FIRST IMPRESSIONS | TEARDOWN
Stan's M-pulse Hubs & Flow CB7 Carbon Rims
Stan's Wins
Why someone would consider buying Stay's CB7s over another carbon wheelset. There are many justifications that folks will rank in making their own choice, and we're in this beautiful spot now with high-end bike components where once a rider's prepared to outlay the necessary lucre it's rare to be proven wrong.
Many wheel features, especially compliance, which Stan's also claims is a focus of their carbon rims, are verified by a mist of anecdotes and impressions. Claims always come with caveats attached; your mileage may vary. This is a first look at a wheelset I'm testing from Stan's NoTubes and I want to lead off by discussing two areas that it's superior to other choices.
- Easy Tubeless Tire Inflation
- Low-drag Coasting
How these two features rank against the most generous warranty, the most alien aesthetics, claims of Herculean survivability, or a western country of origin, is entirely up to the purchaser to decide. Many hours in, they aren't likely to be the whole story of this wheelset.
The Flow CB7 rims are carbon, but they don't feel the need to yell it at you. They air up tires wonderfully (like any Stan's rim).
The rims have a significant offset in order to even spoke tension. The wheels arrived perfectly straight, true, and tensioned.
The CB7 rims are relatively lightweight, and they include a promise of durability and compliance that's commonplace for all carbon companies now.
Easy Tubeless Tire Inflation
This carries over from Stan's aluminum rims. Tire fit is rarely a Goldilocks tale, but from the baggiest 29" Maxxis EXO+ to the tightest, slightly-tiny Schwalbe 27" Super Trail, no rims consistently air up a tire like Stan's. I don't even pull the Presta valve cores when inflating these with a floor pump, which I do for every other brand of rims on the market.
This is thanks to Stan's BST, or Bead Seat Technology, which is still the best tubeless-ready system going. It's combined here with a significant rim offset to even out spoke tension for a stronger wheel system.
I'll still recommend a DT EX511 over a Stan's EX3 for the anti-insert trail smasher looking for the most durable rim, but the truth is that most mountain bikers are more stressed about over-inflating tubeless tires than they they are about turning their rims egg-shaped.
The pawls of the M-pulse hubs split the difference between Project 321's loud and quiet pawls. I'd call them medium volume. They sound sweet without being annoying.
The retaining ring holding the powerfully-magnetic pawls in their seats is an awesome upgrade over my P321 G2 hubs when it comes time for a clean and lube or full service.
Low-Drag Coasting
Stan's M-pulse wheels use Project 321's magnetic drive system. I'll write more about the intelligent updates that the Stan's-specific hubs have received over the P321 G2 hubs that I'm still riding but, at the end of the ride, it's the same system. And one thing that everyone I know who's ridden these hubs agrees on, is how drag-free they seem to roll.
As with a slightly-rubbing brake rotor or turning the cranks in a low gear with a shitty chainline, it's questionable what difference this feeling really makes to wattage, but psychologically it's amazing going back and forth.
The M-pulse uses Project 321's 6-pawl 1.66° engagement system. After a foray into engagement adventurism I can say definitively that super-fast engaging hubs feel better for me on the technical trails I seek out on the Shore.
The fast 1.66° engagement is a secondary story to how fast and freely these hubs spin. You can feel the difference just rolling down a hill.
Does the low-drag performance really matter when I'm plunking around the woods on my Marinster Truck running MaxxGrip rubber?
On my list, nice wheels are a key upgrade that I throw in behind good geometry, good rubber, good contact points, and good brakes.
Aesthetic Understatement
Carbon rims come in unusual profiles that differentiate them from aluminum hoops. Here I'm thinking of the rolling waves and 7.5° spoke angle of We Are One's Convergence rim (rim only 475 USD) or the wild single-wall Zipp 3Zero Moto (rim only 750 USD).
As with these rims, the shallow Stan's Flow CB7 (rim only 600 USD) has been engineered with compliance in mind, but aesthetically, until I'm right up close they look almost identical to an aluminum Stan's Flow rim. I'm all in on this sleeper look. Take the blend of weight savings, dent-elimination, and reportedly-improved radial compliance and lateral stiffness the carbon rim offers and package it simply.
The M-pulse hub and Flow CB7 carbon combination stands out on the trail, but not in a photograph. I'll be running them on a couple different bikes.
