Marcel has a beautiful Liteville 27.5 trail rig, and came to XLR8 to source some Enduro wheels that would “last forever”.
He is an “early adopter”. Marcel was one of the first in the Sydney MTB scene to embrace the 29er format (“it’ll never catch on”), and after nearly ten years riding them, moved onto 650b seeking “a better fit” – being a lighter guy.
The Syntace W35 rim is downhill wiiiiiide, but closer to XC in weight. With a huge internal width of 28mm, these lightweight, all-mountain rims are a good 8mm wider than what you’ll find on most trail hoops. The wide profile gives fat tires great sidewall support and the result is a larger contact patch, better grip when cornering and less risk of a pinch flat.
Surely the W35 MXs must weigh a ton? Nope. At 531g (average weighed) they are very light for their width. Syntace believes that you can keep rotational weight low by running large volume, thin sidewall tires and that the improved control makes up for the extra grams in the rim. Makes perfect sense to us, and mirrors the findings we are seeing with wide road rims like the XLR8 Rouleur, HED Belgiums series and Hplusson Archetype.
In a “last forever” kind of build, hub selection is easy. Marcel chose QR15 and 142mm White Industries MI6 hubs (with the XD XX1 freehub). There are lighter hubs around, but they won’t still be rolling in ten years … and the price is very reasonable for such a beautiful finish, and an unkillable CrMo axle and Ti freehub body.
Naturally Sapim Race double butted spokes were selected, coupled with black brass nipples for that “murdered out” all black aesthetic.