Pros and cons on a Carbon 36”Rim

[Unikev]

Hey
Carbon fibre 36” rim
What are the Pros and cons of this please.
I Have a carbon fibre rim on my 27.5 and a MTB rim on my 29.
Both are very light wheels.
Just wondering if having a light wheel on a 36” as the flywheel affect will be less

[hillin]

I’ve asked a similar question, and the kind folks in our forum had an in-depth discussion around it:

Do we really need weight reduction on a road unicycle?

Please help me sort this out, I think I may have some confusion here: Many praise a 36er for its stability, which to my understanding is brought by its great rotational mass. Using a lighter wheel component, e.g. a rim, tube or a tire, while reducing the weight, also effectively reduces its ability to keep the momentum. Is that what we want? In another aspect, for a smaller wheel, say a 29er that is set up to be ridden on the road (rather than being a muni), is it more desirable to increase it…

[toutestbon]

For me, the weight reduction is a big bonus on a 36".

The disadvantages are related to the limited choice of rims and tires and their compatibility. If you want to go fast on the road, you have to be careful not to put too much pressure.

The Braus rim (I28) doesn’t have a great quality of finishing… it’s the one I use on 2 unicycles.
The Nextie rim (I34-35) is of better quality but it doesn’t seem to hold the pressure well.

For muni, you should go for the Nextie rim. For road riding, the Braus rim is certainly better, but hard to find, expensive and with possible bad surprises.

I hope one day we will have a rim with the internal diameter of the Braus rim (I27 or I28) and the finish of the Nextie rim.

I don’t want to revive the debates, but from what I understand beyond I25, the hooks don’t support higher pressures. It’s the fitment to the tire and the use of an inner tube that is most important.

[haskinsc]

Huge CON: as of May 2023 there are zero compatible tires for the Brauss and Nextie rims. Sure, some tire/tube combinations may “work” for some people but there are plenty occurrences of blow-offs. You are taking a risk with either of these.

[Unikev]

I had a nextie rim but with the blow offs I decided not to use.
The only that’s seems to work to date is Tmonster but as I’m in the UK this tyre is very hard to find plus when I do find one it’s around £200GBP because of brexit. I’m really limited to the nightrider tyre.
I have been following the nextie thread on here
Just wondering whether it was worth the ££££

[Maxence]

@haskinsc

there are zero compatible tires for the Brauss and Nextie rims. Sure, some tire/tube combinations may “work” for some people but there are plenty occurrences of blow-offs

I’ve never heard or read of blow-off on the Braus rim. I’ve used it for many km with my King George Ultimate and Nightrider Lite tires and never had any issue. I know many of us did so.
Where have you read/heard this info?

[haskinsc]

There are several threads - some rather lengthy - about these rims and I was just going by what I seem to recall. I don’t know of anyone off the top of my head that’s experienced a blow off with the Brauss. Aside from that, look at the Brauss hookless profile. Hookless rims are made for tubeless tires typically with a Kevlar bead. There are no tubeless 36er tires.

[Maxence]

@haskinsc

Aside from that, look at the Brauss hookless profile . Hookless rims are made for tubeless tires typically with a Kevlar bead. There are no tubeless 36er tires.

Sure they are, but the narrow internal width seems to prevent blow-off with current tires. Riding at 45 psi doesn’t seem to be an issue with this rim.

[mowcius]

I do like my carbon 36" (Nextie with tape mod so I can run a NR Lite), but I wouldn’t be recommending it to anyone.

In the end due to Nextie’s mis-selling and blatant lies about the compatibility with, and the amount of testing they’d done with tyres on the rim mine did end up being free.

If it was stolen tomorrow, I wouldn’t buy either the Brauss or the Nextie at full retail price. The quality of the Brauss just isn’t there for the price, and the Nextie requires modification in order to run a NR lite at high pressures (especailly to do it safely).

[unicycleharry]

I thought @toutestbon had a blow off on his 36” climbing unicycle during Unicon.

I tried tubeless with NR Lite. That blew off without any riding, at around 30-35 psi if I recall correctly. Swapped to a 29er tube and it is fine.

[Maxence]

@unicycleharry

I thought @toutestbon had a blow off on his 36” climbing unicycle during Unicon.

I don’t recall that point. But my memories may be biased.

@unicycleharry

I tried tubeless with NR Lite. That blew off without any riding, at around 30-35 psi if I recall correctly.

That’s definitely not due to the rim. No 36er tire is sold as tubeless ready. We can’t expect to run them tubeless. IMHO, our best current bet to set up tires on the Braus rim is to use 36er TPU tubes from 36pollici.

[toutestbon]

I’ve had 3 blow offs with the braus rim and KG ultimate tire:

• the 1st, in July 2021 after climbing Mont Ventoux (I had left the unicycle in the car in the sun…)
• the 2nd, in spring 2022 after rebuilding my G36 (with a repaired schlumpf hub), I had centered and tensioned the spokes without the tire (as recommended by some). Except that with the tire at 3 bars, the wheel was off-center and spoke tensions dropped. The tire hit the frame at 32kph and the tube came out… I slightly scraped my elbow, and in August after the UNICON because of that, I got infectious bursitis in my elbow (yes 3-4 months later).
• the 3rd, during the UNICON when I was training for the Saint-Nizier hill climb. I put just over 3 bars. That’s the only blow-off I can’t explain.

Each time I blew off, I had to buy a new KG ultimate tire because it was obviously damaged.

EDIT: For information, I have 2 braus carbon rims since February 2020.

[Unikev]

That’s kind of put me the Braus rim now. As these are very recent blow offs.