# Spinergy tandem rated mtb wheels



## mhopton (Nov 27, 2005)

Check these out. Great looking wheels that are tandem rated from Spinergy. Alex asked us to give them a try over the next few weeks and provide some comparison feedback. Out current wheels are Velocity Blunt 35s on King hubs.

The Spinergys look fantastic on the bike. The rim, however is a narrow 20mm vs the 35mm wide Blunt. We are also running tubes on these wheels rather than our normal tubeless and running a different tire - wolverines vs weirwolfs. The hubs are made by Hadley - another quality hub maker. Overall, these wheels feel lighter as well.

Well report back after some rides over the next few weeks.


























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## PMK (Oct 12, 2004)

These are currently super popular for the road tandem teams. Some teams swear by them, others find them nothing special.

We are very content with conventional build wheels and the ease of trailside or quick repairs / rebuilds.

Personally I would beleive the choice of tire for the terrain would have a lot more result of handling, comfort and speed off-road. But if they are what teams need, they should run them.

PK


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## ds2199 (Sep 16, 2008)

I have no experience with Spinergy wheels. I do however have experience with another lighter weight specialty spoke wheel - Industry Nine. Although I liked the light weight, we managed to break several spokes (due to rocks getting kicked up and damaging the spokes.

We have gone to the wider profile rim (P35) and really like the tire profile on a wider rim. Also, we are 100% sold on having a Chris King rear hub. We have managed to blow up the Industry Nine hub and White Industry rear hubs on several occasions. It sucks pushing your bike when your hub spins freely in both directions...

I will take a small weight penalty over lack of durability. Maybe the Spinergy wheels will have favorable results, but I have no desire to be an early adopter.

Please post your results!


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## mhopton (Nov 27, 2005)

Paul, not having a road tandem, yet, I'm not up to speed on what's popular with the roadie crowd. In fact, I'm not even sure where to go to find a resource/forum similar to this one that would provide the information to draw upon. Nonetheless, my stoker is scared to death of cars, rightfully so, so I'm not sure a roadie would ever be in the cards for us.

As for the Spinergy wheels, my initial impressions, and that of Alex's as well, were that these might make a great set of race-day wheels given their light(er) weight. I think that they weighed right at 1900g for the pair. My initial ride with the wheels was interesting; the front felt very light, and not as planted as what I've gotten used to with the wider P35 rims. As these wheels have tubes, we were running higher pressure and using a tire with a rounder profile than what I'm running, which would seem to exacerbate the feeling of pushing a bit through the corners.

The setup of the rear wheel was interesting as it relates to the rear derailleur limit screws. I have to wonder if the spacing is slightly different as I had to adjust the hi/lo limits to their maximum to move the derailleur inboard far enough - towards the wheel, to properly align with the cassette. It shifts fine on the stand, but I'll find out more when we hit the trail later today.

We intend to ride the wheels for a week or two and see how they feel before giving them back - you can check them out in detail later next week during our trip to FL. More to come.



PMK said:


> These are currently super popular for the road tandem teams. Some teams swear by them, others find them nothing special.
> 
> We are very content with conventional build wheels and the ease of trailside or quick repairs / rebuilds.
> 
> ...


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## mhopton (Nov 27, 2005)

Dan, those are two very valid points. What I think I will pick up on most and have already noticed is the narrower rim, 20mm vs 35mm. I truly believe that the footprint of the tire when on a 35mm rim is a real advantage - especially on the front.

Your comment about proprietary spokes is also very valid - I have no idea what would happen to the wheel if you pop a spoke while on the trail. I do know that they are tensioned pretty high, so a direct hit could be a problem.

As for the King hub - I couldn't agree more. I do know that Hadley builds a solid hub with a strong freehub body. It doesn't have as many points of engagement as the King, but it is definitely a beefy hub.

Note to self, bring my wheels on the upcoming trip to FL...


ds2199 said:


> I have no experience with Spinergy wheels. I do however have experience with another lighter weight specialty spoke wheel - Industry Nine. Although I liked the light weight, we managed to break several spokes (due to rocks getting kicked up and damaging the spokes.
> 
> We have gone to the wider profile rim (P35) and really like the tire profile on a wider rim. Also, we are 100% sold on having a Chris King rear hub. We have managed to blow up the Industry Nine hub and White Industry rear hubs on several occasions. It sucks pushing your bike when your hub spins freely in both directions...
> 
> ...


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## PMK (Oct 12, 2004)

Note to everyone, if you can afford a spare wheel or 2, bring them on trips...better still bring spare spokes in the toolbox and learn how to true a wheel good enough to continue riding.

Bikeforums.net is the roadbike equivalent to MTBR for road tandeming. The road Synergy wheels are super common to the point of even other high end wheel users are swapping when their tried and trues are showing rim failures.

My plan, run what we have, pass them and discuss while passing a total BS story of how slow those Spynergy wheels are. I checke them out at STR 2012 in ST Augustine, did not ride them, nice for a road bike, but still pedals must be pushed. The wife and I discussed buying a set, she is fine either way. I went in a different direction...more tire testing and picked up about 2mph for less effort during cruise and much better peak flat ground speeds when on our own. So far, this has been a no cost upgrade since we needed tires anyway. Still not fast but we don't get left behind usually.

PK


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## ds2199 (Sep 16, 2008)

mhopton said:


> Dan, those are two very valid points...
> 
> Your comment about proprietary spokes is also very valid - I have no idea what would happen to the wheel if you pop a spoke while on the trail. I do know that they are tensioned pretty high, so a direct hit could be a problem...


