Alex TD17

With the demise of the rear checkerboard and the destruction of my Fusion at the hands of Mike Carney (just kidding buddy) a new rear wheel became necessary. I'm eagerly awaiting the Chukker from Velocity, so in the meantime I didn't want to spend a bunch of money on a new rim. I also recently learned to do rock-walks and found that my rear 32C Vittoria rolled off the rim (Fusion) while learning the trick and landing poorly.

So the criteria for a new rim became: tough, cheap, and wide
Enter the Alex TD17. 23.9mm wide (not too wide, just right), 560grams, designed for 29er mountain bikes, no brake track, sells for around 30 bucks, and has a neat fat lip around the sidewalls that was designed to prevent pinch flats when mountainbiking. I'm hoping that the extra material makes it more dent resistant during square edge impacts.

It's a good looking rim and it built up smooth, although there was a little daylight showing in the seam; but that gap disappeared once the wheel was brought up to tension. I also am still fighting the sticker residue, but one of these days I'll go buy some Goo Gone and take care of it.

I am a big fan of the Alex Adventurer (box section, eyeleted, cheap) and considered that first, but on the recommendation of wheelbuilding vet P. Rude, settled on the TD17; primarily because it's a disc specific rim and thus doesn't have a brake track (I'm so vain). Also Matt recently built up sets of Alex Pro 28's and a set of XD-Lite's and came to the conclusion that they both seem to be very high quality rims. Alex kind of gets a bad rap because they're so inexpensive, but if you walk into most shops and start asking the mechanics you'll usually find several who swear by them. At least that's the story here in MPLS.

The first ride will be at TnD tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes.