If you need to tweak them then you can attack them with a standard spoke key from the outside without pulling the tyre off, or there's a hex head inside the rim which gives a better interface for more involved work. Pulling the hubs apart showed very little water or muck inside, suggesting the sealing is doing its job, although the bike hadn't had that many wet miles during testing.īoth wheels stayed true during testing. The machined surface works well in both wet and dry conditions, and there's a wear indicator indented into the surface to let you know when it's time for a new rim.
#LIGHT ALLOY RIMS BIKE FREE#
Probably that means that in less extreme conditions you're not getting much free speed from the rims when the wind's coming in at an angle, but they're light and they roll well.īraking on alloy rims is objectively better than on carbon these rims with the standard Shimano 105 brake pads never gave me any cause for concern. The Race Aero Wide wheelset wasn't unduly affected by even savage sidewinds. We had the opportunity to test out some pretty brutal headwinds and sidewinds during the week, which certainly made life interesting for Iwein at times on his aero Ribble Endurance SL Disc and Hunt 4050 carbon wheels. I tend to set my rim brakes a bit further from the rim on my road bike than usual because extra weight and power through the frame and wheels can induce some brake rub, but I didn't get any with the Hunts even when I dialled them in a bit. When you're stamping on the pedals up a steep rise or sprinting for a sign, there's very little flex evident. Without doing the same descent back to back on narrower and wider wheels with the same tyres you'd be hard pressed to say whether the extra width makes cornering better, but the Pirellis always felt planted and the wheels responsive. They're a bit lighter than the Hadrons, which were the original alloy/carbon construction, and although the spoke count is reasonably low and I'm a reasonably big rider (94kg), I didn't have any issues with them feeling vague or wandering from their line through any of the many, many hairpins. But in terms of performance, I was really happy with the Hunts.
Did I miss the Hadrons? Well, I missed their lovely thrum over the tarmac, because that's the sound of fast. It was the first time I'd ridden the wheels save for a short shakedown ride to make sure the bike was working, and I'd swapped out some old semi-deep Swiss Side Hadron wheels that had finally given up the ghost. So, how do they ride? Well, firstly I took them out to Andalucia and rode them up and down mountains in the sunshine, which I can recommend. You get a bit of extra comfort, the profile of the tyre works well with the rim width, and you can still squeeze them underneath your standard road calliper brakes. Some people will also tell you that rolling resistance is lower, although that doesn't seem to be borne out by independent testing.Īnyway, although you can fit some pretty big tyres on these rims, the sweet spot is probably 28mm, and there are lots of 28mm race tyres out there these days.
The extra width of the rim helps to flatten out the sidewalls of the tyre a bit and that can help to stabilise the tyre and also provide a better corner profile for when you're leaning the bike over. Wheels like the Ksyrium S from Mavic are the same width, while others like the Campagnolo Zonda are still a 17mm internal, which in itself is a step out from the 15mm that you'd have expected some years back.
That's not super-wide these days, it's more like the new normal. The Race Aero Wide rim measures 19mm internally. Spoking is radial at the front and two-cross at the back, with 18 spokes front and 21 rear, distributed 2:1 in favour of the drive side to even out spoke tensions. The rims are built into Hunt's Race hubs with straight-pull Pillar Spoke Re-enforcement XTRA spokes and alloy nipples. They're a bit deeper than a standard alloy rim but not really any heavier, and this wheelset tipped the scales at 667g for the front wheel and 840g for the rear, nudging them just over the 1,500g mark. It's a solid choice for everything up to racing, assuming you don't want the swoosh (and expense) of carbon.įirst things first: although these are called 'aero', the 31mm alloy rim isn't one that Hunt has agonised over in the wind tunnel, and the company isn't making any specific aerodynamic claims for this wheelset. If you've got a rim brake road bike and you want some wheels that are pretty light and durable but aren't going to break the bank, what you need is something like the Hunt Race Aero Wide wheelset.
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