What the deal with rims?

... strictly speaking. You can use UST rims and tyres without, which I've done, but sealant makes life a lot easier so I use it. Yes, it does work. On a shop ride at Kiwarrak last year, one rider sustained a small cut in his sidewall that sealed up in about 15 seconds when he tilted the bike on its side. Just needed a slight pumping up - a lot better than having to fluff about with fitting a new tube.

Re: good wheels. Quoting I think Keith Bontrager on bike bits: "Cheap. Light. Strong. Choose any two."

My SLR's are light, stiff, roll really well and seem to make the bike go faster. Theyalso make it easier to manage on techy stuff as the drive engages at the rear instantly for better bike control.

With cheapo freehubs there is a bit of a lag in drive engagement that can make it unnerving trying to negotiate tricky obstacles that involve super-slow track-standy type bike handling... you don't know whether you're going to get drive or your foot is going to go to the bottom of the stroke.

So I like good wheels.

What the lowest tyre pressures u can run tubeless and how would you fix a puncture?

From the sounds of it everyone who runs tubeless run the same pressures as people with tubes???

... on terrain. With tubeless I run between 23 and 26 on the front with a 2.25" tyre and 28-32 on the rear with a 2.1". I'm on a 5" dually as you know, and a riding weight with Camelbak of about 82kg.

re: punctures, if it's too big a cut for sealant to deal with I'd probably bin it unless it was pretty new. Then I'd consider sewing + gluing in a piece of sidewall cut from an old tyre. Tried glue-on tube patches on the inside before and they aren't strong enough. One guy I know in Queensland who does long self-supported solo rides actually carries a sidewall piece and needle and thread with him and reckons it doesn't take him that long ... dunno if I'd go quite that far! $5 mylar note inside the case and a tube to get me home is about my speed.

For fooling about in the street practising hopping up kerbs and the like I bump the pressure up a lot. Like 45-50 on the rear and 40+ on the front. Don't want to ding thse expensive rims. For trails wit lots of square-edged rocks you'd want to increase the pressures as well, but probably not that far.

@Harry, yeah they were deore level I'm guessing? Effect at the cranks depends on the cog and chainring you're on. Perhaps not quite as bad as I made out but enough to dent your confidence in what your bike is going to do. Better hubs definitley reduce the amount of crank movement before take-up.

which tends to involve launching water bars, I wouldn't go anything to light personally, cause they will just break. Wheels are where you can make a big difference weight wise as well, cause its less rolling weight etc.

If it was me I would look at maybe getting some Custom made wheels on Hope Pro 2, I know the freewheel noise can be annoying but they are pretty much bombproof with maybe a ZTR Crest Rim, the Crest rim might be a little to lightweight, so maybe look at a Mavic.

CRC are pretty good value for their wheel builds.

That build above would prolly put you round the 1500g for the complete build maybe? I know I am running DT X1800 atm and for me that is quite a big saving weight wise. I want to get some new rims for my Yeti as the DT are rubbish.

I've got an XT centrelock rear hub on my commuter, and it's quite reasonable. Very smooth despite never having been serviced, good take-up on the freewheel. I just dropped it off at Belrose Cycles to have a new rim laced to it thanks to The Pothole from Hell.

However... I haven't tried them myself but I think the Hopes are mentioned in glowing terms a lot by the guys here whenever this question comes up for a reason, and if they fit in your budget they would be a better choice.

The rims Size is 26"x24.4, could i still run 2.1 tyres. I think the hoops are a bit outta my price range what else are good but a bit cheaper?

Jonathan, I have a set of DT Swiss X1900 wheels with the DT X1900 hubs in my garage. They are tubeless and probably weigh 1.8-2kg so are probably the sort of wheel you may want. I'll pull them out tonight and check them out. I can't comment on what they are like to ride as I bought them a couple of years ago for about $800 to use as a muck around set but don't think I ever used them. If I did they would have only done maybe 1 or 2 rides. I'd be looking for something close to $300 which may be the sort of price point you're looking at.

I may as well post them in classifieds as, like many of my old purchases, I can't see me ever using them as I used to have a race bike and a muck around bike but these days just run a race bike for all my riding which I replace regularly before I wear it out. My race wheels become my practice wheels at the same time.

I agree with the Pro2 sentiment. Absolutely awesome hubs. I run them on all my bikes. Here's what I run to give you some more to choose from.

For my XC/Enduro bike, I run XC717s with the Pro2s and they come in at around 1700g. Really strong rim, considering the weight. No good for freeride stuff, but the occasional 4ft to flat drop is no problem with them. Bombing down mild rock gardens flatout is no problem for them. I run them tubeless. I run a Schwalbe Racing ralph at 28psi on the front and a Max Crossmark at 38psi on the rear.

For my muck around AM/Freeride bike I was up until last week, running DT Swiss EX 5.1D/Pro2 combo on my Norco 6 and used that bike as an AM/light freeride bike. With the wheelset coming just under 2000g (from memory it was around 1960g) these are AWESOME! They take an absolute beating and come back for more. I run Schwalbe Big Betty's on them and run the front at 27-28psi and the rear 35psi to save for pinch-flats. If I wasn't doing the Freeriding stuff, I'd probably run Nobby Nics in 2.4 to save a bit of weight.