Hey all. I have a Pashley 26" MUni. I started off with the stock wheel, then later upgraded to the Power wheel, which is a Suzue hub and BFR rim, which I have ridden for about a year now, with (most lately) a Tioga Factory DH 26x2.5 tire and DH tube.
I’ve been trying to solve a tire fold-over problem when side-hopping on slanted surfaces. I bought a Gazz Jr 26x2.6 with a stiffer sidewall, which helped in a non-exciting minor way but was much harder to control for normal riding on harder surfaces.
I thought perhaps that a wider rim would help so I recently built a new wheel for it using a Suzue hub and 26" Sun Doublewide rim. I wasn’t sure that the tire would fit in the frame because of the tire spread, but I figured that I could sell it if not.
In fact, the combination is perfect. The new combination has plenty of room in the Pashley frame. The 50% wider rim and stiffer tire appear to have made tire fold-over a thing of the past. In addition, the wider rim helps the Gazz Jr. track better, and now riding straight lines and pulling high speed sharp turns (well, as high speed as I get!) is easy and natural. The Gazz was unhappy on the BFR but is really happy on the Doublewide. On hard packed, easy ground, the combo is a little sluggish. But as soon as there is any kind of roughness, the wheel is very responsive, yet the skittishness of the Tioga is quite gone. As far as hopping goes, the combination is amazingly stable and much, much better than the BFR/Tioga.
On the BFR/Tioga, I had to use a higher pressure (31 psi) but still had fold-over; with the Doublewide/Gazz Jr. I used 24 psi with none whatsoever.
I haven’t weighed anything but out on the trail I noticed only that I was riding faster, more securely, and had more of the “eating up the trail” feeling. As of this point, I’d have to say that the new combination is 200-300% better than the previous.
I imagine that this combination would be a really serious competitor with the 29" Nanoraptor for cross-country racing, depending on the terrain.
