Commuting - Rims

Thanks to those who've given advice so far.

I'm probably looking at a Deore or Deore LX hub, but what rim would be best. I'm wanting something cheap yet fairly strong, for commuting on a mixture of road and off-road (no down-hilling and nothing above a few inches drop). Most places seem to stock Mavic - is the entry level x221 (?) good enough - if not what do I go to?

What are FiR MT-232 's like? I've got a possibility of them cheap?

Any experience with Alex deep v-rims, I've got a possibility...?

Thanks

Richard

Avoid V shaped rims, they are very stiff and unyeilding. They are good for fast racing, and for cyclo cross racing, to shed mud, but otherwise, they can beat you up. Look for box-section rims with eyelets, a substantial braking surface (avoid ultra-lightweight rims for commuting) and if possible, a rim wear detector.

Mavic, Sun, Alesa, Campagnolo, + lots of other good rims out there, and very few bad ones. A good builder counts for more than a fancy rim.

If your wheelbuilder is very good he/she shouldn`t have a problem with the x221.
But they came on my fabric wheels as well :( , so maybe you could take something higher; like you said the FIR mt- 232
(14 €) or maybe the mavic X517 silver (36.50 €) or F519 (39.20 €)silver.

I know the 517 is a very good rim, i had them myself and no complains, and the cheapest after the FIR , the 519 is wider and more solid (freeride)

I don`t have experience with FIR, it seems to be a good rim and cheap as well, but i dislike the grid layer, this sounds odd, but these layers (like ceramic from mavic) wear off pretty fast (1 1/5 year max). and after that your rims becomes very thin.

Ive heard good things about sun/ringle rims, but don`t know much about them!

Good luck,

Sun makes a good rim (cheap) IMO but boy are they a P.I.T.A. to mount a tire on! It's enough of a problem that I would avoid them on a commuter bike.

You could check http://www.mtbr.com/reviews/rim/ though you will have to sift through the reviews submitted by 5-year-olds. As was stated above the build is far more important than the components.

Thats another good point. The tolerances for making both rims and tyres is a bit wide, so some rim/tyre combos are very tight, and others are very lose. Before you have the builder make up a wheel, compare the circumference (of the outer edge to your current setup.

Ive never tried mounting a tyre to rim only, so I dont know if this would work without causing damage.

I'm out of my depth here, but I can say that the Araya rims, original to my Giant MTB, which has about 10,000 of my 13,000 commuting miles on it, on rough city streets, seem to be as good as the day I got the bike. I know one thing: they're not expensive. Problems: 0. Satisfaction: 100%.