[mandown]

Look what just rolled in from the UK to LA! Sun MTX33 Pink Camo Rims laced to Hope Pro II red hubs (20mm front, 12/135mm rear).

The total build cost was $412 USD. I thought that the "free" shipping was pretty nice, until I found that the Parcel Post was free, but once they handed it over to the USPS guy, the USPS nicked me for another $33. Still not a bad deal for a hand-built custom wheelset.

Thanks to http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/ for getting these built and shipped wicked fast (barely over a week)

I'm rushing home tonight to bolt these on the Nicolai!

 

[dump]

post up a pic once they're on. $30 for international shipping is pretty good imo. Any import duty on it?

 

[mandown]

Nothing other than the $30. Gotta love that!

 

[JeffKill]

Strange, I got my wheels from CRC about a month ago, and didn't pay anything for shipping at all. USPS didn't charge me anything either.

 

[Jeremy R]

Strange, I got my wheels from CRC about a month ago, and didn't pay anything for shipping at all. USPS didn't charge me anything either.

He got charged an extra $33 tacky fee for putting pink rims with red hubs.

 

[frorider]

have rec'd two pkgs from CRC, and no bill from USPS. one pkg was a frame -- pretty sweet to get a frame shipped internationally with zero shipping or fees.

have heard mixed reports on the CRC wheel build quality. hope yours are solid.

 

[dump]

have heard mixed reports on the CRC wheel build quality. hope yours are solid.

Dunno about CRC, but pretty much any wheel you have built new will need to be checked and tweaked after the first ride or two.

 

[JeffKill]

Quoted from CRC's site: "All Wheels are pre-stressed to simulate the bed-in during the first ride and then re-tensioned and trued. This highly reduces the possibility of ‘first ride loosening’ common on non-stressed wheels."

Not sure what they do to simulate the first ride stress, but it seems to work. My wheels have already seen close to 300 miles of trail abuse, spokes are still tight and the wheels are still true. So far, so good.

 

[mandown]

well, i ride like a dandy, so i can't imagine that i'll stress them hard enough to loosen a spoke

 

[WBC]

I ordered ProII's laced to 721's via DB spokes from CRC last summer (I think the exchange rate was a little better than) for less than I could have EP'd just the hubs for. No shipping charge, no additional UPS charges. Maybe you got dinged on duty because the rims came from China vs France (Mavic)?? Not really sure. Everything else in those wheels comes from the UK, the EU or the US.

Build quality?? They definitely were not built as well as I usually build my own wheels. The rear lost total tension after a couple days of shuttling and the front wasn't far behind. Both lost tension hundreds of miles from home. I have built 100's of wheels so it wasn't that big of a deal to re-tension everything, but I know a lot of people that haven't slaved at shops for years that probably would be SOL on riding if that happened to them. I wouldn't recommend the CRC wheels for people without reasonable wheel maintenance experience unless they took the wheels to a mech to get stressed and retensioned after a ride or two.

 

[mandown]

interesting. i've not heard anything bad about CRC before. I'll give 'em an easy break-in ride and check the spokes before launching Schleyer.

 

[ScarredOne]

That's funny, I've ordered alot from CRC in the past year and never incurred a shipping fee, just chose the "Parcel Force" option and was charged by my CC company only for the currency conversion.

Definitely WATCH THE TENSION ON THOSE WHEELS. I ordered a Pro II/729 wheelset from them last summer and the rear fully detensioned itself (nipples less than finger tight) halfway down Duffman at Whistler. My other wheelset that I hand built I haven't touched since I built it a year ago (used 823s however). A CRC rep. informed me that they have started to put more work into their wheelsets since then; mine didn't even seem to have any sort of spoke prep./loctite/linseed/etc. on it at all.

 

[mandown]

good to know i paid too much in free shipping for my wheels that will self destruct.

 

[LOOnatic]

good to know i paid too much in free shipping for my wheels that will self destruct.

Thats the universe punishing you for not using black or white hubs on those crazy sweet rims.
If it bothers you that much you could try loosening 1 spoke at a time a little and adding some blue(weak) loctite and re tension.

 

[Demomonkey]

have heard mixed reports on the CRC wheel build quality. hope yours are solid.

I've had a set of EX5.1s on hope pro II's for over a year from CRC, solid, light and reliable and no need to check after a ride or two. Highly recommended.

 

[Dox]

I got a set of MTX29 on hope pro II laced with dt Revolution spokes (harder to build because they twist so much) and in 2 years I trued them once. I got to say that I took the DT prolock nipples so that probably helped too.

 

[JeffKill]

I've had a set of EX5.1s on hope pro II's for over a year from CRC, solid, light and reliable and no need to check after a ride or two. Highly recommended.

Same here (other than the full year part). My EN521's on Pro II's are holding up perfect. Zero complaints from me.

 

[WBC]

good to know i paid too much in free shipping for my wheels that will self destruct.

That's not the point I was trying to make. I was just saying that you may have got hosed on free shipping - that likely did happen.

In terms of build quality: Look up wheel-building stressing on the internet, or find a friend whose built a ton of wheels and pre-stress the wheels and retension before you ride em. Then after a few rides, retension the wheels again. If you do that, you'll likely be golden. It's not like they're uneven tension or not true or anything like that, they just don't adequately pre-stress their wheels.

