Originally Posted by
cyccommute
XC mountain biking is probably more demanding than touring when it comes to wheels. I’ve been using the 717s for a long time on mountain bikes. Never had much of a problem with them. I’ve more recently used Velocity because they come in 26” 36 hole rim brake sizes.
My 717s are 32 spoke, and I really did wonder how they would be on the rough roads sometimes on my Latin American trips, but they performed really quite well.
But again, I'm only 135 so a lot of leeway.