Bontrager Race Lite wheels

Quoted message said:

Any opinions on this wheelset?

Excellent road wheel, I have a pair, the MTB wheels used to be top notch, but in 2000 (or 2001?)
they downgraded the hubs, from Chris King to Hugi, and today there me some other. I was fortunate to
get mine the last year they came with CK.

MTB wheels have to withstand a lot of abuse. The Bontrager RL wheels come with 24h 28h spokes, if
you brake a rim replacement is costly, I had to order from the US (in order to be able to use the CK
hub), better to use 32h rims.

The low number of spokes does not seem to be a problem on the road wheels. Have done close to 3000
km on mine and they are still perfectly true.

Per user.tninet.seMTB.htmlOpen ↗

They were never Chris King. They were (and still are on the high end) DT Swiss.

Jon

"Per Löwdin" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Any opinions on this wheelset?

Excellent road wheel, I have a pair, the MTB wheels used to be top notch, but in 2000 (or 2001?)
they downgraded the hubs, from Chris King to Hugi, and today there me some other. I was fortunate
to get mine the last year they came with CK.

MTB wheels have to withstand a lot of abuse. The Bontrager RL wheels come with 24h 28h spokes, if
you brake a rim replacement is costly, I had to order from the US (in order to be able to use the
CK hub), better to use

32h

Quoted message said:

rims.

The low number of spokes does not seem to be a problem on the road wheels. Have done close to 3000
km on mine and they are still perfectly true.

Per user.tninet.seMTB.htmlOpen ↗

I've got a pair on my Trek 2300 road bike. Love em!

"Per Löwdin" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Any opinions on this wheelset?

Excellent road wheel, I have a pair, the MTB wheels used to be top notch, but in 2000 (or 2001?)
they downgraded the hubs, from Chris King to Hugi, and today there me some other. I was fortunate
to get mine the last year they came with CK.

MTB wheels have to withstand a lot of abuse. The Bontrager RL wheels come with 24h 28h spokes, if
you brake a rim replacement is costly, I had to order from the US (in order to be able to use the
CK hub), better to use

32h

Quoted message said:

rims.

The low number of spokes does not seem to be a problem on the road wheels. Have done close to 3000
km on mine and they are still perfectly true.

Per user.tninet.seMTB.htmlOpen ↗

Quoted message said:

They were never Chris King. They were (and still are on the high end) DT Swiss.

What were never Chris King? The Bontrager Race Lite MTB wheels came with CK hubs, well they were
labelled "Bontrager by Chris King", and had 24h and
28h. Spokes may have been DT, I don´t know. In any case they were splendid wheels, came with
the better Fishers and Kleins in 1999, then the Trek economists (I assume) changed to Hugi
hubs in 2000.

Per user.tninet.seMTB.htmlOpen ↗

Been using them on my Litespeed here in Texas, over 3000 miles in 8 months.....so far so good!!

"Predrag Jovanovic" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Any opinions on this wheelset?

Thanks,

Predrag

"Predrag Jovanovic" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Any opinions on this wheelset?

Thanks,

Predrag

They are great so far.

The Bontrager Race Lite is a pretty conservative "low spoke" wheel set, using 24 spokes in the rear,
20 in the front. Spoke failure is nearly unknown, since loading factors aren't nearly as high as
what you get with 16-spoke designs, and truing them is conventional (meaning if you can true a
regular wheel, you can true a Race Lite).

One of the nicest things about the Race Lite (and Race XLite) design is that it uses conventional
spokes & nipples, so if you were to toss a branch into one and take out a spoke or two, you don't
have to spend your life hunting down a Bontrager dealer who happens to have the exact spoke in
stock. Just any old spoke of the correct length will do the trick. Won't look as nice, but when you
need to get back on the road, who cares?

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles chainreactionbicycles.comchainreactionbicycles.comOpen ↗

Quoted message said:

They were never Chris King. They were (and still are on the high end) DT Swiss.

My memory could be faulty, but I seem to recall the earliest version did, in fact, using Chris King
(SOB, as in sounds like a Swarm of Bees) hubs.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles chainreactionbicycles.comchainreactionbicycles.comOpen ↗

Quoted message said:

What were never Chris King? The Bontrager Race Lite MTB wheels came with

CK

Quoted message said:

hubs, well they were labelled "Bontrager by Chris King", and had 24h and
28h. Spokes may have been DT, I don´t know. In any case they were splendid wheels, came with the
better Fishers and Kleins in 1999, then the Trek economists (I assume) changed to Hugi hubs
in 2000.

It wasn't about money, it was about Chris King's ability to produce hubs in very large numbers and
deliver when needed. Chris King is actually a pretty small company, probably not the sort that wants
to dramatically change the way they do business by expanding greatly. The big risk there is that one
customer accounts for a huge percentage of your business, and if that one customer goes elsewhere,
you're in big trouble.

Hugi, on the other hand, is a very large company with a proven delivery track record, and the TREK
account is a relativley small part of their overall business. They can gear up for TREKs numbers
without fear that, if TREK moved to a different hub vendor, it might put them out of business.

That and some people just do not like that "Swarm of Bees" sound the Chris King hubs make! I think
it's cool, but a number of people ask if we can find a way to quiet them down.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles chainreactionbicycles.comchainreactionbicycles.comOpen ↗

"Per Löwdin" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

They were never Chris King. They were (and still are on the high end)

DT

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Swiss.

What were never Chris King? The Bontrager Race Lite MTB wheels came with

CK

Quoted message said:

hubs, well they were labelled "Bontrager by Chris King", and had 24h and
28h. Spokes may have been DT, I don´t know. In any case they were splendid wheels, came with the
better Fishers and Kleins in 1999, then the Trek economists (I assume) changed to Hugi hubs
in 2000.

Per user.tninet.seMTB.htmlOpen ↗

Quoted message said:

I think it's cool, but a number of people ask if we can find a way to quiet them down.

They have not understood that the purpose of the bee swarm noise is to keep people pedaling even on
long descents thus increasing the speed.

Per user.tninet.seMTB.htmlOpen ↗