The hub graphics are understated as well. I appreciate Stan's choice of 32x spokes per wheel instead of the increasingly common 28x.
Depending on the publishing order, this is my first or second tease of CushCore's new Trail inserts. Multi-bike review coming soon(ish).
HG(4EVA)
My favourite feature of Shimano's XT M8130 LinkGlide drivetrain is the increased availability of the Hyperglide (HG) freehub standard. Stan's, of course, sells these wheels with XD or MicroSpline freehubs as well. I have an HG freehub body so I can run the Flow CB7 setup on a couple of different bikes.
The M-pulse HG freehub body is also compatible with 11-speed road cassettes. In practical terms for us mountain bikers, that means you need to run the, included, 1.8mm spacer behind your Shimano mountain bike cassette, regardless of how many gears you have.
Classic HG freehub body.
Classic black-on-black graphics.
Classic QC/QA signature cards.
M-pulse Upgrades
The North America-made P321 free hub bod, is a great place to jump into how this hub differs from a Project 321 G2. There are two nice, subtle, upgrades and one obvious downgrade.
I have two P321 G2 hubs in regular use. A single-speed hub, run as a 6-speed, on my gravel/commuter rig and the hub I originally reviewed for NSMB, starting in October 2017. I have serviced both hubs a number of times. Since every one of the pawls has a powerful magnet attached to it, it can be a bit tricky reinserting the freehub body into the drive system as they all want to slide out and stick to the drive ring.
Stan's has solved that little niggle by capturing the pawls in the freehub with a small retaining ring. It's such an elegant solution that I expect we'll see it when the newly-Canadian P321 launches the production version of its G3 hub.
Front & rear Stan's M-pulse hubs use a clean and easy to adjust preload collar.
Stan's includes a nice 2mm hex key with every set of wheels.
I like to adjust preload with my wheels tightened into my frame or fork.
The other upgrade on the M-pulse hubs I quite like is the preload system. It's not as stealthy and clean as the inline design on the P321 G2s, but it's much simpler to use with the wheels installed on my bike - which is when preload should be adjusted. These hubs spin so smoothly out of the box that I'm at a bit of a loss to differentiate them from other high-end hubs like the Industry Nine Hydra.
Now about that clear downgrade. The Japanese EZO bearings that come as stock in the Project 321 G2 hubs are excellent. In my experience, they spin more smoothly and last much longer than the Enduro bearings shipping in most high-performance hubs, including the M-pulse.
At the same time these feel like the smoothest hubs I've ridden with Enduro bearings, so for me, it's a question of how they hold up, in particular to our North Shore winter conditions.
The M-pulse hubs are very simple to work on. Apart from 2mm hex key all that's needed to open them are a pair of 17mm wrenches.
The only thing to note is that the bearing preloader does not come off the axle until it's removed from the hub.
The hubs spin so smoothly. I'll report back on how the Enduro bearings hold up compared to the EZO bearings on the P321 G2.
Two of the six multi-stage magnetic pawls are engaged at any given time delivering 216 points of engagement.
Here again, the retention clip makes reinstalling the Project 321 driver on the M-pulse hub a much more consistent operation than on the G2.
Preloaded
All hub-bearing systems are preloaded, but how they are preloaded falls into two categories and there are dogmatic followers of both. Personally, I like to judge hub designs individually, since I've seen catastrophic examples both ways.
The M-pulse hubs, like the P321 G2 or Chris King, use adjustable preload via a locking collar. This allows the rider to tune how much the hub bearings are preloaded to maximize how freely they spin. The negative is that this preload needs to be adjusted to achieve optimum performance and some hubs have issues with coming loose.
You are more likely to encounter the system used by Industry Nine Hydra and 1/1 hubs, DT Swiss hubs and many others. These use a carefully-toleranced internal spacer to support the bearings as the hub itself is preloaded by tightening down your frame or fork axle. The setup is totally intuitive, and the only preloader to come loose is your frame axle, but there's no perfecting your hub's drag by micro-adjusting bearing tension.
Stan's M-pulse axle and preload system looks much simpler than the Project 321 G2 system.
But as long as it's similarly great at keeping the bearings preloaded, I'll take it over the tiny hex key of P321's inline system.
I'm a setup nerd and I prefer the pros of an adjustable bearing tension system over the simplicity of a non-adjustable system. I appreciate why many riders would rather not have the added intrigue that a tuneable preload collar can bring to the trailhead. Preload at home folks!
