135 ENDURO 21
Enve
134
26" & 29" Carbon wheelsets
ENDURO 21
RRP :
$3249.00 29" Words by ENDURO TEST CREW
spoke patterns. Complete wheels are available with DT Swiss 240 or Chris King hubsets in most axle configurations and all come built with DT Swiss Aerolite spokes.
29” wheelset RRP $3,249.00
E
ach year it seems like the bar for technology (and the price people will pay for it) continues to creep higher and higher. Five years ago you would have been met with hysterical guffawing if you suggested that dropping $3,000 on a pair of wheels was a good idea. In 2012, such a suggestion hardly raises an eyebrow. Nearly every bike on the world cup XC circuit is carbon, pretty much every hitter in the national XCM series is on a carbon bike and…a lot of riders both at the pointy and not so pointy ends of the field are running carbon rims (both tubeless and even tubular). It’s worth remembering too that in the last five years the amount of people willing to drop between $5,000 and $10,000 on a road bike has probably tripled, so in more general terms (and for whatever reason) people are just more willing to spend serious money on bike components and a key area where people are willing to drop the coin is on carbon wheels. So when $7,000 worth of ENVE carbon mountain bike wheels arrived at Enduro HQ, we had the opportunity to see for ourselves what sort of bang you get for a lot of bucks…. First up, why carbon? Carbon fibre is a material that is beginning to take over the performance end of the mountain bike market. It dominates the road scene and the logical next step for manufacturers was to begin adapting the material for use off road. You will read and re-read the mantra “lighter, stiffer, smoother, stronger” in almost every advertisement for a carbon product and there is a good chance that one or all of those benefits will appeal to you. However, the spread of the illustrious material is not without its doubters, and their concerns lie primarily with durability and the ability of carbon to withstand the crashes and impacts that come with mountain biking. So how does carbon live up to the mantra? The theory is that you can only do so much with metal while you can do a huge range of things with carbon. Take your pick from various methods of laying, baking, use of internal bladders and mix with your favourite blend of carbon and product designs. The options and permutations are seemingly endless and on the whole, manufacturers of carbon wheels can put all these elements together to build a wheel that, when compared to an aluminium wheel indeed is lighter, stiffer, smoother and stronger. This, of course, translates to faster acceleration when you stomp on the pedals, improved steering speed with less wheel deflection and supposedly more stability from the inherent ‘dampening effect’ of carbon. While this is all good and well, the first thing that most prospective buyers will want to know is whether having those qualities present in a wheelset is worth $3,000. The
second is thing that they will want to know is whether these wheels are going to crumble into a thousand pieces if they are slammed into the edge of a rock with a half-inflated rear tyre (say, if they have a slow leak that they weren’t aware of). More on that later.
ENVE the company ENVE Composites is a brand that has built its reputation on high-end road and mountain bike rims, handlebars, seat posts and stems that are all crafted exclusively from carbon fibre. They supply carbon tubes and lugs to custom frame builders such as Independent Fabrications and Parlee and they are the go-to experts for projects such as the carbon swingarm development on the Santa Cruz Syndicate V-10 downhill race bikes. All their rims are hand-built in the US, which they sell both separately and as complete wheelsets. Carbon mountain bike wheels aren’t new. Brands such as Easton, Reynolds and DT Swiss have offered carbon rims or wheelsets for the past couple of years. However, ENVE are forging a reputation as THE carbon brand and as such they bring a number of exclusive construction features that make them stand apart from the rest. Unique to the rim’s construction is the moulding of the spoke holes during the layup schedule (as oppose to being drilled into the rim after they’ve come out of the oven). This patented process allows for the strength of the continuous carbon fibres along the rim to be maintained, whilst also building in a ‘ball and socket’ interface that allows the spoke nipples to easily pivot to the necessary spoke angles. If any one of you have ever built
a carbon wheel, you’ll know that this is a big advantage and something that will likely add a good chunk of time to the length of any carbon wheel’s life. Speaking of which, the wheels are built with hex spoke nipples which sit inside the rim cavity, one of the reasons why the ENVE wheels feature such a deep profile. The smaller spoke holes in the rim’s exterior wall also create a stronger rim than if they used larger holes for conventional nipples. Combined with a proprietary bladder and compaction process, ENVE claims that they are able to build their rims lighter, stronger and to a very high tolerance to achieve a rim that is as close to being perfectly round as possible. As a result, spoke tension is both high and finelybalanced all the way around the wheel. So what does all this mean? Well, it means there is a lot of technology and labour that goes into each wheelset. That makes them expensive, but it also makes them one of the best carbon wheelsets going around. For example, the Santa Cruz Syndicate have been using a DH version of the ENVE wheels for the past few seasons with pleasing results, from a failure perspective, when the team ran aluminium rims, they went through 180 wheels per season. In the first year with ENVE carbon wheels they went through 53. The next year, 2011, they went through 11 ENVE carbon wheels…and Steve Peat raced on the same ENVE wheelset for the entire season…! For our test, we received a 29 XC wheelset and a 26 XC wheelset. You can also get the wider AM rims in both diameters with all wheels being available in 28h or 32h
