Received two Nextie hooked - presta - rims recently. Application is for a 36er Blacksheep bike. Front is a 36 hole rim built with a Schmidt SON dyno hub. Rear is 36 hole rim built with Onyx racing boost 36 hole XD hub. Both wheels built by Ernie Fisher - guy that has built thousands of wheels in Des Moines and Tuscon. Ernie has been building wheels for decades. He used DT rim tubless rim tape.
Tires were a used set of Vee T-Monsters. I used Vee 36" presta tubes.
Ernie made unsolicited comments when I asked how the wheels built up. This was his first set of 36" wheels. “These rims built up great. Very high quality rim. After initial build and a few tweaks they were spot on. I then stressed the spokes to see if I could get the rim to move out of true. I do this because rims of poor quality will usually need more adjustment. These rims did not. Beautiful rims.”
I mounted the used T-monsters with minimal effort. Tight fit but not too tight. They were tighter than the NR Lights I had mounted on the Dominator rim. More thoughts on that later… I lightly inflated the Vee tubes and inserted tire on one side before mounting the other side of the tire. I did not need to use tire irons. Once inflated to 45 PSI I let them sit for a couple hours. During initial inflating I received audible pops of the tire seating on the rim. I had to move the tires a bit by hand to get proper alignment. I then deflated the tires and disengaged the bead from the hooks / rim. These tires seemed to seat very nicely into the hooked areas of the rim. It took some effort to get the tire bead to unseat which I consider a good sign. I then inflated to 45 PSI and let them sit over night.
The following day I rode the bike about 5 miles. Everything was fine. Last night I rode 20 miles and no issues. Tires were great and appear to be well seated in the hooks.
I am not a unicyclist so my tire/wheel needs, in terms of PSI, are different than a unicycle application where more PSI may be needed. 45PSI for my needs is great. I don’t need 60-65 PSI for a 36er bike application. I did not pump these up to 60 to see what would happen because I simply don’t have the need. I guess others will have to determine if this set up is good at higher PSI’s.
What I can tell you is that I am a 66 year old guy that has built hundreds of bikes (mountain, gravel, road, tandems, recumbent, recumbent trikes). I build high end bikes. I know wheels and I have a lot of experience with carbon rims - both hooked and tubeless (hookless) from a number of different manufactures (Whisky, Mavic, Zipp, Enve, Boyd). Initial impression is that these hooked rims are very similar to others I have used. In fact I would say that the hooked sidewall area has maybe a bit more depth than the others.
I ordered and cancelled the Nextie non-hooked version prior to even getting on this forum. Knowing that there were no tubeless compatible 36"tires available was the cancellation reason. Then I signed up for this forum to see what I could find out about unicyclists experience with this and the Braus rims. I purchased a set of Braus rims from Unicycle.com but sent them back because of the fact that they too are hookless rims. I worked with many of you in order to get the minimum rim order put together in order for Nextie to manufacture a hooked version. I ordered 3.
Many of you started questioning Nextie on testing the rim with the NR tire. Many of you reached out to Alice. My feeling was that there were “too many cooks in the kitchen” so I cancelled my order prior to shipping. I have always had a hunch that many of your complaints were not justified and had nothing to do with the Nextie rim but rather the tire you were using. However, your comments did give me pause so I thought I would just wait for more user experience. Alice was always quick to send me a refund on the same day. I find Nexties customer service to be excellent.
After a couple of you on this forum posted positive feedback about the Nextie rim and the T-Monster I felt I would take the chance and order a couple rims. Personally I believe that the NR light tire is out of spec. My experience with using it on my 36er is that it is larger in diameter than posted. Again, just my opinion. Black Sheep cycles seems to prefer the T-monster tires as does other 36 inch bike builders. Luckily I was able to get two used ones. I believe the NR light is good with the stealth rim because the two were designed around each other. I just think many of you have bad mouthed Nextie inappropriately even after they gave some of you a full refund knowing full well that the NR tire is out of spec.
I would encourage those of you, like me, that were on the fence about ordering these rims to give them a shot. The weight difference is noticeable. The only advice I would give is to make sure you have a T-monster to mount on the rim.
For those of you that already received a “free” rim from Nextie - give the T-monsters a try once they are available. I think you are going to like this rim. I cannot speak to the need to run these at 65 psi or if that will result in blow-offs. My hunch is that they will hold - but just a hunch.
Probably won’t be on this forum again unless I have negative issues going forward with these rims. Good luck to all of you. I think this rim is a winner.
