Rapide CLX II Team Edition

[robeambro]

White Decal is a no go + for the price you could get a Climbing, an Aero and a Gravel Wheelset directly from Xiamen with more responsive customer service and all lighter

Can you share your customer service experience? This is exactly what keeps me from buying Chinese stuff - should anything go south, I could wait weeks if not months for a replacement part to arrive from China, and shipping faulty parts back is also a nightmare in terms of price and paperwor. Meanwhile I'm sure my LBS will do anything to keep me rolling if the Rapides fail and they will probably even lend me a wheelset while I'm waiting for a replacement, which will arrive from the EU warehouse in days. (I live in EU)

What sort of replacement part? The only thing that could fail - if we assume the rims won't explode - is the hub, and as it's already been mentioned you can just pick a reliable choice and you're set. Of course one could need a replacement spoke and / or truing the wheel, but all of that can be handled locally just as it would be for a Roval wheel.

[toxin]

plenty of options for chinese wheels with dt hubs and pillar or sapim spokes if that's a big deal to you

[Torbjorn]

The wheels look the "same" at crude visual inspection, but do Chinese brands invest as much in aero and safety testing as some of the established western brands, such as Roval?

[toxin]

Doesn't seem to me western brands do all that much safety testing either

[SL7latin]

Chinese wheelsets can offer very light wheels, but the combination of spokes, hubs and rims is a questionmark.
Even Farsports and Vortex do not take them wheels into wind tunnel to prove their aerodynamics.

Only CFD is useless, cause the software simulation is easy in 2024.

[toxin]

Hubs and spokes are usually off the shelf like novatec, dt swiss, bitex, sapim, pillar, etc.

If you're buying serious brand rims like farsports, lb, nextie, eie, etc. and not some barrel scraping garbage like ryet, the rims will be perfectly safe.

Eh the 1-2 watt gains to be found in tiny rim profile changes are rarely worth 3-5x the price.

[Ytse]

What sort of replacement part? The only thing that could fail - if we assume the rims won't explode - is the hub, and as it's already been mentioned you can just pick a reliable choice and you're set. Of course one could need a replacement spoke and / or truing the wheel, but all of that can be handled locally just as it would be for a Roval wheel.

As far as I can see, the most potent Chinese wheels (eg. Craft Racing) have their own hubs. Especially the ones with carbon spokes. Also, what I can see is that Chinese manufacturers tend to iterate quickly and I wonder if there will be replacement parts for a hub that was only in the market for months and superseded by a new version. What do you think?

[Torbjorn]

Doesn't seem to me western brands do all that much safety testing either

Some do, at least if we are to believe their marketing. Perhaps you haven't seen what brands such as Roval, Reserve, etc claim in terms of the hours and hours of testing done both on reducing air drag and in terms of safety. From the Chinese brands I never see that. Just nice-looking rims.

[mikehhhhhhh]

Specialized scrapped deal breaking tubeless compatibility for gen 1 wheels on the back of tests developed as a result of a kerb strike that could have been dismissed as misuse.

Then released a revised version of the rims to pass these new tests, despite them being less appealing in other metrics (ie. weight)

I certainly feel like they're going above and beyond in testing, in a way that doesn't just feel like pure marketing spiel.

[Ytse]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IyCQFtmNPw

[mikehhhhhhh]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IyCQFtmNPw

I got as far as him trying to explain why lighter wheels are good.

[StefanBRNRD]

Anyone having problems getting the front valve sitting tight as well? My lock nut keeps coming loose - bit annoying given the price...

[Ytse]

The one in my LBS weighed 1392 with tubeless valves and tape installed, in case you want to know.

[ColnagoJohn]

does anyone know if these wheels will ever come back into stock? i know when they were announced it was a limited run of 1000 sets and maybe all of these have gone and thats it now? or are shops just waiting for re stock? i will wait for these if they are going to come back but if not i will buy the normal rapide 2 now and save the wait for nothing!!

[toxin]

They really are not worth it, but also they probably wont.