It's early days on these wheels but I can say definitively that they air up easily with a floor pump as I expect from Stan's rims, and they spin supernaturally and engage lightning fast, like my P321 G2 hubs, which makes perfect sense.
I'll be back with more to say once I have enough hours on them, but in the meantime here's more information about the M-pulse & Flow CB7 carbon wheels (1987 USD | pair) and the Flow CB7 rim (600 USD | each).
Height - Steve Buscemi-ish
Wait - Patiently
Ape Index - T-Rex
Age - The same as DOS
Favourite Trail(s) every week - Pipeline (thank you Ken!) to Lower Crippler (thank you Andy!)
Favourite Song(s) this week - I'm Your Man. Nick Cave (covering Leonard Cohen)
Favourite Colour - Cosmic Lilac
Bar Width - It depends
Reach & Stack & ETT - It depends
Crank Length - 175mm except when it's 170mm
Wheel Size - Hot For Mullets
Comments
KavuRider
10 months, 1 week ago
Great write up! These look interesting.
Stans rims just seem to work for me. I've run lots of others but for ease of tubeless setup and durability, for me they can't be beat.
I have heard some durability horror stories about their hubs, so I will be interested to see your thoughts after you have ridden these for a while.
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Andrew Major
10 months, 1 week ago
Thank you!
Folks buy different carbon rims for different reasons - different rims for different reasons - and there are a lot of good options now in both aluminum and carbon, but Stan’s certainly stills wins the ease of inflation prize.
Like Industry Nine, and a few other companies, Stan’s should probably offer a heavy duty steel axle upgrade (adding weight and cost) for heavy hitters and especially heavy hitters who don’t stay on top of bearing service. It’s rare a broken axle isn’t enjoined by a roached hub shell bearing.
That said, the axle design on the M-pulse seems more robust and thoughtful than past hubs and the P321 guts have been ultra reliable in my two hubs (single-speeding) so the thing I’ll be keeping the closest eye on is the Enduro bearings.
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I plan to do a long term follow up and then a proper-long term follow up like I did with G2. Thanks for following along!
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Justin White
10 months, 1 week ago
I don't know if Stan's requested it or it came from P321, but the retaining ring is definitely part of the G3 updates: it can be seen in the preview on their site. I'd be willing to bet G3 is getting everything new that M-Pulse has, plus maybe more.
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Andrew Major
10 months, 1 week ago
Excited to see G3 hubs. Even if they’re just Canadian made M-pulse hubs in cool colours with EZO bearings.
I need to check if M-pulse uses the same bearing dimensions. Could be an easy upgrade to get an EZO kit from P321.
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Frorider
10 months, 1 week ago
As a longterm user of 2 sets of project 321 hubs, they definitely became my favorite overall compared to I9, Hope, DT, CK, and raceface so I was stoked to hear they were going to get the mainstream exposure of Stan’s. However this is the first I’ve heard of the bearing downgrade…perhaps due to the marketing perception out there that Enduros are good?
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Andrew Major
10 months, 1 week ago
The perception that Enduro bearings are a higher grade option is interesting. Marketing? Group think? But it’s real. Why spend a pike more money on something else when Enduro is the standard? Really.
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Not meant as a dig on Enduro. I’m pressing their bearings into frames and hubs every day I’m turning wrenches. Their MaxHit stuff (BB, headset, is RAD).
Not meant as a dig on high-end hub companies spec’ing Enduro. Other than Chris King doing their thing and Project 321, these are the bearings you’d expect to find.
I’m keeping an open mind. The hubs seem well shielded and being able to run perfect preload should help with bearing longevity, but wow, the EZO bearings in both my P321 G2 rear hubs have been amazing!
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I’m very much not surprised to see Enduro in the Stan’s version (just the driver guts are P321).
I’m very much hoping to still see EZO in P321 G3 when they ship.
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I’m still regularly riding a G2 single-speed hub (run as a 6-spd) on my commuter and the G2 hub I reviewed for NSMB on my single-speed. Both are awesome.
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Andrew Major
10 months, 1 week ago
For a parallel example. I can’t blame Banshee for switching from INA to Enduro Max in their FS frames. The majority of riders who actually care what bearings come in a frame want Enduro, and the INA bearings cost significantly more which means higher prices when you’re already trying to educate customers that there’s levels to aluminum frame manufacturing, especially of the small batch variety.
