ed 

I thought a fat straight guage spoke was the way to go for tough wheels.

NuclearParanoid

Chelboed, for how long do you use your XT hubs? Are they well built? How much of abuse can they take? Easy maintenance, good rolling? Is there anything better for the same price? I'll be getting new hubs soon so I'd like to know about XT.

What conserns your issue, I use mavic rims. They are strong, duralble and light. Let professionals build the wheel for you.

ed 

Nuke dude: I agree...let a good wheel builder do 'em. Never buy machine built from Jenson/pricepoint type places.

Hubs...love 'em. They are not as good as a sealed bearing hub, but just take care of them. Don't get water directly in the bearings. If you do, take 'em apart and service them.

For the price, XT is the bomb. I love it. I have XT fr der, r der, chain, cassette, and hubs. I would love to have XT cranks/shifters too, but my LX's are performing fine and the weight diff is neglegeable.

(don't get me wrong, I like the SRAM X.9 stuff too...but they don't make hubs hahaha)

Jason222

Decide on what you're doing yet?

wethepeople

S-types are good rims, if your not me.

Also, I hate rocks almost as much as rebuilding a wheel in the bush.

hooligan

I weight 130lbs, and I'm pretty hard on my bike at times (quite a few crashes every ride, messed up bunnyhops, and such) and my rhynolite XLs laced to deore have hardly a 1mm wobble, after 3 months of hard riding. I've done things such as running 35kmph into a rock and flying over the bars, manualling into a curb that i was going to bunnyhop (I was compressing, putting a TON of force on my rear wheel, as it ate up the curb). You'd have to be pretty darn rough on those wheels to actually hurt them, as far as I'm concerned. There are plenty of newbs, and pros alike who use rhynolite XLs, I don't know the issue, but if XLs don't solve it, id go straight for Mavis 700+ series.

Jason222

My brother has Rhyno Lite Xl's on his Giant Stp, so far they've been great, and I havent had to tighten the spokes yet.

You could use the same spokes and hub and relace them to Rhyno lite XL's, the ERD is basically the same.

Ds900Rider

azonic outlaws...problem solved

ed 

I think if I weighed 130lbs instead of 185, I could use any wheel I wanted.

Seriously though. I forgot that when you get a new set of wheels built that you need to retention them at least once. When I had my shop rebuild these, I retentioned them the one time and now they're tight. No problems yet.

As far as hucking...I will probably not do anymore stairs with these wheels. I may build some beefy ones or get the Outlaws for drops to flat or stair gaps. These should be okay for trail biking though.

We'll see. That's where I'm at right now.

I really don't even have a proper bike for hucking anyway. I run a 5" trail bike. I'm cruisin for a bike bruisin' there, eh?

norcodirtjumper

I weigh 195, and my bike weighs 39 lbs, do the math. I run Alex DX-32s front and rear, straight guage spokes, 32 front 36 rear. I dont have a sinlge problem with them other than my front is a little out of true front landing on the front sideways trying 360's. Im a big kid and I dont treat my rims the greatest, but these things hold up great. They come in many sizes and hole counts. A little heavy, but for the strength, it is worth it. They also have rim brake surfaces, if you dont run disc.

Jason222

Drilled rims are hella strong, and really light. Meant for trials, but could probably be used for other things.

willtsmith_nwi

XT bearings ARE sealed. That rubber thing that glides along the outside of the hub is the seal. Any wheel is going to have a similar floating piece of rubber. The difference is that cartridge bearings are CARTRIDGES that are not serviceable and must be replaced as a package. The other difference is these are pretty much all radial bearing that will sieze when you sideload them (2007 XTR is supposed to have angular contact bearings).

Stick with the XTs. Everyone is just too much $$$ for a product (radial bearings) that are not optimal for two wheeled applications where the bearings are constantly being side-loaded.

ed 

I meant sealed cartridge bearings. Sorry I'm not technical sometimes. Actually, my friend took his "sealed cartridge" bearings apart and cleaned and re-lubed them. So they are serviceable.

Either way, stick with XT's. Good bang-for-the-buck.

scr1be

i hear good things about halo sas wheels. heavy, but strong.