In my experience, 50+% of wheelbuilders don't adequately pre-stress their wheels...CRC is just part of that 50%.

Even if you had to re-lace the wheels from scratch, they're still dirt cheap.

 

[Iridemtb]

Definitely WATCH THE TENSION ON THOSE WHEELS. I ordered a Pro II/729 wheelset from them last summer and the rear fully detensioned itself (nipples less than finger tight) halfway down Duffman at Whistler.

That usually happens when you put thousands of pounds of force on a wheel multiple times, haha. : ]

 

[HAB]

He got charged an extra $33 tacky fee for putting pink rims with red hubs.

It gets worse, his bike's red too.




Adam, I'm just kidding, I'm sure it'll look

I've got a couple months, I'll make sure to come up with some jokes along those lines for next time I see you.

 

[ScarredOne]

good to know i paid too much in free shipping for my wheels that will self destruct.

Eh, I bet you don't have as sh*tty luck as I do.

That usually happens when you put thousands of pounds of force on a wheel multiple times, haha. : ]

Yeah, I blame it on the magic of Whistler. Still, going from good tension to zero in 1/2 a run was pretty crappy. My self-built ghetto wheels? No problemo.

Even if you had to re-lace the wheels from scratch, they're still dirt cheap.

Serious. It's worth it to buy a set, then tear it apart to spoke prep, rebuild, and pre-stress/stress-relieve the spokes for the super cheap price of a CRC wheelset. This is provided you know how to do these things, however .

 

[bizutch]

Anyone besides me crush a set of MTX 29's in minimal time? I've got more dents than spokes in the set I've got. I had MTX 33's in the past and know they edge dent easier than most yet the wheel stays true, but what's going on with this set is pretty silly.

 

[mandown]

On the bike and in your face!!!

I don't have a proper scale for doing the gram by gram measurements, but the bathroom scale test says I took off half a pound-ish after swapping out the Outlaws, which is what I expected. I took it out for a quick roll around the block last night. The bike pedals "spritely" as my bud put it. In fact, he is a single speed light weight XC kinda guy and he thought the bike going to be much lighter than it was when he tried to give it a lift (roughly 42lbs). I think some of the better pedaling is from switching from a 34 tooth ring and Gamut guide to a 36 tooth ring and LG1. The bigger ring puts the chain line closer to the pivot point, and I've heard such things help pedaling.

I did hear some "ping" sounds from the spokes, so I'm guessing things need to settle in a bit and the tension will need to be checked before I go huck my meat off anything too gnar.

 

[LOOnatic]

A pink camo seat would finish it off

 

[mandown]

who makes one?
i googled and only found this

 

[HAB]

who makes one?
i googled and only found this

Vinyl + barge cement.


You should send the frame back to Nicolai to get redone in pink camo while you're at it. Go full retard on this one.

 

[mandown]

full retard would be getting the 2007 Lambda frame in pink camo to match those wheels.

 

[HAB]

full retard would be getting the 2007 Lambda frame in pink camo to match those wheels.

I'd call painting your UFO like that a close enough second to count.

 

[TKCastle]

those wheels are straight up nancy-boy!

 

[xy9ine]

I did hear some "ping" sounds from the spokes...

so much for their 'pre-stressing' claim.

 

[tacubaya]

I ordered some Mavic EN521 to Hope Pro II and sent them to the US.. to Chad at Red Barn Bicycles for build checkup. He told me they were fine but did some minor adjustments. They've been running fine since.

 

[mandown]

Got the beasts mounted up and on the trail. Took them for an easy break-in ride Saturday along some single track that was fairly smooth. They held up with no spoke issues, though dust did gather around the nipples as a sign of spoke prep being present. Sunday, I took them out for some abuse on the local rock gnar. I took an easy warm up run and checked them, only to find nothing wrong. I took a more aggressive run and checked again, but I had nothing but win Took a third run and called it a day, with no issues to speak of.

It is probably with mentioning that I opted to run my single-ply Schwalbe tires in place of the Minion DHF dual-ply tires I had. The Minions were a pain to get on and off the MTX rims. The Schwalbe tires went on smooth as butter. I was a bit nervous about running single ply on the rocky trails, but the rocks aren't that brutal and the tires had held up well on my trail bike in rock gnar, so I figured I'd be fine. I was right, so I'm happy with the switch. Also, the bike is now at 40lbs on the bathroom scale test. Nice.

 

[Demomonkey]

Those rims match your wall color quite nicely. Good to see MTB fashion and home decorating in harmony.

 

[mandown]

After a few SoCal rides and a weekend of rock-garden mid-huckin' goodness in Northstar, the weels are still rolling true. I was running single-ply Schwalbe 2.35 tires (MM and WW) in Northstar. I had a couple of flats in the rock gardens and from hacked hucks, but the only damage was one small spot on the rear wheel where the rim sidewalls buldged out from a bad landing that pinched me flat. I had a touch of spoke loosening one two or three spokes, but since I was mindful and checking every few runs, it never got out of hand.

I'm stoked on the wheels.