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mikeynets
10 months, 1 week ago
Do you recommend something other than the Banshee-spec'd Enduro bearings when it comes time to replace the suspension bearings?
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Andrew Major
10 months, 1 week ago
Yes and no. In the shop and also for suspension bikes I work on more intimately, like my brother’s ‘old’ aluminum GG Smash, I use Enduro Max bearings.
It can be a good idea to pop the seals and make sure they have grease in them before installing.
I do appreciate the brands that used to run INA bearings and understand why they don’t anymore. If I had a full suspension bike I planned to own for years I’d certainly consider sourcing them. For example, it’s insane how long bearings used to last in original Knolly V-Tach or Delirium-T frames.
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Timer
10 months, 1 week ago
With bike bearings, I think that quality of the parts itself often isn't the limiting factor. As long as it's halfway decent.
INA or SKF bearings won't last much longer in a bike that gets an intimate pressure washer treatment after every ride. Nor will high quality bearings survive long in a misaligned FS frame.
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Andrew Major
10 months ago
There are a lot of factors to consider, certainly. Not all hosers are created equally and certainly some frames shield bearings much better than others (the horizontally shocked Process bikes for example are very well shielded).
All things being equal though, I think the average rider would find higher quality bearings last longer in their frame and, assuming they’re paying someone else for an overhaul, paying more upfront could save money long term when you factor in labour.
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danithemechanic
10 months, 1 week ago
Another great review, thanks Andrew.
All i ask for when reading hub reviews, is that they'd be cracked open and compared to the other systems.
I need to know wich bearings in wich size they have!
Most reviews will tell you it spins, how much light it is, a number of hyperboles, and what's inside remains a mistery...
Like for Hope's new pro 5, did you know the centerlock version doesn't have a seal outside the nds bearing?
But i didn't read it anywhere, i noticed at Eurobike.
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Andrew Major
10 months, 1 week ago
Cheers Dan,
I’d be keen to ride the Pro 5. If only because Hope generally does a great job of straddling quality / performance / price / desirability.
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danithemechanic
10 months, 1 week ago
Yeah i was excited about them too, because Hope is synonimous of quality-durability-value, and the company itself is really rooted in the bike culture.
But these hubs feel like a refinement we didn't really need, they seem to me like a product born in the need of changing manufacturing methods.
The real improvement here is the freehub, that's different than pro4. But as hub drag and such, hubs are equivalent.
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Andrew Major
10 months, 1 week ago
Making quality product more efficiently is a great way to keep value up. Assuming savings flow through to the rider.
Here I think about an example like these very well built factory wheels (like these Stan’s) versus calculating spoke lengths, pulling components, and lacing hoops one at a time in the shop.
If Hope’s new hubs are easier to make and the same quality that good?
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Alexander Filler
10 months, 1 week ago
"no rims consistently air up a tire like Stan's. I don't even pull the Presta valve cores when inflating these with a floor pump, which I do for every other brand of rims on the market"
I'll put a plug in here for Spank, I've aired up new and used tires from EXO to DH casing on several Spank rims using a floor pump and valve cores in without issue. Plus they have been more sturdy and reliable than any other wheelset I've come across yet, the holy We are One included.
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Andrew Major
10 months, 1 week ago
I won’t complain specifically about any brands - mechanic life - but fresh tires in the shop over many units I haven’t noticed anything good or bad about Spank rims in the inflation department. The rims do seem to hold up very well and I think their HexDrive hubs are excellent for the money.
It’s been my experience that Stan’s is consistently simpler than anything else, rim after rim, regardless of tire brand.
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Alexander Filler
10 months, 1 week ago
Agreed re: durability and value on the Hex hubs.
If you can air up a WTB tire on the Stans rim with a floor pump and without sealant, I will be somewhat impressed. Maybe I don't have your shop level volume, but WTBs have been worse to seat than any other tire I have had my hands on.
All this said, ease of seating a tire is about my lowest concern when deciding on a rim, but I change tires once or twice a year when they wear out, don't use inserts and have a compressor in my garage.
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Andrew Major
10 months, 1 week ago
As I said, whether ease of tire mounting or lowest drag freewheeling are reasons to buy these carbon wheels over another set is going to be in the eyes of the bike owner.
I’ve seen awful examples of too tight and too loose tire fits from every brand. If I had to choose a winner for most consistent it would actually be Specialized.
