Can Carbon rims be considered Retro?

[Mikey08]

New lightweight 26" rims are almost non-existent these days. Light Bicycle carbon 26" are one option. Or if your lucky you can find some Stans Crest mk4 but its even harder to find them in anything other than 32 hole. I trawled to internet and found nothing in the UK so had to get mine from Germany and pay the extra import costs.

 

[Retrorockit]

I ordered 26" 24 spoke carbon XC rims from Carbonal. Chinese, but actual mfg. not an Alibay vendor. Shipping was reasonable, and I found no horror stories online. @ 280g much lighter than similar XC rims from others (320g). I'm at the light end of usage scale (but personally over 200#) so right at their flat ground weight limit. Yes a lot of flat ground here.
It turns out that they don't stock any wheels. They're all made to order. So add 2-3 weeks to the process.
This put them past the Aug. 29 deadline for tariff exemption. China wasn't exempt anyway so I have no idea if this is already collected or not?
I got the plain black finish so they will pass for disc brake alloy rims at a glance. I plan on getting Berd rope spokes also. The latest high tech stuff, but it looks archaic as hell.