to be, or the rear wheel is weaker than it should be."
28 front, 36 rear is my combo, and I see no reason to match rims. Or hubs for that matter.
Yep!
It's like mixing tires. Go with what works. I do wide rim front and narrow rim rear. It's kinda go-to when I'm rockin' my WW rigid fork. My future children will thank me. My past children, not so much.
Papa's home!
Funny...I never really thought about all this before. Especially so, since I am a budding wheelbuilder. Thanks for the new paradigm.
I'm pushing Flows front and rear now, but a 2 day ride on the CT plus this little reminder has me thinking - keep the Flow in the back, the build up a Crest wheel in the front.... bam saved 5 oz. Keep the extra Flow rim in the parts pile.
But, I'd rather overbuild than push a broken bike... Crest seems a little light for my liking, 355 is out of production, and Arch only saves 2 ounces.
Or I could just leave the rims alone and just get any reasonable tire lighter than WWLT......
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