Coming in at 1480 grams including tubeless rim tape, our test set was pretty close to the claimed 1424 gram weight. In terms of specs, the 29 XC rims feature an 18mm internal and a 24mm external width, making them ideal for tyres between 2.0” – 2.2” wide. The rims are claimed at 380 grams each, which puts them bang-on in terms of weight with Stans NoTubes Crest 29er alloy rims. With a UST-style rim bed, all you need is the ENVE rim tape and valves to set them up tubeless, with a nice tight lock for the bead of the tyre. Compared to our control DT Swiss/Mavic wheelset, we dropped over 400 grams in rotational weight with the majority of that coming from the lighter carbon rims. The instant effect of this weight reduction is faster acceleration, which was glaringly evident in both out of the saddle pedal mashing and putting the power down out of corners. It isn’t all about weight however, as ENVE claim that a lot of the performance benefits come from the stiffness of their wheels. There was certainly a snappy feel to the wheels under pedalling and changing direction was both faster and more direct. Coming from a high-end hand-built alloy wheelset, the boost in stiffness was not as considerable as I was expecting, though it was still noticeable. What I did notice in riding twisting singletrack was the increased speed I could carry when things got pretty tight. With the larger 29er wheel there is naturally an increased gyroscopic force that resists changes in direction. However, the lightweight ENVE wheels allow for very quick corrections in your steering and they really encourage you to drop the handlebars from side-to-side as you weave around trees. Another characteristic that seemed to become more apparent the more time we spent on these ENVE 29er wheels was the overall ‘dampening’ effect from the carbon rims. This effect was most noticeable when pushing through lumpy rock gardens. While the wheels held their line with confidence, there was an added degree of stability and calmness to the landing that makes you feel very much in control. Try as I might, I struggled to get them to ‘ping’ off any obstacles out on the trail.
26” wheelset RRP $2,999.00 You don’t and won’t buy these wheels by looking at the spec sheets and comparing them to their aluminium competitors. In addition, you probably won’t buy them for a raw carbon look, because these ENVE wheels have a pretty low-key carbon finish. But, you will buy these wheels because either you have taken them for a test ride yourself or you believe us when we say that they really do provide a fantastic ride and are like no other aluminium-rimmed wheel. First off there’s the light weight, tipping the scales at under 1400 grams with DT240 hubs. Sure, there are lighter wheels out there, but they won’t last anywhere long as these wheels, won’t be as strong and I’ll bet a vital organ that they won’t be as stiff. Second, they really do live up to the other three quarters of the mantra as they are stiff, smooth and strong. The first thing I noticed about these wheels, and what I continued to be impressed by throughout the test was the stiffness of the wheels. Accelerating off the line in a race or out of a slow corner was an absolute joy. They
transferred power beautifully, didn’t flail when things got sketchy and rough and (even with a regular QR set up front and rear) steered through seriously rough stuff with spectacular poise. As for the ‘smooth’, this comes in two guises. The ENVE wheels seemed to take a significant portion of the edge off the bigger hits, but they also seemed to provide that lovely bit of cushioning over terrain which was only slightly rough and there definitely was a discernible ‘ride quality’ of these wheels that you would certainly be able to detect if you were made to undertake a blind test with a set of aluminium wheels. I’m not sure how best to describe it, perhaps it’s that they feel ‘alive’. As for the ‘strong’, well, I regret to say that I subjected these ENVE wheels to some shocking line choices in some serious rock gardens and launched them skyward to some very ugly landings…and they didn’t skip a beat – they pinged along and seemed to mockingly whisper, “is that all you’ve got???” And this is a very good thing, because, with their fancy nipples which are tucked up inside the rim, a simple wheel true job involves tyre, gu and rimtape removal. Thankfully, after some pretty decent abuse over many, many rides, the ENVE wheels weren’t a millimetre out of true. Anyone trying to find a negative with these wheels need look no further than the price. They are expensive. No, they are bloody expensive. But, the majority of us aren’t mountain bikers because we like to take the most simple and inexpensive machines into the wilderness. We love to push the boundaries. We want high performance out of ourselves and out of our machines. Sure you will have to part with a lot of coin if you want these wheels, but if you have the money to spend, you won’t be disappointed. These wheels will change the feel of your bike for the better.
Overall If you’re only looking at these wheels for their weight, than we can confidently say you’ll be slightly disappointed. It’s not that they’re heavy, it’s just that their ride quality almost removes the importance of their overall weight Looking at the ENVE website, you will see that they are marketing the XC wheels as a do-it-all option for racers that would prefer not to have two wheelsets (a superlight “race-day” set and a bomber “training” set). And that is exactly how we saw it; these are a lightweight race wheelset that will outperform most high-end trail/ AM options in terms of ride quality, strength and lateral stiffness. With that in mind, the ENVE wheels actually begin to look like good value – and that is without doubt the last thing we expected to say about these wheels when we first pulled them out of the wheel bag.