Looking for new wheels for my '18 RMB Instinct. Trail/All Mountain. Does anybody have any good experience or insight into Woven, We Are One, or NOBL? Are there others in Canada to look into?
Want them to be as unamerican as possible.
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It’s unfortunate that We Are 1 are now under I9, but they are currently still made in Canada and as such they are the only brand of rims that are (AFAIK). NOBL is a great company, but they do offshore the rims.
I have the Convergence Triad on Hope Pro 5s and they are incredible. You won’t really notice a ‘performance’ increase, but they are just so well damped, and unbelievably strong. I have hit some serious rocks doing incredibly stupid things with these and they don’t even whimper. It’s incredible. And mounting tires as tubeless is a dream once you get the bead on, which I have not found that difficult, but I know some tires can be tough.
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Good to know. I didn’t know about it and WA1.
New bike came with a solid set of Crank Brother Alu wheels. Honestly will probably never go back to carbon. Way more compliance and an overall better feel.
My 2 cents and random inject.
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Super happy with my NOBL wheels (TR37 rims). I’ve had them 4 years and they ride like a dream. Also really easy to get tires on and seated for tubeless. And their customer service was excellent after I received them and Canada Post had abused them and damaged part of the hub. Canada Post notwithstanding, the trails haven’t managed to even put a scratch on the rims.
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I have the exact same rim/hub setup as @brightwhite and they’re great in the ways he says. I’ve inflated tubeless using a cheap floor pump. I will say that mounting a set of the new Schwalbe Albert radials last week took more effort than I’ve ever experienced before though! I needed an extra set of hands to get the second bead over the lip.
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Ah, crap. I’ve seen this before but didn’t think I’d ever need it and forgot about it. Thanks for the reminder!
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I just had a set of WR1 convergence rims laced onto the new OneUp hubs and they are awesome. Previously I had the same rims on DT Swiss 350 hubs, also awesome. I am a WR1 dealer, which is why I am fortunate enough to get new wheels often and the only reason I can 
, and I agree with @brightwhite on all points. The wheels are badass, but certainly not going to offer any mind blowing performance gains. But they are built proof. I’m 270-280lbs and pick lines like an elephant and I have never had to retrue or retension a set even after multiple seasons of riding. There are many great alu rims and wheelsets out there like @Enduro_Performance said. But hard to beat the cool factor of carbon. I was sad to see WR1 sell to i9, especially since that killed any possibility of the Arrival returning. But in saying that, they are still all hand made in Kamloops and still come with a lifetime warranty. It’s still the most Canadian carbon wheel company that exists, and is still run by Dustin, it’s just majority owned by i9. But according to WR1, nothing is really changing for the time being and WR1 was already producing all of the i9 carbon rims.
If you have any more questions feel free to DM me or hit me up through any Granite Suspension channel. I’ve also got access to DT Swiss if you want to compare pricing. I would expect a fall sale coming from WR1, they haven’t said anything, and their sales may actually be less often now that i9 owns them. But WR1 allows all dealers to offer the same sale pricing as they offer when they do sales.
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Thanks for all your insights. My options right now are:
Canadian made, but American owned. That’s We Are One. Confirmed by WAO to me. WAO have also caved to the Trumpism by not raising prices to Americans cause by tariffs.
Canadian owned, and Asian made hoops, Canadian built wheels. Woven and NOBL. Confirmed by Woven to me.
I’ve built multiple wheelsets with both WAO and NOBL rims. I was also a NOBL dealer for a short period of time. Both companies make great rims/wheels. I have NOBL wheels on one of my bikes that I’ve been riding for four years without issue. As a wheel builder I prefer NOBL rims over WAO. All of the WAO rims I have laced up have required extra attention prior to building. The spoke holes had carbon residue from the drilling process that wasn’t present on the NOBL rims. If this carbon dust isn’t removed it can cause spoke wind up and false tension readings. This isn’t a knock on WAO’s quality control process, but it adds time to a build.
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Yeah, but that extra care and attention to the build can be felt when you ride the wheels. 
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