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Spank's Subrosa - All Mountain Rim for DH?

Ridemonkey.com

News & Reviews
Jun 26, 2009
2,168
1

The second half of my season was spent entirely on Spank's Subrosa rim. I laced them to a set of Saint hubs and mounted the wheels on a Giant Faith for some bike park, DH style shredding to see if they would hold up...
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Review by David Peacock

This summer I put in time on a few different sets of rims, including the classic Mavic 823, a stock Sun MTX31 and the Spank Subrosa. This review will be dedicated to the final product listed, Spank’s 520 gram offering, the Subrosa. The Subrosa is marketed towards the rider who partakes in light freeride and all mountain epics, but I decided to push these particular golden hoops a little out of their comfort zone and use them on my bike park steed. Let’s just say that, in my opinion, if a force of nature that insists so persistently that I obey, I probably should. As a result, I find myself going downhill more often than not when on my bike. And so, my term on the rims was spent pounding through rock gardens and attempting to avoid the inevitable "jank" that jumping causes.


Remember to click on the photos for hi-res...


Spank's Ooh-Bah technology essentially means that the tube-well is inverted, which Spank claims increases rigidity of the rim.

I am going to offer my honest thoughts on the Subrosa; some may find that refreshing, some may so eloquently label it bull****, but regardless of the general perception my thoughts remain true. Moving on, this set of Subrosas has been on my bike since early August (the 3rd, to be precise), and I have received two flat tires over that period. Incidentally, the first of these occurred the very first day after I proudly mounted my set of gold 26” rims on my gold-accented Giant Faith. Yes, very fly. Immediately, I had my reservations. While riding In Deep in Whistler, I became stuck behind a less vitesse-possessed rider and ended up rolling through a rocky section on a bad line. The flat led to a very long walk down the mountain, so needless to say my tool-less self was less than impressed. After changing the tube, all the while wishing the prices of the Bike and Bean weren't otherworldly, my experience on the Subrosa took a turn for the better. Tires mount easily and come off without much pain, most rubber (Minions, Nevegals, High Rollers) could be exchanged by hand, which makes life easier, and boosts one’s self esteem, if nothing else.





The Subrosa, as previously mentioned, caters specifically to the all mountain market, but as I’ve found out fair equally well when used for DH. As a testament to this, Spank rider Remi Gauvin picked up a National Championship on his set of Subrosas; while I was far from picking up podiums of that scale, when paired up with Saint hubs I was at least emboldened, and numerous overshot transitions re-affirmed my faith in the rim. At 520 grams, they are 70 grams lighter than Mavic’s EX 721, which I have used for similar riding to less avail. The rims have stayed true throughout the duration of their use, with minor tweaking of the spokes from time to time, and have yet to obtain any flat spots. Previously, I have had a series of terrible experiences in the Whistler Bike Park with wheels essentially coming undone at random. While you may cry negligence, my approach to maintenance remained the same with the Subrosas…set it and forget it.


Believe it or not, both the rim and myself survived this foray into the dirt jumping realm...

One very nice feature that I found pleasing, being a bit egotistical and aesthetically inclined, is the variety of colors that are available. The rim comes in black, white, green, gold and “chocolate”. I opted for the gold, which garnered many covetous stares from other riders (and their girlfriends)…but seriously, the gold was a nice touch, although in dusty conditions it did tend to become more of a “matte gold”.

In concluding this review I will leave you with my ultimate thought of the rim, that for 59$ US, or 79$ in the case of the gold option, it is an absolute steal. This particular set of Subrosas endured a lot, and was receptive to the abuse. Pushing it outside of the marketing label was an interesting test of its mettle, so to speak, and it proved worthy of everything I could muster.
 

Attachments

fluider

Monkey
Jun 25, 2008
440
9
Bratislava, Slovakia
I may be blind but I don't see test rider's weight mentioned in the text. 520g is for the rim.

I ride Spank Tweet Tweet rims on my Rune for AM and light FR (if I can call it like that) and I've nothing bad to say about them. The red anodization can get quickly rubbed off by stones, but those are only very small scratches. As I weigh only 70kg / 155lbs I haven't noticed some flex in the rims even in harder/tighter sections.
 

bullcrew

3 Dude Approved
Nice review and it always amazes me when you DJrs end up bikeless and upside down headed for earth.... Props man thats rough and you dirt thugs keep pressing...

Good review, I think for a lighter weight rider its probably a viable option Ive been slamming the 721s hard and so far they are slamming back and keeping pace. I thought they would have forfeited by now... So profile and build can go a long ways for sure..

Thanks...
 

roel_koel

Monkey
Mar 26, 2003
278
1
London,England
can I ask a specific question to the OP?

what was the build quality like of the rims - specifically the spoke drillings and the "trueness" of the rim

we built a pair of Subrosa rims about 2 seasons back for a customer that had bought them on-line, and my very experienced wheel builder spent the build swearing as the spoke drillings had not been "de-burred" properly which played merry havoc with the spoke nipples during tensioning and truing, and we noticed both rims were not "true" out the box but had a noticeable warp which made building somewhat problematic!

he'd built 100s of wheels using DT Swiss, Mavic, Sun, Stans and FIR rims and never had such an unpleasent experience as building those Spank Subrosas :(