American Classic Smokin' Gun Redefines Wide Wheels
At first glance, American Classic’s new Smokin' Gun mountain bike wheelset, with 43mm-wide rims, looks made for plus-sized tires. It’s not. Though it’s compatible with plus tires, company founder Bill Shook says, the Smokin' Gun was designed for XC and enduro riding with regular-width tires. The wheelset has been tested by the Commencal Vallnord enduro team and, Shook says, rider feedback has been very positive.
Echoing the standard industry line about the advantage of wider rims, Shook says the massive profile (40mm internal) widens a tire, which creates more air volume and allows the rider to use lower pressures, improving traction (lower pressures and bigger footprint), and also control. Because a tire is so much bigger on a wide rim like the Smokin' Gun, Shook believes riders can drop down a tire size (for example, using a 2.1 instead of a 2.4), saving weight without sacrificing traction.
I’m very intrigued by this wheelset and look forward to testing it. (I have a pair on order.) While I do think there is something to the wider-rim trend, I’ve found that wider rims, for me, make less of a performance improvement than their proponents put forward. Some improvement, yes, and I’ll happily take it, but not so much that I’m bummed when I go back and ride a “regular” mountain bike rim.
In fact, I’ve experienced two drawbacks to wider rims. They jack with a tire’s profile enough that there are definitely wide-rim-friendly and unfriendly tires. It takes some experimenting to find the friendly ones. I imagine a rim as wide as the Smokin' Gun exacerbates the tire-profile challenge. I’ve also found that I get a different sort of flat tire on wide rims: fewer sidewall cuts, but more cuts through the center of the tread.
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Does this wheelset take wide rims, for regular-width tires, too far? I’ve generally found that in all cycling equipment, there’s too much, there’s too little, and then there’s the sweet spot in between. But I don’t know where the sweet spot is until I’ve tried both too much and too little. Maybe this is the sweet spot and it will sell me on wide rims the way the current offerings haven’t. I don’t know yet, but I look forward to finding out.
The Smokin' Gun will be offered for 27.5 (1733 grams per pair) and 29 (1790 grams per pair)—that’s really light for such wide rims—with 32 spokes front and rear. Like most American Classic wheels, the company keeps the weight down, in part, by using thin-walled rims.
The rear is offered in both Boost and regular spacing, with either Shimano/SRAM 10/11 speed or SRAM XD driver. The front is offered with 15x100 (convertible to standard QR), Boost, Lefty, or SRAM Predictive Steering hubs. The wheelset is tubeless-ready and comes taped from the factory with valves. Hubs are offered in six-bolt disc mount only. Price is $899, and the wheelset should be available in January.
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