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SOC16: Praxis rolls out surprise carbon wheels for gravel, cyclocross and mountain bikes

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Just one month ago, Praxis rolled out a wide range of new cranksets and micro chainrings. Now they’ve rolled out an entirely new collection in the form of carbon-rimmed wheels, moving their product family in a whole new direction.

Starting with the C32 mountain bike wheels, they designed their own carbon rim to be just wide enough for modern tastes without going to extremes. It measures 32mm inside / 38mm external and 26mm deep. They’re laced with 32 spokes per wheel and get a hookless bead. The width has been tested with 2.25 to 2.5 wide tires from Maxxis, WTB and Specialized tires all airing up without a compressor.

They’ve also got a new carbon wheelset for cyclocross and gravel…

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They went with 32mm because it was a good middle ground to get a good tire profile with currently available tires. It’s a custom mold, using a bladder mold construction with the bladder removed after curing to save weight. The layup was designed to provide impact resistance and is reinforced at the nipples.

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The C32’s have a 3mm spoke offset to reduce dish.

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One unique (and very welcome!) feature is a flat section at the valve hole. That lets the tubeless valve stems sit flush with the rim surface and seal better.

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The RC21 is their wheel for ‘cross and gravel tires. As the name suggests, it’s 21mm wide on the inside. It also has a hookless bead design and uses the same hubs and lacing pattern as the MTB wheels:

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Hubs use a custom shell with beefed up flanges so they could run high spoke tension. That lets them use radial spoke lacing on the driveside up front, which they found made a laterally stiffer wheel. But because they’re using 32 spokes, they don’t need quite as high tension as a lower spoke count wheel, so it shouldn’t be overly stiff radially. The hub internals are DT Swiss 350 with their 32-tooth star ratchet.

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Comes stock with thru axle end caps but will have QR and other options. Standard 142 and 100 spacing, not Boost at launch.

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Retail is $1799/set for both versions, available early summer.

PraxisCycles.com

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Kernel Flickitov
Kernel Flickitov
7 years ago

“The RC21 is their ‘cross and gravel tire”

It all just blends together after a while, eh Tyler? Call it a crank or a chain, whatever, it doesn’t matter.

anonymous
anonymous
7 years ago

“they don’t need quite as high tension as a lower spoke count wheel, so it shouldn’t be overly stiff radially”

What?

typevertigo
typevertigo
7 years ago

Kudos to Praxis for sticking with J-bend spokes. Where I live, that means they’ll actually be replaceable. Cyclists who break straight-pull spokes in my country don’t really have a lot of options.

tehcrash
tehcrash
7 years ago
Reply to  typevertigo

You can’t replace straight-pull spokes but you can afford a $1.8k wheelset? Seems difficult to believe.

Mick
Mick
7 years ago
Reply to  tehcrash

I think he is trying to relate that in numerous countries availability and distribution of (in this case) spokes can be limited, or require long delays. Do some travelling around the globe, then you’ll develop an appreciation for his comment. What you take for granted is not always the norm in many countries.

Bikemark
Bikemark
7 years ago

1) Elbows out radial lacing on the front? I thought 28H was the upper limit for radial lacing on a low flange hub.

2) So the thicker flange allows for higher spoke tension which… two sentences later… we learn isn’t necessary because of the high spoke count. Um, rephrase?

anonymous
anonymous
7 years ago
Reply to  Bikemark

It’s due to a fundamental lack of understanding that tension doesn’t affect wheel stiffness unless the spokes go slack, while number and guage of spokes does affect stiffness, but most wheels are radially stiff anyways, and it is lateral stiffness that’s an issue.

Technically a wheel can be a little softer if the rim deforms enough to remove all tension from a spoke.

chase
chase
7 years ago

Those C32 rims are the exact same as my Nextie Wildcats. Awesome rims BTW. Best I have ever built and ridden. With CK hubs they run the exact same length spokes front and rear on both sides, due to the 3mm offset. Mine don’t have the flat valve stem platform which is very nice. Even spoke tensions are ridiculously easy to obtain.
Nextie offers them in 2 weights at 27.5. One is a DH (added layer of CF) the other is sans this layer making it lighter.
I have the heavier layup.
I built mine up with Chris King hubs (arguably the best available for about $1200) . That’s a Pro level build with bladed DT spokes.

Thesteve4761
Thesteve4761
7 years ago
Reply to  chase

No, they aren’t.

Veganpotter
Veganpotter
7 years ago
Reply to  Thesteve4761

Nope, I wouldn’t want any crappy(but nice looking/sounding) Cris King hubs. Sure, Nextie rims are good but the best? Really? Maybe Pro-weight build…not many actual pros run Chris King happily. They don’t roll very fast and they’re durable if you work on them all the time;)

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