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Justin White
10 months, 1 week ago
I'll second Spank wheels, especially the Hex Drive hubs, and to an extent the 35x series rims in the 32 hole guise.
I've smashed pawls enough to drag on a few different hubs, including a Hope Pro 2 (albeit after lots of dirty miles), but the Hex Drive hubs are holding up well. I think it might have a lot to do with the multi-tooth engagement of the pawls, much like the loud P321 pawls and these Stan's pawls, versus the single-tooth style in all the hubs I've destroyed. The teeth on both sides are smallish, they have to be to fit 102 POE without offset pawls, but since each pawl grabs 3 teeth at once, they're tough. The noise is kinda hi-frequency/buzzy and might bother people if it was louder, but it's probably a little less than middle ground on volume with a good dose of Dumonde Tech Freehub Oil.
The rims, while having a good amount of overall hoop strength for alloys, they can't take a ton of spoke tension. They are also very vertically compliant, so if you beat on them they will lose tension relatively quickly, even with [more elastic] double-butted spokes. I had a 28-spoke on the back and very quickly I noticed that I could find loose spokes simply by looking for aluminum dust around the nipples. It eventually died when a dirty spoke-hole gave way enough to overload and snap its neighbor spoke at the nipple. Another 28-spoke is holding up much better as a front wheel, as is a 32-spoke in back of the same bike. And the 28-hole hub from the busted wheel is in the queue to get laced to a [fairly bombproof] Roval carbon rim, and I expect that wheel to last a very long time.
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Andrew Major
10 months, 1 week ago
I haven’t had an opportunity to do a Hex Drive review/teardown but I’d like to. From the perspective of working on other peoples’ bikes I’m quite impressed.
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Cr4w
10 months, 1 week ago
I'm normally pretty dismissive of these package wheels but the features listed here are pretty compelling TBH. But are they compelling enough to divert me from WR1 next time?
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Andrew Major
10 months, 1 week ago
Ah, but isn’t that the game? Completes Vs. Custom builds on value. Completes Vs. Completes on features. All trying to catch your eye with whatever differentiating feature whether it be cosmetics or ‘compliance’ or simple cash flow.
Made In Canada has a strong pull for me. I really like the P321 hubs.
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Tim Coleman
10 months, 1 week ago
I'm in the same boat. I really like Made in Canada and the quality of We Are One rims. But the folks in my usual riding group, and myself have had poor luck with Industry Nine.
The two sets of P321 hubs I've had have been flawless. The hubs are so fast and effortless, and the EZO bearings last forever.
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Andrew Major
10 months, 1 week ago
Just ordered fresh EZO bearings for the set of hubs I’ve been running for years. Front and rear. Pretty amazing longevity.
Still fairly smooth and drag free. But at the same time it’s obviously time.
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DBone57
10 months, 1 week ago
I have never met the average Joe Sixpack that didn't overtighten any bearing that has an adjustable preload system. I much prefer DTs torque the axle to 10-12nm and go ride system myself.
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Andrew Major
10 months, 1 week ago
I see plenty of King hubs in an average year and generally they’re under-preloaded if anything.
But yeah, I9 or DT or Ringle or etc, frame axle preloading is a simple but not faultless way to remove guesswork. I have come across my share of hubs that bind up when the frame axle is tightened (over preloaded).
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Andy Eunson
10 months, 1 week ago
I am speculating, but I think Race Face ditched the aluminum preload ring for plastic on their 30mm cranks. My first pair of Next cranks had an aluminum ring. Too easy the crank that thing down. That may be one reason why their 30mm bsa bbs didn’t have a great reputation for longevity.
I’ve had numerous Stan’s rims in the past and their bead socket technology and internal shape meant that airing up tires was always easy.
Offset spoke holes make way more sense to me than super boost.
Question: Does Enduro make their own bearings or have some other bearing entities like SKF or Timken make them to their spec?
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Andrew Major
10 months, 1 week ago
Re. Race Face, I’m sure the fact the plastic ones are pennies on the dollar doesn’t hurt. The plastic ones are such crap, twice I’ve paid to buy CaneCreek adjusters as an upgrade.
I quite like Cinch and RF aluminum cranks and my old Turbines have been rad. But if the preloader material change was down to their lowest common denominator customers they should have made all their cranks install/tension like Aeffect R. Idiot proof-ish.
