36H road rims - long term prospects?

[fastpedaller]

Not wanting to be a harbinger or doom, but do folk think that 36h rims will endure? Will it be the norm for less spoking in the future (I'm wondering whether to future-proof by buying 36H rims, or 32H hubs!) Or will 36h rims still be available, but only in low-quality/high volume bikes for BSO market?

[PaulaT]

I sincerely hope so. I also hope that 40 hole will still be available as that is what I have in the rear wheel of my touring bike.

[Brucey]

I think that you will be able to buy 36h lightweight rims for decades to come. Even if the big manufacturers stop making them, I think that niche manufacturers will carry on; there are just too many 36h hubs in the World.

cheers

[Samuel D]

Making a 36-hole rim alongside a 32- or 28-hole one doesn’t cost much more. The machinery is the same; you just set it up to drill more holes and put in them eyelets and sockets that you need to source anyway.

Machines that make spokes don’t know how many go in a wheel, and hubs are the same as each other except for holes whose number and location can be easily adjusted.

So even though there will be a reduction in availability of 36-hole rims and hubs (that has already happened), I believe someone will make them while there is discernible demand. And there will surely be demand for a long time to come, especially for rims. Not long ago I bought a couple of 36-hole rims to fix crash-damaged wheels for a friend’s old commuter with perfectly good 36-hole hubs.

I worry more about other components that cost more to manufacture alongside the newer stuff, such as 7- and 8-speed cassettes and shifters, good rim brakes and levers, high-quality tyres for use with tubes, etc.

[scottg]

Not wanting to be a harbinger or doom, but do folk think that 36h rims will endure? Will it be the norm for less spoking in the future (I'm wondering whether to future-proof by buying 36H rims, or 32H hubs!) Or will 36h rims still be available, but only in low-quality/high volume bikes for BSO market?

Velocity will do different drillings on request, I need 40h for my British bikes.
I do feel doom & gloom for 3 & 4 speed freewheels, only rubbish is available new.
The lack of 12 speed d/t shifters is lamentable.

[iandriver]

Oddly, it may be the e-bike that saves the day here.
DT Swiss are marketing the 535 as an e-bike rim. In reality they are a great 600 gram trekking rim at a very sensible price. https://www.dtswiss.com/en/products/rims/trekking/535/

[Mick F]

One bike has 32h front and 36h rear, and the other bike 28h front and 36h rear.

[PH]

For lightweight road rims, I think it's complete wheelsets rather than a specific drilling that pose the threat. The hand-built market won't disappear, but it's going to continue to become more and more specialist and IMO prices of components will increase to reflect this. The popularity and decreasing cost of carbon wheelsets is likely to take a large proportion of the traditional handbuilt market, I think it already has.

[interestedcp]

Not wanting to be a harbinger or doom, but do folk think that 36h rims will endure? Will it be the norm for less spoking in the future (I'm wondering whether to future-proof by buying 36H rims, or 32H hubs!) Or will 36h rims still be available, but only in low-quality/high volume bikes for BSO market?

It is already an obvious trend that practically every rim maker are reducing the number of 36H racing rim models each year. Same with hubs. Both 36H rims and hubs will of course be available for years to come, but they will be "Shimano-stigmatized" that is, considered a yesterdays obsolete technology, and therefore mostly available in low end finish and quality or the other extreme; small batch, expensive retro-versions. There will of course be plenty of cheap 36H "trekking rims" with internal diameters of 19mm or above.

AFAIK, Ryde (Rigida) now only have a single racing rim ("Edge 13") with an internal diameter of 17mm. A box-rim of course, marketed for its retro-looks.

Mavic is down to two models: The Open Pro and the CXP Pro (only in black). Same with Rodi rims. DT Swiss doesn't have a single 36H race rim.

I don't believe that 32H is the new 36H, or at least, not for very long. The same forces that are driving out 36H racing wheels are already working on obsoleting 32H wheels in favour of 28H.

