My first weight related post.

I finally dug out my ZTR Olympic rims that have been waiting in a box for the spokes and hubs to arrive. When i got them out i notice they were powder coated. I got the paint stripper out. I did think i was going to knock off more weight than i did. They weighed pretty much bang on 355g before stripping and around 333-335g after stripping. I remember reading some reviews on these rims before buying and someone said that theirs weighed 400g each, which can probably be explained by the powder coat.

what are Stans thinking? Ive got rims from taiwan for £15/piece which are anodized. Why powder coat a £60 'superlight' rim.

ZTR Olympic 333 would sound much better anyway.

Has anyone else come accross this with other rims?

I saw some raving about cheap chinese carbon frames. The hubs on these wheels are cheap taiwanese hubs, I got them to bits today and they really are amazing for £50/pair. They are 400g/pair which isnt superlight by any means, but they are really well put together. They are appear to be very easily adaptable to bolt through due to the large diameter, large bore axles, and the axle caps are screwed onto the axle which improves the stiffnes, Defeintely over the last set of taiwanese hubs i got. The spokes were ACI DB (x32) brass nipples. The wheelset weighed up at 1550g i cant remember exactly,. and i could still shave some weight off by using 2 cross and aluminium nipples. Still, not bad for £150/set.

Weight weenieing hasnt got to cost loads, but i do have to swallow my pride when people look at my raw aluminum bike with, unnamed rims and hubs, 'dodgy' taiwanese carbon hardwear and road cranks. I still have no idea how much the bike weighs probably quite alot.

I just got a deal on a pair of ztr crest 29'ers in white. Very tempted to do this. I stripped my Avid BB7's, and had a blast doing it.

Do you think it was worth your time to do it? How does the aluminum under it look? Would you do it again?

Photos?

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The aluminium looks sweet underneath. a nice smooth brushed finish, no sand blasting. Find a car sprayer supplier and get the paint stripper from there. It is the most disgustingly nasty stuff ever. DONT get it on your skin just a little bit is agony. However it gets the paint off better than any DIY store stuff and i got it for ~£15/5 litres.

However has anyone noticed a difference with handling, due to the tyre rolling on these rims. Ive been using shwalbe rocket rons and ralphs on non tubeless rims, no problems with as little as 15 psi in the ralphs and 20 in the rons. However on these ztr rims it just all felt like crap. I had to run them way harder than normal, for the tyres not to squirm and roll all over the place. The rims could be slightly narower as well as lower wall height.

How much weight did you save on BB7s? Yes it was probably worth my time, it prob took about 1 hr for 4 rims.

Couldn't tell 'ya. Probably negligible amounts I know just the caliper itself, without pads was 134g There were two bolts that also could have been easily replaced with Alu/Ti with little or no difficulty. ( http://forums.mtbr.com/brake-time/defin ... 65630.html ) Relevant link.

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What kind of rear hub are you using? I'm looking for something cheap to go on a trainer wheel.

I purchased a Halo Spin Doctor Pro for like $95 (got a discount off original price.) ( http://www.halorims.com/products-detail ... pe=mtb&c=J" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ) because they were the cheapest thing I could find good reviews on seals and bearing replacement. Not the lightest, but I'm broke as f**k due to grad school.

I hear the X9's are cheap as poop, but iffy on reliability. I was actually tempted on these couple items:
http://www.aliexpress.com/product-fm/55 ... alers.html
http://www.aliexpress.com/product-fm/48 ... alers.html
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/chosen-sea ... bike-93125
http://www.bdopcycling.com/Hubs-MTB.asp

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