Tag Archives: 29er

The light, bright, stiff wheels from North Carolina are due back BACK NOW! in stock at JRA soon after 2 or 3 years away (that's why all our photos show old rims), sometime in December we hope now. As before we're building on Stan's NoTubes rims, with others to order if the spoke lengths match up.

The first thing to notice about Industry Nine wheelsets is the bright colours and anodised aluminium spokes but there's a lot more to them than that. 120 engagement points in the hubs, unbelievable stiffness from the thick (but light) spokes, interchangeability between all the usual axle types...

The wheels come in a few formats; Mountain bike wheels come with XC or Enduro hub options (details below), and 3 different spoke thicknesses. They are available in 26", 650b and 29er sizes, and with Shimano/Sram 9/10 speed or Sram XD (for XX1 11-speed) freehubs. Front hubs to fit the Cannondale Lefty forks are also available. Then there's a singlespeed rear hub too...basically there's an I9 hub to fit virtually any bike. Expected prices for standard colours (red, black, silver) is around £780 per pair of wheels, custom colours are extra (probably £60 - £80 per pair).

I had a pair (the orange ones in the photos below) and loved riding them. The stiffness of the aluminium spokes and the Stan's Flow rims was like no other wheels I've ridden. They are strong too; I never broke a spoke or had the wheel go out of true even after a load of races and the Megavalanche.

Then there are the "classic" hubs; same internals as the wheelsets but with conventional flanges for normal J-bend steel spokes.

Finally the road hubs, these weren't available back when we first built Industry Nine wheels so we're still working out the options, but the hubs look every bit as good as the MTB hubs and come in at just 86g front, 240g rear with a 39(!) tooth drive ring and 3 pawls for low drag - road hubs just don't need the fast take-up of the MTB hubs.

Probably the strongest 29er wheels we've built so far, with a few custom touches we thought they were worth putting up on the blog with a few words.

The Enve AM 29er rim is one of the strongest around, and to complete the bombproof build they were specced with Chris King ISO disk hubs including a stainless steel drive shell (freehub body). Not that we've had any trouble with the aluminium ones.

Most of our Enve builds use Sapim CX-Ray or DT Revolution spokes. The 2.0mm internal spoke nipples mean that DT Supercomps with their 1.8mm thread can't be used, however we needed extra strength for this build so Sapim's new D-Light spoke (2.0-1.65mm double butted) came to the rescue. Weight for 32 spokes in 288mm length comes to 170g.

Wheel weights: Front 824g, rear 1009g

The customer sent us a quick email after trying them out....

"Just wanted to report back on my first ride on these wheels, they're amazing!  You were right, night and day [compared] with my previous wheels.

Spent a few hours riding around Surrey, Pitch, Winterfold and Holmbury. Initially had to re-learn to ride downhill again, turn-in is so much quicker, cornering is incredibly precise. Only did one little drop (Judges Seat), the wheels feel very solid upon landing :-)"

We've been through this more time than I can remember this year, the lure of the Stan's NoTubes ZTR Gold 29er wheelset against the American Classic hubs custom built onto Crest 29ers.

I say lure as there is something about the Golds that people 'want', the ultimate weight saving, knowing they have the lightest 29er rim - ever. It seems to override the very standard NoTubes ZTR hubs at the centre and the compromises which come with the extreme weight saving and which may be too much for some people. When 29ers came into existence we were shocked by how flexible the wheels were compared to the 26 inch size and that was before the Golds arrived on the scene.

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Curious to see how the 3 wheels sizes, 26", 650b and 29er/700c measured up against each other in real life with and without tyres so we got the tape measure out and wrote down some numbers.

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We had to pull out all the stops to get this one together for a customer so we thought we'd put it on the blog to make a few of you "Enveous".

Enve 29er rims laced to Tune Cannonball Lefty and Kong in blue. Laced with red and black DT Swiss Aerolite spokes.

It's  a shame the Prince and Cannonball SL hubs weren't available at the time otherwise it would be even lighter...note of caution - We found a little of the red powder coat flaked off the spokes where they are bent around the hub flange. It's only on the head-inwards spokes, and the Tune hubs are probably more susceptible to this than others due to the tight fit. It's also possible some red may come off where the spokes cross, although the ultra stiff Enve rim should minimise this.

