Sandy needs to roll.
Out of the factory, Sandy comes with spoked wheels and tubeless tyres. These are quite the 50/50 combo journalists like to call so. In reality though – any faster approach offroad or to a big pothole and it can end up with the rim bent slightly and a flat tyre. How come? Well – they are wide rims, that need to hold the sides of the tubeless tyre stiff in order for it to perform well in the wabbly hands of the journalists. Any serious attempts at adventure riding or offroad riding are not usually in the books for them. This wideness comes with a price. Proper off-road tyres will be mounted as stretched and therefore have a square patch on the ground and not much grip. The front will have very little psi to the ground and since the rim beads are very close to tyre edges, it is easy to bend the rim with even a smaller obsticle. What happens then? The wide bead can no longer hold the tyre in place and – whoooooooooshh comes the air out. given some assistance You can then use a tube to ride on. Similar issue presents itself, if tube type wheels/tyre combo is used with a wide wheel. There is then also possible to get a pinch-flat where the rim will brake the inner tube, given enough pressure. What is the remedy?
Proper off-road wheels. They can be lighter, narrower, stronger in shape and also stronger in materials, easyer to clean and better looking even if used hard off-road. We opted to use the OEM hubs. The hubs would be painted from the factory matte black to a more suitable half-glossy orange in polyurethane paint. It is suppose to be more durable, very easy to wash/clean and looks a lot better (in our opinion).
The spokes come special from Haan manufacturing – they have a bit stronger metal and longer/stronger nipples with them.
The rims – these come from Haan also. But the rims are from Excel. The rear measures a 2,5×18 inch and the front is 1,6×21 inch. Now the difference is in the technology. The front we like to opt for the A60 enduro wheel. This is a very high cone shape rim with no flat spot on the bead. This means extremely strong, very easy to clean and it is not likely to get any dirt seated on it after a river crossing or so.
As with all the new wheels – they need assembly, truing, curing and then some more truing and … ? Yes, tyres would be good too.
For road use we keep the OEM Metzeler Karoo 3, it is reasonably quiet, it has good grip and does live a little before the rear is sadly flattened by road miles. But for all the shits and giggles – Mitas Rally star tyres are the way. E13 up front and E12 in the rear. More thread, stronger carcass, wide stance and enough longevity for us. And they look good too 🙂
