Farsports Gravel Wheelset with DT350 Review

[sworkser]

Hello, everyone,
I decided to buy a gravel frame from Carbonda and have it painted as desired. This frame fits 700c wheels and tyres with a maximum of 2.1 inch. Shifting group should be a GRX810, which is shifted 1x11. Only the question of the wheels remained. I really wanted a 700c wheelset with a maximum inside dimension. After I have tested the Farsports wheels on the road bike like here, I wanted to stay with Farsports for the Gravler. A request to Farsports via Skype was, as always, super easy and a suggestion was quickly made. I wanted to stay a bit lower in price than with the road bikes and the weight is not as critical here. Therefore a Gravel wheelset with DT-Swiss 350 hubs was requested. There is a wide choice of rims available. I decided on the "FS30/34G-700C", which is 30mm high and 34mm wide (outside). The inner width is 28mm and the rim is hookless. It is tubeless ready as well, because there are no spoke holes in the rim, which makes tubeless mounting very easy. The weight of the rim is 375g per piece. The design of the rim can be chosen between UD Carbon in matt or 3k fabric, where I chose the UD finish. I used the Sapim CX-RAY for the spokes and the DT-350 straight pull with 12x100mm and 12x142mm thru axle for the hubs.

You can see the gravel wheelsets here: https://www.wheelsfar.com/gravel-c0374

After ordering it took about 15 days until the wheels were shipped. Due to Corona, the shipping with XDB to Germany took a long time, but this was due to the German customs. After 6 weeks the wheels were there, perfectly packed and without any damage.

Directly on the scale... the front wheel weighs 642 grams, the rear wheel weighs 777 grams. The wheelset weighs 700C or 29 inch 1419 grams which is extremely light with DT-Swiss 350 hubs, considering the width of the rim.



The tyre fitting was easy even with Tubeless, because no rim tape has to be used. Just put the valve in, put the tire on and inflate it with the compressor. I mounted the Maxxis 2,1 inch Maxxlite, which is light and rolls great.


Here a comparison to a Maxxis 2,25 inch on a 23mm DT-Swiss MTB rim.


Had to install a spacer when mounting the cassette, because I ride the 11-42 MTB cassette and the freewheel is meant for road. Is not further problematic, however, one must know.
Here a picture of the complete bike.


The first ride was 26 kilometers full throttle on the road - 40kmh average, so it rolls almost like a road bike.

I've been riding the wheelset for 4000km now, so I'm often on trails and forest tracks, which are also more difficult to ride. The wheels are super stiff and accelerate very well. Ride with 1.8 bar air pressure in the terrain, which feels great with the tubeless tires. The wide rim offers super comfort and gives a very safe riding experience. I went to the dealer recently, the wheels have no heights or sideways runout and the spoke tension is perfect.

I can only recommend this wheel set, more wheels are probably not available for the money. You have to ask for the price via Skype at farsports_sandy. The website is farsports.com and wheelsfar.com.

If you have further questions I will answer them with pleasure!

[LeMomo]

I look forward to a long term report, I've been eyeing up a build on the same rims.

[calleking]

Thanks for a great review. Looks like you get a lot of wheel for the money. Might buy them myself.

[rides4beer]

Their 30/30 hooked looks good too, 1330g with DT350 hubs and 25mm ID would be great.

[ms6073]

I used the Sapim CX-RAY for the spokes and the DT-350 straight pull with 12x100mm and 12x142mm thru axle for the hubs.

Might want to update the thread title.

[LouisN]

+1

Louis

[sworkser]

The wheels are still great. Now they are 2850km old and there are no problems. They are still well centered and the bearrings of the DT-Hubs are very smooth. I was riding them under bad weather conditions and in heavy terrain. I´m still happy!

[sworkser]

I used the Sapim CX-RAY for the spokes and the DT-350 straight pull with 12x100mm and 12x142mm thru axle for the hubs.

Might want to update the thread title.

Did it - sorry

[Aesch]

Any further thoughts? I'm going down exactly the same route with a carbonda frame and 1x11 gx810.

I'm not sure what rims to choose though, asymmetric or not? and hookless or not..

[ChiZ01]

$780 for dt350 and cx-ray is pretty good, it cost me around $550 to source and build my own dt350 cx-ray carbon wheel, but my 23mm carbon rim is considerably lighter at 280g, the final build was 1298g

[saldegracia]

Any further thoughts? I'm going down exactly the same route with a carbonda frame and 1x11 gx810.

I'm not sure what rims to choose though, asymmetric or not? and hookless or not..

I ordered these wheels with Novatec hubs a couple of weeks ago but habve not received them yet. I have never used hookless rims but decided to go hookless after doing some research. Seems it's absolutely safe as well as tried and tested for lower tire pressures. Things get more complicated if you want to run road tires and corresponding pressures on those wheels. On the plus side the hookles rims should be more robust...in theory hookless rims can also designed to be lighter than hooked ones but Farsports lists the same weight for both versions.

I pretty tall and heavy for cyclist (1.94/83kg) and Farsports recommended th 32/36 rim over the very lightest one. This one if asymmetric, so I took their advice and went with it...I assume the asymmetric design helps with stiffness but not totally sure.

[Hexsense]

Farsports recommended th 32/36 rim over the very lightest one. This one if asymmetric, so I took their advice and went with it...I assume the asymmetric design helps with stiffness but not totally sure.

What asymetric rim does is to offset spoke hole to help balance out bracing angle.
Normally, rear drive side and front disc side have shallower bracing angle than the other side. That result in rear disc side requiring only less than half of the spoke tension of the drive side. Low spoke tension fatigue and break more easily.
By offseting spoke holes (front more to the right, rear more to the left) the bracing angle (and hence, spoke tension) is a little more balanced.


To get very robust wheelset.
Get the 32/36 asymmetric rim.
Then also balance out the spoke tension further by using two spoke gauges too.
Front disc side and rear drive side get Sapim CX-Sprint.
Front non-disc side and rear disc side get Sapim CX-Ray. The smaller gauge CX-Ray will require more tension to fight the pull of CX-Sprint than if both side are the same spokes. Doing so help counteract the bracing angle disadvantage of front disc side and rear drive side. The tension balance get closer to ideal which will help prevent fatigue spokes after years of use. This is how I order my Farsports 32/36 asymmetric rim for my gravel bike too.