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Justin White
10 months, 1 week ago
RaceFace's 24mm preload system, including AEffect [R] cranks, is great. Elastomer-covered 1mm-thick spacers (that also serve double duty as fine adjustment for chainline, which is lacking from many BB/crank "standards") do the job of preloading. Just crank the one bolt "pretty tight" (35Nm?) and it's done. So good!
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Andrew Major
10 months, 1 week ago
I know Enduro bearings come out of factories in Singapore, Taiwan, and China and my understanding is they are at least partially owned by ABI Industries in Singapore, which is a bearing producer for many industrial applications.
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Justin White
10 months, 1 week ago
DT Swiss is far from the only one (Hope, Spank, many OEM house brands) to do "spacer-based preload", where the tolerances of the spacer between the inner races, the hub shell holding the outer races, and the axle tension, all combine to provide the "preload". It's nice and easy, but they're almost all done with plain deep-groove bearings, which also need to be perfectly in tolerance. Theoretically, the angular contact bearings used in many adjustable preload systems can be set up to run freer while maintaining comparable free-play. In the world of marginal gains, some folks will make the trade-off between ease of use and potential fractional watts.
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Steven Hambleton
10 months, 1 week ago
Hey Andrew, did you weigh them?
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Andrew Major
10 months, 1 week ago
Hahahaha. Of course not. But enough folks have asked that I’ll strip them and weigh them for my review.
Stan’s says the front wheel (29”) is 799-grams, the rear wheels (27”) is 905-grams and rims are 455 for the 29” and 420 for the 27”.
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Hugo Williamson
10 months, 1 week ago
Tip for getting tyres to “pop” on , just wipe a small amount of silicone spray on the beads, seems to help.
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Andrew Major
10 months, 1 week ago
There are many different ways to convince stubborn rubber to bead up.
I still think it’s noteworthy enough to mention that in my experiences Stan’s rims are least likely to require any additional tricks - regardless of rubber.
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MTB_THETOWN
10 months, 1 week ago
I've heard it's best to just use a bit of sealant. You don't want to mix something in that could reduce the effectiveness of the sealant itself. Soapy water is a trick you hear a lot, but that is maybe the worst since it can really reduce the performance of the sealant since the soap breaks it down.
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bushtrucker
9 months, 3 weeks ago
I don't trust any tubeless setup I can't get to seat with a floor pump without sealant. And although I'm not in the market for a carbon wheelset I do enjoy Stans aluminium rims on 3 wheelsets so it's nice to hear my positive experiece with them is a shared one. A great review as always Drewy!
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Andrew Major
9 months, 3 weeks ago
Cheers! Yes, even in the shop I always try the floor pump first. I like being able to report to customers that tires went on with a floor pump.
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XXX_er
10 months, 1 week ago
I wonder if the ease of inflation for a tubeless setup might depend a great deal on my tire choice ? I'm a maxxis fan boi and they inflate super easy with a floor pump, I don't have to take out valve cores or anything
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Andrew Major
10 months, 1 week ago
I’ve had some properly awful fitting shitty to install Maxxis tires on the bench, so while generally they’re good I wouldn’t say they’re the best. I’d actually give that crown to Specialized over a large sample size.
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Justin White
10 months, 1 week ago
I'll second Spesh tires for ease/proper-tolerances. I've put them on Stan's rims, DT, Roval, and Spank, floor pump only. Leave them in the sun for a bit, or hit them with the heat gun for a minute, to help the casing forget its folded shape, and they pop right on with a floor pump. Even used Butchers with some sealant around the edges will seat pretty easily if they're warm.
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Andy Eunson
10 months, 1 week ago
I’ve found that new tires often inflate more easily than used tires. New Maxxis have always been good. Michelin, less so. New Bontrager are fine, used, less so.
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dave_f
10 months, 1 week ago
32 spokes is a good choice for aluminum rims, but could be 28 is fine for carbon rims that don't deflect locally. As for the hubs, I'd be skeptical about the hex shape on the rear axle ends. Round is going to interface better with the different frame dropouts out there.
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Andrew Major
10 months, 1 week ago
Interesting thought about the axle shape. No issue in any of the frames or forks here and I’d like to assume Stan’s did their homework but I’ll be sure to be on the lookout for compatibility issues.
I break enough spokes - not many, but enough, that I figure it’s better to have 31 than 27 - etc. - if a stick etc is getting in there. I don’t see any reason besides saving a couple bucks X a ton of wheels to have fewer spokes.