And the weights? 627g for the front, and 731g for the rear excluding rim tape and valves (total 1358g). Pretty light for a 29er wheelset, and extremely stiff.

From the customer "I was out yesterday, testing for the first time: Absolutely fantastic performance!!! I love the way they act on the track."

We're pleased to announce that Just Riding Along have been chosen to import the new Pacenti tubeless-ready rims into the UK.

Kirk Pacenti is best known for pushing the 650b wheel size standard, and supplying frame builders with parts though his bikelugs.com business. However he's long had a desire to produce mountain bike rims to fill certain gaps in the market, the first was a collaboration with Velocity (the P35, which we featured in this article) but now he is developing his own range beginning with the TL28.

The rim has an appealing combination of weight, width and strength and is fully eyeletted. At 28mm width (23mm internal), and just 360g (26"), 409g (650b) and 438g (29er), there is nothing else quite like it currently on the market which is why we were so keen to bring them in. It helps that it's designed to be tubeless compatible in the usual tape/valve way and the profiles we've seen look to be just the right shape for good tubeless performance.

We are expecting  advance samples of the 26" and 29er rims in the next week. Production samples are expected in the UK around the end of November / beginning of December by which time we should have had a chance to give the samples a good testing in the Sheffield rocks and grime. The rims are aimed at normal trail riders, not big-air merchants; by his own admission Kirk is a wheels-on-the-ground kind of man. We, on the other hand, like to indulge ourselves occasionally with some inappropriate riding so we'll be sure to give the rims a good workout.

Update: Prices now available. The rims will retail for £78.50 each, and are available to pre-order in the shop >

Our rim range continues to grow with some new road and mountain bike products in from Salsa and Velocity.

Salsa Delgado

The Delgado is available in 26" and 29er size, with the 29er costing £39.99 per rim and the 26" £59.99 for reasons we don't understand! It comes with a cool chilli sticker.
Read more about the rim here Salsa Delgados

Velocity P35

The P35 is designed by "650b guru" and all-round bike inventor Kirk Pacenti so they are bound to be a bit different, and at 35mm wide they are large. Our build here shows them on a customers front hub from a Jones Spaceframe, at 135mm wide they are the same as most rear hubs.

The idea is that a super-wide rim expands the tyre more than normal so you get more traction, and you can run lower pressures making the tyre mould over bumps better - more comfort and less rolling resistance. More on the P35 rim here >

Velocity A23

More rims from Velocity expand our 700c range and the A23 has already been popular in the short time we've stocked it. Wide-ish for a road rim at 23mm gives the tyre a bigger footprint and smoother more comfortable ride, with the potential to be more aerodynamic as well.
At £48 per rim the price is reasonable too, more on the rim here >

The A23 is shown above laced to an Ambrosio hub, usual price £216 for the pair but currently in our 2011 summer sale from £183>

Velocity Deep-V

The Deep-V is one of the Velocity rims that comes in a range of powder coated colours, we've picked the orange to look at as it's our company colour here.  A deep section rim, it's mostly seen on fixies without the machined sidewalls (MSW) but we're not that cool so we've build a MSW on some Miche silver track hubs to take a look at them, normal price is  £220 - Currently in our summer sale 2011 for £187

Aerohead rims

The only power coated 700c non-deep section rim available from Velocity. We've got a pair of the "space blue" colour to look at, they have a nice finish and a reasonable weight of 423g (checked by us). They are also available in this long list of colours:

Anodized finish: Black, Silver matt or Bright Gold.

Powder Coated: White, Electric Blue, Frost Blue, Yellow, Lime Green, Anti-Freeze Green, Tangerine Orange, Red or Purple.

more on the rim here >

We took some of our newest and latest wheels to the Bespoked hand made bicycle show in Bristol. The Enve carbon wheelsets (both mountain bike and road) were predictably the main attraction for a lot of people, but the second most popular wheels were at the other end of the price scale - Miche road hubs on Ambrosio road rims for £244. Other MTB highlights were cherry red Crests, 650b's, triplet spoke lacing and Alfine 11spds. On the road side, Chris King R45 hubs built on Alpha 340 rims were looking good.

We have recreated the show in our own yard, some of the wheels are now for sale at a small discount, but all are available as custom builds to your own specification. There will be a part 2 coming soon with the rest.

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