While I was in Milwaukee at the Mid-West Mayhem, I got to meet Russell from SUNringlé. Sun had sent me rims before and they umm, didn’t respond to my riding so well. I had no hard feelings towards Sun products and marked it down as inappropriate riding for the rim design.
Anyway, so I met Russell and he told me about a new rim they had out called the MTX33. It’s a downhill rim raced by their pro team. At first I was a bit concerned that the rims wouldn’t have the depth required for the 700c abuse or that they would be too wide. He put it plain and simple “Ride them, see how you like them and if you trash them, no big deal”. So I agreed to check them out. I asked if he could ship them to Affinity and he said sure. Well, today they came and damn…
Check out more photos and my initial reaction below.
I had my new Profile hubs sent up to Milwaukee to be laced up at the SUNringlé facilities with Wheelsmith spokes. 36h 4x is the way to go. I’ll take that to the bank. If you’re not lacing your wheels with 36h hubs, 4x, then you need to give it a try. Seriously legit.
Side note: such great guys over there. They even sent along some Wheelsmith spoke prep for Affinity to have and gave me some extra spokes!
Mmmmm. 3/8″ Profiles! So fucking beefy!
33mm is hella wide (there ya go SF). I could actually fit my other rims inside these. Will they even fit into my Bruiser? Or better yet, would my tires even fit on those? I had to actually test it out before I put a cog and a lockring on the wheel. Luckily it fit. With room too.
I put on a new 14t Milwaukee Bicycle Co. Blue Collar Cog and it was ready to roll.
Yeah, they’re pretty beefy.
Here’s the Bruiser with the new wheels. It really looks like a 29r now. Well, a 29r with a steep HTA and a tight wheelbase.
Now I’m not telling you to run out and buy these rims. Let me trash them for a few weeks and let you know what I think about them. That being said, my initial reactions are:
-Damn. These things are WIDE. But, they’ve got a good amount of depth too. 33mm outside width and 24.1mm deep.
-Inner width. They’re 26mm wide.
-Eyelets and pinned / sleeved construction. I’m not sure if these rims are welded as well. I’m fairly certain they are, but am awaiting a response.
-Non-machine sidewalls. Yes! Once you take the stickers off, you’ve got a sleeper wheelset.
-Weight. Not as heavy as I thought they’d be. 660grams per hoop. That’s it?
-32, 36h drilling. 36h 4x all the way for me.
So. I wish it wasn’t snowing right now because I really wanna ride them. I feel like I’m going to need to put bigger tires on them to really get the full experience out of them. I know Mike from Richmond Fixed / Grime St. is rolling on 26″ MTX33’s and he’s been stoked on them, so maybe they’ll hold up well in a 700c extrusion?
Who knows. Only time will tell. I’ll post updates as events warrant.
Big thanks to Russel at SUNringlé, Drew at Milwaukee, Christian at Profile and Jason at Affinity. This is one sick wheelset! Thanks a ton guys!