It’s a selling feature to me at least.
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Justin White
10 months, 1 week ago
As long as the outside "diameter" of the hex is the same as a round axle (19mm?) it should "interface just fine. The inset part of 142/148/157 thru-axle dropouts is just for locating the hub while waiting for the axle, it's not really structural. I've seen many dropouts that actually have a pretty big tolerance which makes it easier to get the axle in case of an out-of-tolerance hub end-cap. A little wheel wiggle and the chamfer on the end of the axle should help it slide right in.
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Justin White
10 months, 1 week ago
I think carbon rims can be (and are) easily designed to handle higher spoke tension, so that allows less spokes right off the top without fussing with eyelets or washers or anything as wild as something like Mavic's [blind] threaded spoke holes (which did make tubeless easy) and (hollow?) alloy spokes to increase maximum allowable spoke tension.
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Andrew Major
10 months ago
I’ve broken enough spokes on the trail that my preference for 32x doesn’t come from a place of max tension but rather maximum displacement of tension. I’d build my own 29” wheels 36h if there were ready options for hubs and rims.
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MTB_THETOWN
10 months, 1 week ago
I got an excellent deal on some Arch cb7 rims laced to xtr hubs for my Transition scout, and they are incredible. I went from a set of arch alloy rims on xt hubs, and I actually had to slow down rebound since the lower weight made them move so much faster through travel. They haven't given me an ounce of trouble.
Stans rims have always been my favorite for tire mounting as well. Don't get me started on wtb or race face. I did manage to blow up a flow rim on my enduro bike in a nasty crash that also broke my clavicle. What's interesting is I had an insert and it looked like the rim had been damaged on the rim bed as opposed to the sidewall. They kindly gave me half off the replacement. I asked at the time if this was a common failure with inserts, and the rep said it's not unusual but they think an impact that hard would have likely wrecked the rim anyways so they don't advise against inserts.
I've also hear that on some carbon rims, you should avoid inserts since the rim bed is thin to save weight and the sidewall is much tougher and supposed to handle impacts. The insert shifts the force to the rim bed which is weaker. I now have a big pile of unused Cushcores in my garage.
The best news from Stans is the switch to these new hubs. The neo hubs were garbage and me and many of my friends destroyed the ones that came on our bikes. Usually the axle would go, but I’ve also seen the alloy portion that holds the pawls just turn to mush. They were included on Transition bikes for a while which has meant I've had a lot of wheels builds for my crew.
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Andrew Major
10 months ago
A friend asked me about inserts in carbon rims the other day because a prominent manufacturer told him they see more rim failures with inserts than without.
It’s a useless metric. Anecdotally, riders who are more likely to wreck rims/tires are more likely to run inserts.
It’s like a rim maker saying they see more broken rims on DH bikes than XC bikes - no kidding.
So I asked him if they were telling him not to run inserts, or more importantly if they were telling him they wouldn’t honour their warranty if he did - no on both counts.
They haven’t actually done any testing to determine if inserts are causing the failures.
I prefer how my bikes ride - especially in greasy winter conditions - with inserts. So beyond rim protection and run flat I like the damping qualities. I can’t imagine ditching those benefits to run carbon rims.
[Aside] If you want to donate those unused CC inserts, reach out. I’ve collected a few from friends who didn’t like the extra rolling weight and made sure they found their way onto bikes with owners who can’t afford to refresh their wheels after a poor line choice. [/Aside]
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Justin White
10 months ago
Curious how much weight you dropped that you felt the need to change rebound damping. Those damping ranges are enough to handle spring rates for riders ranging from like 120 to 180 pounds, if not more. Hard to believe that even taking 2 or 3 pounds (taking it to extremes) out of a wheel is really going to make rebound feel detrimentally fast.
I'd love to have a lighter wheel (at the same strength) so the suspension can move faster and the wheel can track the ground even more closely while the damping remains in the sweet spot for my weight (at least 100 times more pounds than I could easily drop from a wheel) and riding.
I could, though, see a want for slightly increased compression damping to account for a significantly lighter wheel, since it could have more of a tendency to shoot up and lose contact with the ground for an instant after a fast abrupt hit. And if the wheel is getting bounced off the ground due to being lighter, fast rebound is actually a good thing to get it back on the ground quicker.
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