Open mold wide profile carbon wheels

[JN2Wheels]

@NovemberDave... Great Post!

Very excited to hear about your custom builder program. Does that mean you may offer rims as standalone products in the near future?

Also, I believe we'd all be interested to know whether you had any tubular development underway?

[Berg]

I just got the attached diagram of 50mm clincher U-shape from Light-Bicycle.
Looks excellent to me. Seems to be a mix between Bontrager and Zipp 404 FC. That can't be bad can it? - the shape I mean No info on weight though.




>>EDIT: I have corrected proportions of drawing, so the measurements now fits the shape. The original I got from Light-bicycle was stretched out of shape, so it looked like a 70mm tall rim - now it should be ok though.

>>EDIT2: Got this info from Light-Bicycle:
"The 50mm U shape rim is around 470g+/-15, and the price is USD175/pcs for U-50mm shape rim.
Currently, we do not have the tubular version, we will make a plan if there are quite a few customers like."

I would love a tubular version of this under 400g

[NovemberDave]

Thanks all.
JN2 we are rolling it out one piece at a time but we are evaluating selling stand alone rims. It's not a business we love and seeing some of the prices that people are paying for rims from China, well, we won't be priced anything like that. Tubular is the next product we want to do but molds and initial runs are very very far from cheap. We have to chew what's in our mouths a bit first.
Berg's picture shows a big problem with the way rims are often marketed. The rim he posted is a lovely 70mm deep rim, only it's labeled as 50mm deep. Compare the "50" dimension to the 27.22 dimension. It's nearly 3x as long. You have to be careful looking at these things.

[JN2Wheels]

I can certainly understand wanting to control the end experience to guarantee the build and components live up to your expectations. However, I feel there is definitely a middle ground between the $750 enve/zipps rims of this market, and the $150 Chinese offerings. Find the middle ground, with proven development and aero testing, backed by a solid and growing company, and I wouldn't be surprised if every discriminating wheel builder offered your rims. Especially if tubulars of similar profile and less weight were on their way!

Re: Berg's image. I've seen the light-bicycle image of their 45mm U clincher. This is obviously simply a streeeetched version. The dimensions of the tire bed, clincher hooks, and the material depths at spoke and tire bed are way off. Crazy/scary.

[Berg]

Lol! good point NovemberDave!
Guess I should have noticed that

I will email Nancy Yu again, and see what she says about this..

BTW and for the record: I have no doubt your Rail rims are excellent (and NOT "open/generic-mould" of any kind), and much better quality than the various China rims discussed here. If you sold the rims seperately I would definitely consider them (as I like to build my own wheels) - especially if they had internal nipples and 16h front. But that is just my personal preferences

[NovemberDave]

I feel there is definitely a middle ground between the $750 enve/zipps rims of this market, and the $150 Chinese offerings.

We do too. First we will address it with custom builders. Your prices for Enve/Zipp are a bit outdated. There's only one builder from whom you can get Zipp rims in a non-Zipp build and their baseline rim price is well north of $750, and Excel currently sells Enve 45 clinchers for $875/rim. I saw current edition Reynolds rims at about $880 per somewhere recently.

Berg - No 16 holes rims from us. My own very personal version of hell is a lifetime of building wheels with internal nipples.

[Berg]

I have updated drawing in previous post, so proportions should be correct for a 50mm rim now.

[ergott]

Here's a sneak peak of what NovemberDave is talking about.

I'm on vacation right now, but those are Rails build up to Alchemy hubs (UL rear). Excellent initial impression, but I had to leave for Florida a couple of days later so I have to wait for further rides. That and my inner ring is worn out so I have to man up and only ride the big ring for now.

The impact was big enough to detach my Lyzene bag from its mount as well as both bottles and my Garmin 705 rotated about 50deg forward! I saw at least one of the bottles in the corner of my eye so I thought something broke. I stopped and inspected the wheels for a few minutes since I was worried about that big a hit with carbon clinchers. Looking back it was due to fresh pavement. They didn't level the manhole covers yet so the manhole cover I hit was a good inch or more below the tarmac. The Garmin had me at about 34mph (just south of Estelle Ave, see link below). I didn't do anything to unweight the bike at all, just a straight on hit.

http://www.strava.com/activities/71852990#z2036|2100

Can't wait to do some more testing on them!

[sspring]

@Berg
those look just like the 45mm clincher they offer and that i am still waiting for. I wasn't aware they had that profile in 50mm. Interesting. Light-Bicycle seems to have a good reputation among the MTB crowd building tough durable wheels.

