Salsa Cycles Gordo Rims: First Impressions
October 4th, 2008 by Guitar TedI’ve had some time to ride the Salsa Cycles Gordo rims and now will download my first impressions of the rims for you all here. Just to recap, this is Salsa’s newest rim design which is also shared with the soon to be available Semi rims (30mm wide). The Gordos have a welded and machined rim seam, a specially designed rim well and bead seat, and are 35mm wide.
The wheel build went well. I used Hope Pro II disc hubs in a red anodization with Wheelsmith double butted 14/15 guage spokes and a variety of colored alloy nipples in a random pattern. The rims came up to tension really well and were straight and true out of the box. This is a welcome thing when building a wheel. The Gordos are a pleasure to work with in this respect.
First, I want to say that the tires I used on the Gordo rims were some that I have been using all year long. A WTB Weir Wolf LT 2.55″ and a Schwalbe Racing Ralph 2.4″. Old tires always mount up easier than new, unstretched ones. That said, the tires required a little work to get the last couple of inches over the rims edge and into the bead seat. Nothing out of the ordinary, and definitely not real tight. I have heard reports of some new tires being quite difficult to mount though.
The tires aired up and seated with a reassuring snap into the bead seat. I used tubes and aired up the tires to about 40 psi and let them sit overnight. I then released the pressures down to about 25psi front and 27psi rear. The casings on each tire were very close in measurement to each other, within a hundreth of a millimeter at a bit over 60mm each. Yeah, these rims make your tires wider! I gained over 3mm on each tire in width. Nice!
When I did most of my off road rides, I actually aired down the tires again. to 17psi front and 20psi rear. Wow! What a great riding feel! My OS Bikes Blackbuck never rode so well. Smoooth……really smooth! The traction was amazing as well. The rear Weir Wolf LT never climbed as well before mounting on the Gordo rims. I actually smacked the rim pretty good a couple of times on one occaision. I was riding so early in the morning that the suns light was at an angle that made going East a blinding experience. I would miss seeing some root or small branch and smack the rim while seated. No pinch flats and no rim dings so far.
The Gordos feel rock solid in off camber situations and seem to have very little if any flex in hard corners. I am really amazed at how laterally rigid this wheel build is. It makes other wheels seem whimpy and I must say that I am spoiled now! (I guess I should also point out that I was the wheel builder, so they had better be good, right?) That is a great point actually. Your wheel builder will have a lot of input as to how good or bad any rim feels, but make no mistake, if you start out using a high quality, stiff rim, you’ll most likely get great results. The Gordo will most certainly ride excellently once built by a competent wheel builder using quality spokes and hubs.
For now I can’t get enough of the Gordos. They re-invent your tire choices possibilities, they build excellent wheels, and they perform very well. I had a chance to ride a Salsa Fargo at the Interbike Outdoor Demo with Gordo rims and WTB Vulpines mounted on them. The ride was phenomenal and the Vulpines gripped really well for a tire with essentially no tread. Awesome stuff!
I’ll get some more miles into these wheels and report back later with an update.
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I know Salsa says these are not tubeless compatible, but have you tried it?
Jared: I haven’t got any new tires at the moment that I think would be suitable candidates for a try at that. When I do, I will most likely try it out. I have a report from a credible source that says it doesn’t work very well with Gordos though, so I am not in any hurry to check it out.
Besides, I can already run ridiculously low pressures, they don’t seem to be wanting to pinch flat for me, and the tires seem very stable on the rims at these pressures. I don’t have a whole lot of motivation to try tubeless on a Gordo because of these things and that negative report.
I will probably try it at some point none the less.
Mikesee reported that he tried tubeless on Gordo rims without success.
Hmmm. Any thoughts on why they would make a product that is resistant to tubeless-ness? Perhaps, as you say, you can get most of the bennies of tubeless with a tubed ride, but there is still more chance of flats, either thorn or pinch.
The tubeless thing probably would have delayed the product longer, and caused the legal department at QBP many head aches. Add to this the fact that the market place would probably only accept a UST designation, which would have cost Salsa even more resources and I think it’s obvious why they didn’t go that route.
I have not tried the tubeless thing, but I will at some point, on the Gordos. New tires are a must and I just don’t have anything right now that would work. Besides, the way they are riding now is fantastic and I really do not want to mess with that.
If sealant is an issue and necessary in your area, there are Slime tubes or you can do your own tubes up with Stan’s or home brew sealant.
I know some guys that dig the tube thing because they claim it makes the sidewalls stiffer and less prone to damage in rocks and what not. YMMV
The reason for us out here in Utah: thorns.
“The ride was phenomenal and the Vulpines gripped really well for a tire with essentially no tread.” – GT
Did you forget about the large contact patch that a 29er provides and the awesome traction? You have been on 29″ wheels so long you take them for granted.
I am always amazed that so many want big knobbly tires – too much rolling resistance and the 29er contact patch does not need it.
I am excited about this rim, but am sorry to hear about the MC failure at tubeless. If I ever beat up my Kris Holm 40mm wheelset, I will maybe try the Grodo, it is not near as heavy as my KH, and maybe should be named the “poquito Gordo”. 8^)
Just wanted to clarify the tubeless experience I had with Gordo’s.
