Crestline RS 181.2 thread – builds, reviews, technical info

[B Rabbit]

FYI my berd thread should be approved soon, don’t want to derail this thread and the awesome builds

 

[FrogSkunk]

Just curious, how much do you weigh, who laced up the wheels to begin with and what rims were they laced up to? I’m asking because I’ve had a completely different, (positive) experience with mine. However mine are 27.5 and they’re on stiff enduro layup 40i carbon rims and they were laced up by Berd and I’m 175lbs kitted up.

Sorry, I was half asleep when I posted that last night. You’re right—details matter.

I’m riding an MX set of NOBL TR37s with non-flanged Onyx Vesper hubs. NOBL built the wheels themselves and, to their credit, they’ve been great to work with throughout all of this. I’m 215 lbs with all my riding gear on.

A couple things that are probably worth mentioning. First, some people will probably say I should have gone with the TR41s. I actually had TR41s on my Levo and found them a bit too stiff. That said, I also wasn’t riding park or hitting jumps anywhere near as aggressively as I am now. With the steel spokes, the TR37s actually feel really good.

The biggest factor in my experience, though, was reliability rather than ride feel. About 10 miles into my first trail ride, one of the Berd spoke inserts pulled out of the rear hub. NOBL repaired it quickly and sent it back. Then, only about 6 miles into the very next ride at the bike park, another insert pulled out on the same rear wheel, just on a different spoke.

The wheel has since been rebuilt with steel spokes and the updated inserts, and so far it’s been holding up great.

NOBL also sent my original Berd spokes back. If anyone happens to have a compatible MX wheelset and wants to experiment with them, I’d let them go pretty cheap. I’m not sure exactly what spoke lengths they’d fit, though.

This was just my experience. Most people I’ve talked to have had much better luck with the Berd setup than I did.