That aero profile is beautiful. Its going to create a virtual airfoil going in both directions of air flow. Beautiful design. As soon as i saw the profile I was sold at that point.

And November Dave.....the Rail is the sexiest looking wheel out there IMO

[jepd1973]

I have been trying to get in contact with light-bicycle - no answer. Anyone had any luck with them?

[sspring]

i have emailed Nancy and Carolin both respond. Carolin has been very helpful thus far. I have found that over the weekend sometimes they stop responding by thursday or so.

carolin@light-bicycle.com
sales@light-bicycle.com

its funny how all these chinese trading companies all have western names. i asked carolin why that was and she said its cause foreigners confuse chinese names

[Zigmeister]

Common for Chinese, even when they move to the US, to choose an American name. Obviously, the Chinese name doesn't translate easily to English.

Anyway, I asked November months ago about building their wheels with Alchemy hubs, they said NO. Guess they are changing their tune?

You can save 60gms on just the hubs over CK R45s. CK are great hubs, but the Alchemy are better IMO for several reasons, not just weight. Already have a set of generic 50mm clinchers with Chosen hubs...they roll descent, hubs are good for what they are.

The light-bicycle and the 50mm 470gm weight claim. That can't be the new toroidal shape? They only have a 45mm depth of those. Saying wide and aero/toroidal are two very different things of course.

Both the HongFu 40mm rims came in 6gms and 12gms under the 480g claim. They can build a consistent rim just like anybody.

Also, this talk about Chinese manufacturers and their shady quality is absolutely unfounded on the rims. I've owned two frames from Chinese companies, they were fine. But decided to just spend the money on a Scott Foil team edition. Wheels though, I've got a set of Zipp 303 FC tubulars, a set of Taiwanese 50mm Deep-V, and the Chinese HongFu now. I would put the HongFu 40mm clincher QC/Finish at 2nd only behind Zipp.

I should also add, I had a set of tubulars from a well known smaller US source, and the QC on those Taiwanese sourced rims were crap IMO. Voids that I was told were "normal"in the tire/rim bed portion and other locations, ended up putting Mastik One over those area etc...and overall crappy QC I felt. Really disappointed when those showed up and pulled them out of the box. I was not impressed with those and sold them a short time later. Live and learn.

So having owned 2 sets of Taiwanese rims, one I have now are clincher, and the other a tubular, these new Chinese HongFu blow both of those away. They have really stepped up their game the past few years. Oh, and do I need to say that Cannondale/Giant both have huge factories in China?!?!

If anybody gets a set of those light-bicycle 45mm aero clinchers, would like to see the actual weights posted up!

[NovemberDave]

Not sure exactly what the accusatory tone's all about but we aren't offering Alchemy builds ourselves. The Alchemy build that Ergott shows is his build. We've made rims available to select wheel builders to offer in their own builds. Strada Handbuilt Wheels in the UK is our exclusive partner for UK and northern Europe, we are finalizing a deal for similar coverage in Aus/NZL, and are starting to work with domestic custom builders. Ergott Wheels was obviously one of our first choices, and it seems to be off to a fine start, as early in the game as it is.

[velo1990]

Thank you @sspring for illustrating.
Personally, I like 50mm profile wheels and pulled my trigger for Yoeleo u shape 50mm clincher wheels. Friend bought one yoeleo wheels before very impressive with build quality and wheels performance. Also Leo is helpful and professional and responds quite fast. I feel peace to buy there.

U-Shape 700C 25MM Wide Carbon Wheels Clincher 50MM
UD Matte
20/24 Holes
White Novatec Hubs A291SB / F482SB
White spokes

http://www.yoeleobike.com/700c-25mm-wide-carbon-wheels-clincher-50mm.html

I am so exciting.
Waiting for the sexy baby to arrive.

[54x11]

@Berg
those look just like the 45mm clincher they offer and that i am still waiting for. I wasn't aware they had that profile in 50mm. Interesting. Light-Bicycle seems to have a good reputation among the MTB crowd building tough durable wheels.

I will be interested to see what you think of yours when you get them, I was going to order a set during the week but I'm holding off for two weeks now for a couple of reasons. 1. I may now just build the rims into Chris King hubs instead of the Novatecs that they offer and 2. Wouldn't mind reading a review of someone else's first. I was basically deciding between the 40mm Dengfu U Shape that the guy did a review on a few pages back and these.