Stans No Tubes "Crest" Rims

[multisportscott]

Hi, anyone got any real world reports on these??
I think Marshall B ran these for the TD. They look, on paper, to be a great choice for bikepacking.
Cheers, Scott

[Emily]

I have a race wheelset that is Crest rim, Aerolite spokes, Industry 9 hubs.  Stans doesnt give the Crest a rider weight limit, but I think that over a certain combined weight of rider/bike/gear you are really pushing it.  I used them for a couple days of bikepacking with maybe 15 pounds of gear (I am around 135lbs and on a decently lightweight steel hardtail 29er), and found them a little flexy but fine on gravel but actually uncomfortably flexy on singletrack.   Also, a friend said he was racing behind someone on Crest rims recently and the guy's rim was flexing so much the tire was buzzing the seatstay on corners.
They are super great wheels for regular 100-miler or XC style racing though.  I also bent up a Crest pretty bad in a crash in April, but truthfully any rim might have bent in that crash.  Also, with a heavier spoke you might get a different ride characteristic, I couldn't say. I've only ridden these with the Aerolite spoke.
I'm planning on riding on a heavier (still pretty light) wheelset for CTR, Arch rims, double butted spokes, also I9 hubs.  It would be a bummer to bend up another rim on some really committing section of that race.

[Spoonie]

I'd dare say your flex issues are more to do with the wheel build than the rim, especially if you're getting tire buzzing issues  .  I have a Crests,Aerolite,DT 240 build built by a pretty reputable builder here in Aus.  Seems stiff enough for me and I've used them fairly extensively racing.  I certainly don't get any tire buzzing issues on my Air 9.  I just took them 400km's or so with 11-12lbs of gear and a meager frame of around 170-175lbs (trying to do the metric conversion thing) without issues, and used them in a 360km race (and a few 100km jobbies) earlier this year, again without issues.    DT Aerolites are apparantly meant to be their strongest and stiffest spoke due to the repeated butting the spoke gets before and during the flattening process, so I doubt a "heavier" spoke would improve your wheel flex issues.

I have cased the rear pretty hard at some point off a rock drop off with silly low pressures and dinted it hard enough to dint the innerwall.  The rim is still straight though and still seems to bead up ok.  It's bad enough that I will probably try milking the rim for as long as I can before replacing at some point just in case.  Equally one or two heavier guys here have cracked alloy nipples, but the rim seems to have held up ok...

Getting tyres on and off has been a mission, more so than any of my 26" Stans wheelsets.  So if that's a problem for you then it's something to be aware of.  With Stans Solution though, I can't remember the last time I had to get a tyre off outside of the garage (jinxed myself now though I'm sure

For a longer tour or ultra race, I'd possibly look at a slightly more beefier rim, more over the standing up to sloppy abuse and other Mr Plow actions than anything, but so far the crests have been fine.  Though Hearing Marshall ran them for TDR would possibly leave me more confident in running them for my own TDR aspirations...

Your mileage may vary I guess

Cheers
Craig

[Emily]

As I said, the tire buzzing was on someone else's wheels. Who knows what was going on with that wheelset. My wheels are all built by George Wisell at 5 Hills Bikes/ bike29.com in Waterbury VT, who definetely knows how to build a good wheel. (full disclosure, I race for bike29)
I love the crest for a race wheelset but with extra weight for bikepacking I do feel flex on that rim compared to other Stans rims in a similar build.  I suppose the question is how much flex you are comfortable with, how durable you need the rim to be, and whether the light weight is paramount in a given situation. Personally, I do not like the way it acts on technical singletrack when there is extra weight on the bike.

[Mathewsen]

i used them this year on the divide. they are fine for that route but if i was carrying more weight and doing lots of edging, railing, i'd want more. the other ztr series rims such as the 355 or even the arch are pretty dang proven. the one improvement in the crest is it supposedly has a marginally wider rim cavity. this may give a wider contact patch with narrower tires (if you like to run 2.1s). theoretically tire roll-off potential would be reduced too.