Read it here:
http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?p=4899530#poststop
Best,
MC
This is a good thread. I wanted to share a bit about Salsa’s position here as it is often mis understood.
Over the last couple of years through our own research and experimentation we have learned a lot. At the moment we believe tubeless is viable from a dedicated user consumer perspective but not quite viable from a manufacturing perspective.
Folks will call out how good Stan’s is and will call out home remedies & ghetto tubeless. They’ll also call out how Bontragers been doing it for a while too. I also think that for every one I personally know that runs tubeless, I also can name at least one person that has had poor results due to tire bead variability, tire bubling, blow offs, etc. I can also show you one of our own engineers who ended up at the ER while testing.
Both Salsa and I acknowledge that core consumers want it and that means we need to continue to test, but the reality is that from a manufacturing perspective, the 29er tire, 29er tire standards, & 29er rim & bead standards have not evolved the way they need to evolve to make tubeless work on a larger scale.
We hope and believe that is changing, but right now there aren’t consistent standards and thanks to our litigous society, until there are some standards, Salsa rims will clearly state “For use with tubes”.
Tubes are great. Very hard to improve upon, especially their reliability, simplicity and cleanness.
The ideal way to leave away a tube and have beads stay in place exists (or can be designed and made rather easily), but it will not inpire the hopeful hearts of weight-consious riders around the world, who always tried to use tubeless a key bonus for their weight aspirations. A tube is hard to beat for that.
Tubes with goo in them against punctures have been around for decades, we just forget about them, re-invent them, and all over again.
Thought about the gordos and wanted to know how they would do for racing. They don’t seem very light. More for the “I ride for fun” group. I converted to stans and flatted in 3 races. I’m sticking with tubes. There so old school!
James: Yeah, these are more all mountain/trail type fare, but oh! So much fun to ride that I might even race on them. Especially if I am going full rigid.
Salsa is rumored to be re-doing the Delgado Race rim, which is already a pretty darn good race rim, but apparently they are going to make it even better.
I would term anything from 24mm to 30mm a “race” ready rim for 29″ers. Maybe the up coming Semi 29″er at 30mm would be light enough for you?
I agree that the Gordos are a bit beefy for racing applications. As far as the tubeless thing goes, I know Butcher and G-Ted know where I’m at there. I’ve been running tubeless 29er wheels/tires successfully for as long as I’ve been riding 29ers, on pretty much every rim I’ve run (Salsa’s fine rims included), though I’m doing it with my own “getto” solution that is well known to several regular readers here. Put it this way, on a heinous 40+ mile super rocky ride in the Colorado front range this past weekend that my good buddy “Death March” Dave put on, I was one of the only riders that didn’t suffer a single pinch flat (or flat of any type) on the entire ride, and I was running 26psi in my front tire and 28psi in the rear at the start. I eventually bumped my rear up to about 34psi to protect the rim and tire casing, because I was nailin’ it quite frequently on my Dos Niner trying to keep up with guys on 4-5 inch travel FS rigs on the DH sections, but I was doing it and not flatting. And I was doing it tubeless with tires and rims not designed to run tubeless. I’ve been doing that for seven years now, when you count the years I was doing it on 26ers before I switched to 29ers, so James, to you I say, persistence pays. You haven’t tried hard enough. It can be figured out. You just have to ask yourself how badly you want it. I understand that it can put you in the hospital trying… Butcher pointed that out eloquently. You need to be careful while you’re sussing out new setups. Until you’re secure in a rim/tire setup, don’t push it. Typically, my experience is that if a setup is going to go bad, you’ll find out pretty quickly — on the first two rides most often. But it pays to keep an eye on your wheels always — tubes or no.
MG, Looking back I remember I didn’t have much air pressure in the tires at the time for 2 of the races which might have contributed to the failure. Thanks for encouraging me to give it another try.
GT, thanks for the tip. I’m drewling over the Selma and think Salsa rims to match would be fab.
Hey Ted its me again. I’m sure you get lots of questions so ill try to keep it breif. i have a set of I9″s/Gordos rims and i’m running the Conti MK 2.4 tubless and i love them. I ride a 08 paragon and the clearence is just perfect, I’m looking into buying a set of racing ralphs but im not sure if i should go with the 2.25 or the 2.4. i guess my question is A. how acurate are the tires sizes on the RR”s and B. how will the Gordos affect that size?
Also, i love the info i get from the site and it has really helped me to make better choices.
paragonjeff: Racing Ralph sizes are very accurate to the marked size. Very voluminous casings. The Gordo will make the 2.4″er at least 2mm wider.
Thanks for your comments! I appreciate that!
Hewy Ted, i’m running a RR 2.4 on Gordos up front on my paragon. do you know of a tire that will give me the same large volume but with a more aggresive tred? I would like a little more bite up front. thanks your website rocks!!!
paragonjeff: Well, there isn’t really anything quite as voluminous as a racing Ralph 2.4, but you might try a Mountain King 2.4.