Light, stiff and cool looking (buzz saw). Stayed true w/ 260 lb rider

2+ years of moderate use and free hub body has notches in it

I have ridden these for 2+ years...not tons of miles and I developed a shifting problem. After much frustration I figured out the free hub body is notched from contact with the cogs. The notches evidently caused issues with my cassette; I swapped wheels, shifting a little better, swapped cassette and chain (which weren't wore out) and shifting problem is gone. Contacted Am classic and they said yes the notching is an industry problem with aluminum free hub bodies. Bottom line I have ordered a new free hub body from Am classic which has a steel liner on it...problem solved. Wheels are still a five though; love them.

They have a good, solid feel with no detectable flex, quiet freehub, smooth rolling hubs. I use these on my XC Ti bike and they really enhance the ride being tubeless.

The only thing that bothers me is the graphics of the wheels which are a little much for me.

These wheels are light and strong. Seem to be well made and ride nice.

Similar Products Used:

Stans, Velocity, Mavic, etc

Plenty of things to like about these wheels:
• Light weight for all mountain wheels, they accelerate like a good set of XC wheels.
• Standard spokes and (more or less) standard nipples means these are easy to work on with standard tools.
• Very good rim width (especially for their weight), allows mounting larger tires.
• Adequate depth to allow easy mounting of tubeless tires.
• Bead hook works well and tires set up easily.
• Freehub is quiet and easily serviceable with standard tools.
• Build quality from the factory is OK, spoke tension somewhat inconsistent, seems like build quality at AC has dropped off.
• I've got the black ones with white hubs which look reasonable, not overly blingy.

Be warned:
• These rims are light, and the tradeoff is that the flanges are pretty soft. They ding easily and are not up for a hardcore beating. I'm 54 and weigh 160 and have been beating these up pretty quickly on moderately technical XC/AM trails, no downhill. If you hit something that gets through the tire to the rim expect a major ding. The only way to protect the rim is to put too much air in the tire, which compromises traction and feel.
• Do not attempt to repair a ding in these rims. I did (because the rim flange was folded down enough to trap the tire bead), and broke off a piece of the bead hook. The flanges on these rims are really lightweight and, as far as I can tell, not repairable. (This can probably be said of any lightweight aluminum rim.)
• When you do beat up these rims forget buying a replacement rim. AC doesn't sell them. You have to ship the hub back to AC and they will build you a new wheel for $170 and ship it back to you, at your cost. That is a VERY expensive rim in both time and money.
• At the current rate of destruction, it looks like the rims will only last one season. At which point AC will happily rebuild the set for $340.

As I said, I'm an old guy that doesn't weigh all that much. I've got these wheels mounted on an Ibis Mojo HD with 6"+ of plush Fox suspension and large volume 2.4" tires. And, though I can go hard, I'm not a bike beater. They should be holding up better. I would love these wheels if two things were different: slightly better durability (I don't expect light wheels to be DH bulletproof); and if I could buy a reasonably priced replacement rim. I've built countless bicycle wheels over the past 30 years and can easily build a wheel of equal or better quality to what AC does in their factory (I can say this confidently because I've also got a couple of sets of AC road wheels which I love, but the build quality of the most recent wheels they rebuilt was not great). Even if you don't build your own wheels, you could have a competent shop mechanic do the rebuild much cheaper and quicker than sending the hubs back to AC.

Bottom line is that I can't really recommend these wheels for AM use, unless you don't ride that hard and/or are willing to overinflate your tires. And I won't be rebuilding them with AC rims. Sorry guys, you can do better.

Light weight, and strong. Its a stiff wheal, quick to take off on and reliable.

the best wheels I could have ever got!

Similar Products Used:

wouldn't use anything but AM classic wheals, but I have ridden sun, a couple of mavic wheals, and vellocity.