 

[Marshal]

I used Arch's for the AZT and CTR --zero issues

I used Crest's for the TDR -- zero issues

I have used stans sealent for yr's now, use it for all my training and multi-day races, took a bit of learning yrs ago to get it right but after that --I do carry a tire pump, have had to use 2 maybe 3 times in 4+ yrs, I test it out once in a while to make sure it's still working, just in case

I weigh 165-170 neked

I ride smooth & "light" over the rough stuff, have never trashed a rim of 'any type' in 20+ years of mtb'ing, have only cut a few sidewalls, broken a couple of spokes and bent a rim edge or two over the ys--protecting your rims and tires on extended multi-day/bikepacking trips by 'how you ride' IS a old school XC skill worth developing imo

nuff said

Marshal

[Emily]

I ride smooth & "light" over the rough stuff, have never trashed a rim of 'any type' in 20+ years of mtb'ing, have only cut a few sidewalls, broken a couple of spokes and bent a rim edge or two over the ys--protecting your rims and tires on extended multi-day/bikepacking trips by 'how you ride' IS a old school XC skill worth developing imo

Funny you should say that.  That Crest was the first rim I'd ever bent, and I've been riding mountain bikes since 1991!
I've not ridden the Divide but can see it would be a great choice for such a course.  Last month I found the Crest (with Nanoraptors) ideal for Dirty Kanza, which has open range gravel/ doubletrack surfaces that I imagine are similar to the Divide. 
The 100g lighter weight doesn't come without some compromise; Crests do get dented up faster than other Stans rims.  Unless like Marshal you can "float" over rocks, I think its fair to say you can expect a shorter life span for the rim. 

[multisportscott]

Thanks for feedback!!
In all of your valueable opinions is 100gms an aweful lot of extra weight as a rim, considering the extra durability??
I probably can't "stretch" to two extra wheelsets so it has to be either Crest OR Arch, not both for me.
I am dreaming of the TDR having toured the route last year.
I am on a Giant 29er and will continue to use the heavy blocks of concrete the bike came with for most riding, so these would be my "race/fast" wheelset??

[Spoonie]

I notice the difference in 100grams of tyre in an XC situation (feeling wise, probably doesn't affect my "performance") but a race like the TDR, which predominantly a Fire/Dirt road bash (not having done it), I would think not, or even I would think the extra weight rolling around may be in some ways faster.  While my handling lately seems to have gone to the dogs, the thing that gets me with light wheels over the years is not the 23hrs 59mins of lofting over whatever rock garden over and over without issue, it's the 1min of fatigue induced, low tyre pressured "Ping" of death that induces a grimace knowing I've probably just put another dint in my $1500AUD wheel set.   Having said that, I've now put nearly 1000km's of racing on my race wheelset with a sizeable dint on the inner wall of my rear crest rim and they've been fine and my mate ran the superlight 26" race rims to Australian and World 24hr wins last year without a single dint or issue.

My only thought is, if you've smacked a rim hard enough that it's dented it,  would either a 380 or 480gram rim handle such an impact much differently?  I don't know the answer, but my experience so far is even after belting light weight stans rims hard enough to dint them during 8-12-24hr & 100mile races, I've never had issues with beading or inflation.  I use strips with them all though which possibly helps that situation.  My 26" olympics have a couple of bead dints in them with many thousand km's of riding under them.  In fact they've been so reliable, I stopped bothering with race/training wheels.   switching to the crests is the first time I've dinted an inner wall though.

The arches are reportedly a more robust rim, I have friends with them for that reason and it doesn't seem to make any difference on their ability to grind me into a pulp when they want to.   On the flip side would seem both Marshall and Matt made it from one end to the other on their crests without issue, 4400km's is probably reasonable level of product testing    Just make sure you get a quality build with the strongest/lightest spokes you can afford would be my only other thought

*shrug*

Cheers
Craig

[ScottM]

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I found my way here while searching google about crest vs arch rims.  I love it when my own site comes up in google on the first page, and even better when it answers my questions perfectly, and from people I know/trust!

No crests for me, in other words. 

Carry on!

[multisportscott]

Hey Scott, I went with Crests and am super happy with them.
Don't know how many km's I have on them but it's been a fair few.
LG rode them on the TD this year and had no problems with them, his tyres are a different story!
Cheers, Scott E in ChCh

[Spoonie]

and from people I know/trust!

...I've heard there's a sucker born every minute!!

Cheers
Craig

[ScottM]

I'd ride Crests for the divide, but if Matthew says he wants more on singletrack, that means I need more.  Had really good luck with Arches laced up by Mike Curiak, and am going to try 355s now.

[sluttyduck]

Crests here on my heavy TD rig.
I dented the rear rim(too low tire pressure) at the Tsali 12hr race and had to build up a new one just a few weeks before the TD.  Due to the weather in Cincy I didn't have a chance to break them in on the dirt.  They were trued 3 times, and Brock at Orange Peel brought up the tension.  They survived and are still going.  Hopefully TNGA will be nice to them.

[Slim]

My wife did feel some flex in her front wheel, and on Twentynineinches.com, Grannygear did a test on a Jet 9 equipped with them and was bothered by flex as well.