How Good Are DRC MT17 Rims?

[Shakes]

HI I just bought a DRC MT17 Rim, I weigh 88kg.

[Shakes]

help please....?

[BogusOne]

You allready bought it so why worry now about how good it is?

[Shakes]

I was under the impression they were fitting Alex Rims, when I got how I saw they were DRC MT17. So I kinda wanne know should I take these back?

[BogusOne]

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=103925

[Shakes]

thanx mate

[BogusOne]

 

thanx mate

 

 

[sss000sss]

I have DRC MT17 on my second set of wheels used for training. They work pretty OK for XC riding. Only had to re-align them once so far in 3 years.

 

Don't think they will handle any serious drop-offs / jumps though?

[Tumbleweed]

they are strong rims. had a set that survived more than five years of abuse, before dying a sad and horrible death at groenies

[AndreZA]

I have DRC MT17 on my second set of wheels used for training. They work pretty OK for XC riding. Only had to re-align them once so far in 3 years.Don't think they will handle any serious drop-offs / jumps though?

 

 

 

 

the quality of the rim has absolutely nothing to do with how well a wheel is build. JB will give you a lifetime warrantee on his wheels that he build with those rims. Remember, each rim has its own limits. For example, you can not expect a lightweight wheel/rim to handle drop-offs and jumps.

[sss000sss]

 

I have DRC MT17 on my second set of wheels used for training. They work pretty OK for XC riding. Only had to re-align them once so far in 3 years.Don't think they will handle any serious drop-offs / jumps though?

 

 

 

 

the quality of the rim has absolutely nothing to do with how well a wheel is build. JB will give you a lifetime warrantee on his wheels that he build with those rims. Remember' date=' each rim has its own limits. For example, you can not expect a lightweight wheel/rim to handle drop-offs and jumps.[/quote']

 

I agree, the wheel build is important. Although the quality of the different parts will play a role (rim / hub / spokes).

 

[scotty]

Good rims, i'm using a DRC front wheel which i had built, no hassles so far.  

[Shakes]

Thanx everyone!!!

[Johan Bornman]

DRC makes excellent rims and yours is no exception.

 

Rim quality is a difficult issue to address since some people prefer to focus on weight or looks and don't consider durability an issue.

 

Lets assume in your case, you're concerned about strength and durability and weight is secondary.

 

Then a quality rim is one with enough aluminium to do the job - at least R450 grams for a road wheel and about 400grams for a MTB wheel. This will ensure that the spoke beds arent too thin.

 

Then, to protect the spoke beds even more, the rims should have socketed eyelets (sometimes called double eyelets). These spread the load from the spokes over a larger area of the rim and improves its service life.

 

Lastly, the rim should have no, or at worse, a thin layer of anodising on it. Black anodising by definition is thick and bad and silver is better.

 

Your rim scores a check on the weight and sockets but a cross on the anodising. It is a good, durable utility rim sold at a fair price - about R340-00 each.

 

In order to cater for the weight fashion, rim manufacturers do silly things. They remove the sockets and eyelets altogether, shave down the weight to crazy levels and anodise them black. These are not durable rims.

 

What is a strong rim?

 

A strong rim or wheel for that matter is one that will not collapse under its intended load. All sports-quality rims are therefore strong enough.

 

How do wheels support large loads such as drop-offs?

 

By spoke tension. The higher the spoke tension, the bigger force the wheel can withstand. A heavier rim has some role to play in this by spreading the load over more spokes in the load affected zone (those few spokes just above the contact patch) but at the end of the day, it is the total available spoke tension that supports the load.

 

Lets assume you have a thin, lightweight rim from say, Stan's. This rim will put about three spokes in the load affected zone. Each spoke is tensioned about 100kgs and you thus have 300kgs available load at your disposal. A 80kg man doing a drop-off landing on one wheel easily exceeds this. If you can't envisage this, climb onto your wash basin and jump on your bathroom scale. You'll see what I mean.

 

A heavier rim such as your DRC MT 17 will put perhaps six spokes in that zone and 6 x 100kgs will give you 600kgs of available load. It means our same 80kg man can thus do bigger drop-offs with fearing wheel collapse.

 

Finally, rim weight also tells you how much available braking material you have on rim-brake wheels. This is less of an issue today with disk brakes but if you run V-brakes, you'll want a beefier rim so that it will last longer.

 

Go ride.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest Big H]

We have DRC MT17 32 spoke wheels on our MTB Tandem that we use as road wheels with slicks on. We have done many Km's on bad roads in Africa with these wheels. We are a heavy tandem team (300kg's) The wheels were initially very badly built. I re-built them just after the Argus in 2005. I have not touched the wheels since and they are still running true. As the experts said above..... a well built wheel using quality components will last. DRC makes quality rims. We used DRC 19's on our roiad tandem from 2003 till March this year when the eyelets on the rims started collapsing due to corrosion. If I did proper maintenance they would propably have lasted longer.

 

In my book these are awesome rims!!!!!!!!

[Shakes]

DRC makes excellent rims and yours is no exception.

 

Rim quality is a difficult issue to address since some people prefer to focus on weight or looks and don't consider durability an issue.

 

Lets assume in your case' date=' you're concerned about strength and durability and weight is secondary.

 

Then a quality rim is one with enough aluminium to do the job - at least R450 grams for a road wheel and about 400grams for a MTB wheel. This will ensure that the spoke beds arent too thin.

 

Then, to protect the spoke beds even more, the rims should have socketed eyelets (sometimes called double eyelets). These spread the load from the spokes over a larger area of the rim and improves its service life.

 

Lastly, the rim should have no, or at worse, a thin layer of anodising on it. Black anodising by definition is thick and bad and silver is better.

 

Your rim scores a check on the weight and sockets but a cross on the anodising. It is a good, durable utility rim sold at a fair price - about R340-00 each.

 

In order to cater for the weight fashion, rim manufacturers do silly things. They remove the sockets and eyelets altogether, shave down the weight to crazy levels and anodise them black. These are not durable rims.

 

What is a strong rim?

 

A strong rim or wheel for that matter is one that will not collapse under its intended load. All sports-quality rims are therefore strong enough.

 

How do wheels support large loads such as drop-offs?

 

By spoke tension. The higher the spoke tension, the bigger force the wheel can withstand. A heavier rim has some role to play in this by spreading the load over more spokes in the load affected zone (those few spokes just above the contact patch) but at the end of the day, it is the total available spoke tension that supports the load.

 

Lets assume you have a thin, lightweight rim from say, Stan's. This rim will put about three spokes in the load affected zone. Each spoke is tensioned about 100kgs and you thus have 300kgs available load at your disposal. A 80kg man doing a drop-off landing on one wheel easily exceeds this. If you can't envisage this, climb onto your wash basin and jump on your bathroom scale. You'll see what I mean.

 

A heavier rim such as your DRC MT 17 will put perhaps six spokes in that zone and 6 x 100kgs will give you 600kgs of available load. It means our same 80kg man can thus do bigger drop-offs with fearing wheel collapse.

 

Finally, rim weight also tells you how much available braking material you have on rim-brake wheels. This is less of an issue today with disk brakes but if you run V-brakes, you'll want a beefier rim so that it will last longer.

 

Go ride.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[/quote']

 

Thank you Johan, this is a comprehensive reply thank you very much for the time spent...great!!!