Again, I can't speak for Spinergy wheels. But we did complete a race on our I-nine wheels after we broke a spoke at about mile 30 of a 70 mile race. No issues whatsoever. I just snapped the aluminum spoke a bit shorter and bent it around another spoke. The good news was that those wheels were really stiff. It think it was the aluminum spokes, but the were relatively brittle.


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## Fleas (Jan 19, 2006)

mhopton said:


> Check these out. Great looking wheels that are tandem rated from Spinergy. Alex asked us to give them a try over the next few weeks and provide some comparison feedback. Out current wheels are Velocity Blunt 35s on King hubs.
> 
> The Spinergys look fantastic on the bike. The rim, however is a narrow 20mm vs the 35mm wide Blunt. We are also running tubes on these wheels rather than our normal tubeless and running a different tire - wolverines vs weirwolfs. The hubs are made by Hadley - another quality hub maker. Overall, these wheels feel lighter as well.
> 
> Well report back after some rides over the next few weeks. ...


Team weight?
Ride light? Bash a lot?
Big power, smooth on and off?
Just to give me an idea.
20mm sounds really too narrow.

Thanks,
-F


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## mhopton (Nov 27, 2005)

We are a 270lb team. We are new to the tandem, but gaining experience fast. I have been riding single bikes competitively for a long time, so am generally a smoother ride. For the most part, I tend to turn bigger gears vs. spinning lower gears. 

I believe that you are correct in that the narrow rim will be the biggest drawback besides the proprietary spokes and lack of tubeless setup.

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## PMK (Oct 12, 2004)

Consider also, 

"Bash a lot?"

Tandems seldom wheely to save the front wheel, get over features or in general get light to maintain stability.

When people ask how we get over larger rocks, palmetto roots, fallen trees or other wheel stopping adventures, I honestly admit it is a controlled "crash"

For some hometown idea for testing, but the possible crash may be ugly, the couple small drop aways on the Blankets Creek Dwelling Loop will help test the front wheel.

The first drop is pillow soft at speed, the second drop over the rocks is a bit more "different".

There are a lot of off-road teams that would be a good fit for these wheels, just doubt we would be one of those teams.

PK


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## giff07 (Jun 7, 2010)

I often ask myself in these matters- Will great golf clubs make me Arnold Palmer?.. I would rather have light, reliable equipment that I am confident in and don't have to think about breaking. Granted we don't race MTB and are a 300lb team. I would probably not use them on the MTB tandem. All that being said I will buy something that I find aestetically pleasing and functional on the road. With all the issues reported on Topolino wheels(low spoke count and stupid light for tandem wheels) that everyone seems to be having we decided to purchase a set of Spinergys for our road tandem. The price is pretty raesonable considering most lighter wheelsets and they add a little bling. I do not buy these with the hope they will increase our overall speed and we have Rolfs currently. We have sent the rear wheel back twice in 5 yaers for a $300. rebuild for cracks at the spoke interface on the rim. I am hoping the Spinergys are more resilient than that. We do intend to keep the Rolfs though. Sorry for so much road tandem content but that will help explain how I feel about this matter. We are very happy with the Chris King wheelset we have from MTB Tandems for our off road adventures.
Ed and Pat Gifford
the Snot Rocket tandem


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## ds2199 (Sep 16, 2008)

I'll add one more item. First, let me say that we are not elite level cyclists, but we do have real world experience riding longer distance (50, 70 & 100 mile) mtb tandem races.

I *DO agree *that this could be a great race wheelset and may even be ok for everyday use. One thing that I have come to be very strict on is to* "race what you know". *This goes to nutrition, gearing, gloves, shoes, socks, chamois, sunscreen, tires (including rim profile, because that alters the tire's handling as much as the tread itself). I have been burned trying something new for a long day in the saddle and now, if I can help it, I don't stray from equipment used in training to races (espcecially the long ones).

So if I were to use my heavy duty King hubs with a wide profile rim for training, it would be foolish in my mind to make a wholesale change for race day. Saving weight, especially rotating weight is real (even moreso if there's a lot of climbing), but only if I could get comfortable with the rim profile and tire feel as well as durability for every day riding/training.


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## giff07 (Jun 7, 2010)

Absolutley agree Dan. When I road raced our coach would stress again and again not to race anything until you have used it in training.Also to have your final bike tuning done a practice/training session or 2 before you race. He even had us write down and follow our race day and pre race prep/ritual. 
Rotating weight is weight worth saving if you don't sacrifice durability/reliability. If we ever do decide to race the MTB tandem I would have no problem racing our King wheels
Ed and Pat
tSRt


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## mhopton (Nov 27, 2005)

We have continued to put some hard miles on the spinergy wheelset. Overall, they continue to hold up well and we have gotten used to the "feel" of the narrower rim profile. Under heavy torque (low/granny gear) and a steep climb, we can overpower the freehub and make it slip. While a bit unnerving, they continue to roll on. Our only changes were to set these up tubeless.

We rode saturday in north GA up and over a couple of gaps on forest service roads that are popular routes when the trails are too wet (we have had a solid week of heavy rain). Coming down the mtn (winding stair) at a fast clip, we blew the rear tire and pinch flatted severely enough that Stans couldn't seal the tire before it deflated completely. As such, the tire came off the rim at speed before we could come to a stop. Fortunately, no damage to the rim, the tandem, or my stoker (she is still recovering from her broken arm from our crash at Santos).

After popping a tube in and hitting it with CO2, we were back on our way and no worse for the wear.

A couple of pics....

At the top of winding stair gap taking a break and eating a PB&J. Just above us is Springer mtn, the start of the appalachain trail.








Carnage
















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## giff07 (Jun 7, 2010)

Wow, quite the harrowing experience and we are very glad to hear everyone/everything survived the incident OK. Thank you for the report on these wheels, we are very pleased with the road version so far.
Ed and Pat Gifford


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