As for stocking up; well, it may be a good idea (I regret not stocking up on 4500 Tiagra hubs, or 5600 105 hubs and dérailleurs while available). On the other hand, the pace of obsolescence is so rapid at the moment, that you may end up with wheels you can't use on future bike frames. I actually had trouble sourcing a new v-brake frame for my new commuter. The shift towards disc brakes is tremendous and fast, so e-thru axles are becoming the norm too. I am buying XT V-brakes in silver, just for having the last pinnacle of this rapidly disappearing brake technology.

[Brucey]

Mavic is down to two models: The Open Pro and the CXP Pro (only in black)....

Last time I checked in Mavic you could get Open Pro, Open pro C, CXP Pro, CXP elite, Open Elite in 36 drilling. Albeit this includes disc brake rims and touring rims but SJS list 14 mavic rims in 36 drilling and that doesn't even include all the aforementioned.

cheers

[Samuel D]

Those aren’t the “racing rims” that interestedcp limited his list to.

But how many consider an Open Pro a racing rim nowadays? I haven’t seen one at a race recently. On the other hand, you could race about as well on some of the Mavic rims Brucey lists, so arbitrary categories don’t concern me too much.

I believe the trend that interestedcp mentions will continue but stabilise before the choice of 36-hole rims declines to nothing, for the reasons I stated upthread. Meanwhile it makes sense that there are fewer 36-hole rims on the market since sales have declined and the cost of having additional SKUs is not zero.

Another way of looking at this: there aren’t many rims I would want to buy anyway that aren’t available in a 36-hole variant. I bet that is the case for most interested parties. This is different from lamenting the demise of the Mavic MA2 or other such creature, since those aren’t available in any drilling.

[interestedcp]

Mavic is down to two models: The Open Pro and the CXP Pro (only in black)....

Last time I checked in Mavic you could get Open Pro, Open pro C, CXP Pro, CXP elite, Open Elite in 36 drilling. Albeit this includes disc brake rims and touring rims but SJS list 14 mavic rims in 36 drilling and that doesn't even include all the aforementioned.

cheers

They must be old stock. Mavic currently only have the "Open Pro C" and the "CXP Pro" and the Open Elite (which I overlooked previously) with 36H. Technically the "Open Pro T" is also available in 36H, but it is a tubular rim. The "Open Pro" isn't made any more (or renamed to Open Pro C).
No Mavic UST racing rim are 36H. So three models out of eight models can be had in 36H. It used to be that every such racing rim came in 36H. All three models only come in one single 36H colour variation; The CXP Pro is black only, while the Open Pro C 36H and Open Elite 36H only are available in silver.

The rest of the Mavic 36H rims are trekking rims with internal diameters of 19mm.

[Brucey]

sorry yes the new open pro (a UST rim) is not available in 36 drilling.

But you have not mentioned the CXP elite? CXP elite is the rehashed version of the CXP22 as was.

FWIW I have found that manufacturers don't always list what they do and don't make in any given catalogue. It is obvious that they might not make things that they do list but it is less obvious that they do make things that they don't list. Maybe this is a case in point.

cheers

[interestedcp]

sorry yes the new open pro (a UST rim) is not available in 36 drilling.

But you have not mentioned the CXP elite? CXP elite is the rehashed version of the CXP22 as was.

The CXP Elite is no longer made in 36H.

FWIW I have found that manufacturers don't always list what they do and don't make in any given catalogue. It is obvious that they might not make things that they do list but it is less obvious that they do make things that they don't list. Maybe this is a case in point.

cheers

I don't think it is the case with the Mavic website. I have checked out the availability of 36H rims, especially in silver, every year since the silver version of the CXP33 rim was discontinued. And every year when the website announced on less model or variant of 36H rims it has been true.

I believe the only reason the CXP Pro rim is still available in 36H is because it is known as a "Clydesdale" rim (rim for the weight challenged) in the US because of its immense strength and ability to take high spoke tension, and therefore still sells despite being 36H.

(edit: clarification)

[MarcusT]

They are still making Shimano XT hubs in 36 h, so there still must be a future