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Hunt 38 Carbon Wide Disc wheels: One Ride Review, plus updated graphics

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A little while back we had the pleasure to drop in on the folks that run Hunt Bike Wheels (along with their ITS Cycling distribution company) out of a small town in Sussex, in the south of England. I was just around for a quick visit, but they decided the best thing I could do to get a feel for their small company was to get on a bike and get out for a ride with on their local roads. They put me on an aluminum Definition road bike from Mason Cycles and their new 38mm deep carbon wheels. Then we proceeded to hit the narrow local lanes, steep hills, strong coastal winds, and even get a nice torrential downpour for that full British ride experience. See how the wheels fared after the break…

Hunt-Wheels_38-Carbon-Wide-Disc_tubeless-road-clincher-wheelset_wheel-sucking Hunt-Wheels_38-Carbon-Wide-Disc_tubeless-road-clincher-wheelset_front

It can always be a bit tough to get a good feel for a single component on a bike that you ride for just a few hours, but I’ve been putting in a good bit of time riding a Mason x Hunt 4 Season Disc wheelset also with the Schwalbe Pro One tubeless tires and the guys dialed my fit in perfectly before I arrived. What I could tell right away was that the wheelset had a much stiffer feel then the 4 Seasons, with only a negligible 50g weight savings. Even though the 4Seasons have turned out to be an excellent handling wheelset for everyday riding, the 38 Carbons that we previewed a few months back were noticeably more stiff and secure dropping into tight turns. A bit of that stiffness did translate into feeling the road a bit more. These definitely aren’t a carbon wheelset that deadens road feel. Sure they trim off a little road buzz, but with an 18.5mm internal width (1.5mm>the 4Seasons) these are wheels that are best ridden with 25s or 28s and lower tire pressure.

Hunt builds these wheels to stand up to a lot of everyday abuse, and for a carbon wheelset at 1530g they aren’t super light. But add in disc brake hubs and the fact that Hunt will set them up tubeless for you out of the box, and it is hard to beat the balance of U-shaped aero profile + low rolling resistance and reliable performance of contemporary road tubeless.

Hunt-Wheels_tubeless-road-clincher-wheelset_ride Hunt-Wheels_Carbon-Wide-Disc_tubeless-road-clincher-wheelset_rim-profiles
images courtesy of Hunt. Instagram @huntbikewheels

I had no problems getting these wheels up some of the steepest climbs the South Downs has to offer, and they treated me well in the stupid strong headwinds that we hit cresting the Devil’s Dyke. The only problems came when we took to riding perpendicular to strong coastal winds along a few kms of exposed ridge road. In steady 40km/hr cross winds the 38mm deep wheels were no issue to manage, leaning gently into the wind, but the occasional gusts of twice that lead to a couple of harrowing moments. Following the wheel of recent Transcontinental winner Josh Ibbett on the 50mm, I wasn’t envying him. On my home turf where strong cross winds are not very common, I’m pretty confident that the 50mm or 38mm rims would be fine. (I regularly ride a similar 45mm deep blunt-nosed rim without problems.) But if I regularly rode over the South Downs and hit strong gusts coming up off the coast, I would think twice about even the shallower 35mm wheels.

As to bits of dirt, mud, and gravel, I can say that the wide tire bed and tubeless setup was perfect. And during an hour or so of torrential rain on unfamiliar roads, I can’t fully express how perfect disc brakes and wide low pressure rubber are. Riding in that kind of wet weather, on roads where you are likely to find washed out gravel around every steep turn, there is thankfully no reason to really even think about braking on carbon rims any more. At £950 for a carbon clincher wheelset (or £1000 for the 50mm option), there really aren’t many other competitors that give you a proper molded in tubeless-ready bead, and I still think Hunt’s optional inclusion of tubeless tires pre-installed is one of the smartest ideas in the business. So if the 38 or 50mm carbon wheels are in your price range, I’m pretty confident that you’ll be happy with the purchase.

Hunt-Wheels_38-Carbon-Wide-Disc_tubeless-road-clincher-wheelset_new-graphics

Hunt-Wheels_50-Carbon-Wide-Disc_tubeless-road-clincher-wheelset_front_studio Hunt-Wheels_38-Carbon-Wide-Disc_tubeless-road-clincher-wheelset_front_studio

The carbon wheels I had a chance to ride had Hunt’s old graphics package, which was just some thin (but surprisingly durable) white vinyl brand and model name decals. But they’ve done a bit of overhaul of the finish for the 2016 line-up with a new gloss black on matte black look. The new design is subtle, but allows Hunt to include their crossed spoke logo and some more tech details without more white text.

HuntBikeWheels.com

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Kernel Flickitov
Kernel Flickitov
8 years ago

…corrected. Thanks!

Veganpotter
Veganpotter
8 years ago

That’s a pretty narrow internal width. I don’t see any benefit in these outside of a little drag

Alex
Alex
8 years ago

@Veganpotter – You must be a MTB’er. Up until a few years ago 14mm internal was standard.

Velociraptor
Velociraptor
8 years ago

How about instead build up a 32 mm deep wheel set with the new DT Swiss – RR 511 for about $500?

Bog
Bog
8 years ago

@Veganpotter, that’s actually a wide internal width for road rims. Don’t compare to mountain bike rims.

Veganpotter
Veganpotter
8 years ago

Alex… nope, just a roadie that started using wide HED rims almost 10 years ago. This would be like coming out with a brand new, high-end 10 speed road group.
Newer HEDs are 20 internal, as are Pacenti(alloy too) and ENVEs. I’m not talking stuff that came out this week either. 20 internal would actually be stupid narrow for most mountain bikes right now

Tom Marchment
8 years ago

Hi Veganpotter, thank you ever so much for your comments. We always welcome feedback from riders so really do appreciated your efforts. I believe ENVE SES Disc road/CX wheels have an 18.5mm front and 16.5mm rear internal rim width, as you point our ours are 18.5mm front and rear. Your are correct that the HED Jet Plus Carbon Disc wheels do have a very wide 21mm internal rim width. The “WIDE” in our wheels is also referring to the external rim width which is 26mm and one of the widest on the market. Zipp Firestrike are similar at 26.4mm on their brake track.
Thank you also Alex, you are correct there are still several road wheelsets on the market with internal rim widths as low as 13.6mm, the norm is 15-17mm so we do feel that 18.5 is towards the wider end of the road wheel sector as you said.

Thank you all again and we would be more than happy to receive any further feedback as we love talking wheels and bikes and learning from riders how to make them better.

Tom Marchment
HUNT BIKE WHEELS

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