Carbon gravel wheels for a heavy rider

[JoninSweden]

Finally a topic I can contribute

194cm and 100+ kilos rider. 35yo (today, actually).

Running multiple wheelsets:
Road: Terra CLX (1st version): 25mm internal, 32 external, 30C tires is perfect, currently running 32c, that bulge a bit. Hooked rim, dt--180 hubs, very happy about it.
Fast gravel: Duke Lucky Jack SLS4: 26mm internal, 28mm external. Currently with Challenge 36c tires, but I tried GP5000 in 32. Rim is hookless, so I'd rather stick with wider tire and lower pressure (low-40s). I've tried same rim with 40C gravel tire and that would be my choice for something fast. Surprisingly, not alot of difference going from 25mm internal to 28/26 when running same tires.
Experimental fun setup: light bike XC wheels, 30mm internal. Curently set up with IRC Boken in 40c, and measures ~45mm. 28 spokes (rest is 24 I believe). Currently on Grizl Suspension, so almost-mountain bike. I tried Pirelli Cinturato H in 50c: very comfortable and Spesh Fast trak in 2.2
Comfort-wise, I feel that XC-set up is way stiffer, but that's compensated with bigger tires (suspension fork and seatpost). On the other hand I know that I can ride careless on that wheelset: it's overbuild for gravel, plus I got it very cheap.

I haven't covered all combinations of tires/bikes, but for pure gravel, I'd go with 30c internal and stick with 40c-50c tires easily.
For road (~28-32c slicks) for 200lbs (90kg)+ 25mm internal is way to go. Going from 25c to 28c with 30c (or 32c) tires is barely noticeable. Tire pressure is far more important: sometimes you got it very right and it's very noticeable.

I'm very interested in setup described in "wide rim" topic, aka Nextie rims (29mm internal, hooked) with 30-32c slicks: sure it breaks all the rules but I feel that will be very comfy and fast for heavy riders on the road or gravel.

Apologies for having missed your post and a belated happy birthday to you!

Thanks for sharing your experiences in detail. Unfortunately, I don't have the option to go wide on my road bike yet as I'm still on rim brakes. Our asphalt is incredibly smooth here, so there is perhaps less of an advantage, though my regular training partner is on 32mm on the road and he still flies (another 2m 100kg rider).

I'm still just a bit trepidatious about hookless rims. Hunt have a sale on their wheels now and their 35mm carbon gravel wheelset is on 650 euros. It's very tempting, but they are hookless.

What do you feel is the advantage of going from 25mm internal to closer to 30mm?

[TLN]

Apologies for having missed your post and a belated happy birthday to you!

Thanks for sharing your experiences in detail. Unfortunately, I don't have the option to go wide on my road bike yet as I'm still on rim brakes. Our asphalt is incredibly smooth here, so there is perhaps less of an advantage, though my regular training partner is on 32mm on the road and he still flies (another 2m 100kg rider).

I'm still just a bit trepidatious about hookless rims. Hunt have a sale on their wheels now and their 35mm carbon gravel wheelset is on 650 euros. It's very tempting, but they are hookless.

What do you feel is the advantage of going from 25mm internal to closer to 30mm?

Hookless: I would not run for performance/road use: 28-32c fast slicks on road bike. I want to have full range of pressures avaible and don't think about it during fast descends and etc. I've ran 30 (or 32) on 28mm internal. Nothing happened. On the other hand, difference between 25 and 28mm is barely noticeable. Or it requires very thoughtful testing, which I'm not doing.
I'm ending at ~60psi (32c on 25+mm internal), which is far from the limit (73psi) but who knows how pressure changes when I'm riding: aka start in the cold morning and try descending 50-60kmh during the warm day.

I'd run hookless without hesitation for anytihng gravel-specific.

25mm and wider: I feel that extra volume really helps with comfort. You can get it either by running bigger and heavier tire or by running wider rim. In my case I was ruinning XC rin with 28 spokes: completely overbuilt for the purpose. That(and cheap frame) lets you ride it far more carelessly and it's fun!

There's very interesting topic here: viewtopic.php?t=166644
Here's another discussion: https://www.slowtwitch.com/cycling/dan- ... iscussion/


I'd say for tall/heavy rider move to 25mm is very beneficial: you'd end up with "bit" wider tires: 30 instead of 28 or 32 instead of 30, or a bit wider rim but end up with same pressures as most cyclist running for 21mm internal. So everying grows a proportionally your weight.

I assume if you increase wheel size and tire size at some point it will slow you down, but math works differently for 60kg and 100kg person

[JoninSweden]

Thanks for all the help on this.

In the end, I found a pair of newly serviced (new bearings, new freehub body) Hunt Carbon 30s for a really good price and went for those. They were only about £310, so a low cost option for me. Internal rim width is a little narrower than I'd like at 21mm, but I don't ride more than 45mm, so they'll be fine.

I'll report back on how they perform.