Huck: The Huck is a fun, trail riding 29r wheelset for medium travel bikes vs a long travel rig that is designed around a 27.5 rim, or a park bike that you really get aggressive with. They have a trail suited carbon layup, 28H drilling, and shallow profile for good flex. If you are interested in a more traditional race spec XC or uphill travel trail wheel, check out the (very light) Grit combined with a cushcore (or similar) set-up. This will still be comparable in weight and width to the Enve M630 but with the protection of cushcore.
The Huck is a beefier layup version of the Grit, dimensionally the same. The external rim width is 36mm with a 30mm internal. I also opted to go to a very shallow rim depth, which seems to be more forgiving to impacts, and is now down to 22mm deep (slightly deeper than Grit due to additional carbon). With these dimensions, the Huck can be set up for trail riding with a chunky tire and a cushcore (not included) and still being uphill riding compliant and light at 450 grams. I always recommend a liner in modern XC rims as the lower pressure performance easily offsets the weight, and the liner greatly reduces risk of rim damage.
The Huck is asymmetric again, after a few years having gone away from that. I find that a rim 30mm deep or so does not really need it to get good non-drive spoke tension, so why add the complication? But at 22mm deep, now your spokes are more vertical and I find that these do build up much better with an offset. They are laced 28 hole 3-cross based on the all-around trail riding use case.
Rims are constructed using graphene doped Toray T800 carbon fiber. Graphene doping is a process using wherein a very small amount of graphene (under 2%) is added to the carbon matrix during processing. My experience has shown this improves toughness, allowing pretty significant weight reductions in the rim construction.
Additionally, these rims have an internal reinforcement at the nipple which allows the rim to be thinner between the nipples, which is a low force area of the rim. This allows the new Grit to be so much wider than the old model while being the same weight.
If you ride a Microspline Shimano 12 speed drivetrain, check out about the XTR and M900 hubs I have. Straight pull, gorgeous, amazing quality, and at two good price points.
All wheels come tubeless taped with premium alloy valve stems installed, ready for you to mount tubeless tires. Through axles are not provided with wheels as they are part of the bike frame system.
Fantastic wheel!!!
Wow! I honestly didn’t expect to notice this big of a difference in how the wheels feel and handle. First thing I noticed though was how quiet the wheels were while pedaling along on smoother and rougher surfaces. I’m still struggling to understand why that is. I love the quiet Project 321 rear hub, but that’s not what I’m referring to. Can’t put my finger on the absence of prior noise as I didn’t feel the Bontrager Kovee Elites were making any unusual noise. Perhaps it is due to how much smoother they feel as if they are absorbing some of the bumps?? I wasn’t really expecting this. Next, I noticed that on faster turns that I was able to hold the line, or course correct mid-turn, in a way I never could before. On these turns in the past, it always felt like if I came into the turn at a decent speed that the bike had the tendency to go wide, even riding up small berms sometimes. I never felt confident in course correcting much when this happened…end result being tapping brakes, usually with some nervousness of sliding out, or just hitting the turn slower. I have no idea why this could be (less lateral flex?), but it produces a ton more confidence in going faster on just about any section of trail. Haven’t really noticed that they accelerate faster, but I was probably too caught up enjoying the above aspects to focus much on that. Ear-to-ear grinning is rather distracting you know.
