My LBS said they had lots of trouble with my 36 airfoil rim, difficulty keeping the tire set evenly on the rim, and that the spoke screw poke through too much, even with the rim strip.
Nimbus Stealth 36", 36 hole, 38mm wide, machined sidewalls for smoother braking doesn’t address the problems noted.
I just assume the KH 36 has by far the best rim, but it’s not made by KH, it’s Nimbus.
Did you let your LBS put the rim strip on? These are thick rims, and a normal rim strip is probably not enough. I haven’t had to take my tire off myself, and haven’t seen the rim strip, but I imagine it’s more substantial than what the LBS uses, if not simply wider.
I’ve had that machined sidewall rim and have had no problems, but if you’re using a disc (or no brake at all like me) then you may as well get the one without the machined sidewall.
As far as tires go, It’s a big pain to get the 36er tires on and off from what I hear. Many people have resorted to using hefty metal tire levers, so I could see where a bike shop may not be used to having to work that hard to get a tire on.
The “best” rim would depend on what you want to do with it. Either way I’d get a nimbus rim, and I’d drill mine out if I had the money and/or wasn’t so lazy. Probably not the best idea to use a drilled rim for heavyset folks or offroading, but on road it would be great.
Airfoil is the strongest. Also if you compare strength - weight
Airfoil 36" Rim 1200grams (catalog weight: 1232grams)
Nimbus Stealth Pro 36" Rim - 1125 gram (catalog weight: 1116 gram)
+75 gram and a deep profile rim = +1
Your airfoil rim might be a bit undersized (mine was, even though there was no “X” mark). That might cause the problems with getting your tire seated properly.
I am not sure what you mean by “the spoke screw poke through too much”, do you mean that the spokes go through the nipples so far that they hit the rimstrip? If that is the case is your wheel built 3X or 4X? The airfoil rim has a significantly smaller ERD than the other rims and can be built 4X with the same spokes that other rims would use for 3X lacing.
On a side note if you are going to drill a rim I would only do one surface. I drilled the outer wall on my coker rim with good results but when I rode 36" rims that were drilled all the way through they felt pretty flexy.
EDIT: if you are into road riding there might be a small batch of lighter and narrower 36" rim coming out, but then they might not work so well with magura brakes in existing frames.
Two votes for Nimbus Stealth 2 (without detailing why), though unijuul said Airfoil is the strongest.
On Uni.com website, all the 36 Nimbus including the $930.00 Nimbus 36" Impulse Disc Unicycle have what is called the “Nimbus Dominator2 Rim,” 36"(black) 36H, 42mm wide, aluminum doublewall, reinforced eyelets, ERD - 767mm.
Is that what you call the Nimbus Stealth 2 rim?
I also noticed the $844.00 KH 36” Rim is just the Nimbus Dominator (black) 36H, 38mm wide, reinforced eyelets, machined sidewall, aluminum.
Is this an older model? It’s not as wide as the Nimbus Dominator2.
That’s a good question. I don’t know how much trust can be placed in the pictures, but the rim picture for the Impulse Disk shows “Stealth 787x38” and the rim picture for the Nightrider Pro shows “Stealth2 787x42” Both of their descriptions say Dominator2.