Wider hoops for under

BARNEY AND THE GRINDER CREW TAKE A LOOK AT SIX PAIRS OF THOROUGHLY MODERN WHEELS FOR LESS THAN A MONKEY.

WORDS BY BARNEY AND THE SINGLETRACK GRINDER TEAM

WORDS BY BARNEY AND THE SINGLETRACK GRINDER TEAM

£500

Wheels are perhaps one of the few things on the bicycle that one might think are immutable. Essentially the technology has remained unchanged for hundreds of years, but there are so many teeny-tiny permutations on the basic design which can affict themselves on the unwary.

PICTURES BY ROB

Recently, there has been one of many seismic shifts in mountain biking, as once again, the relentless progress of technology roars its bellowing challenge, and manufacturers scurry to build appropriate sacrificial offerings. Yes, I’m talking about wider rims. The essential idea is that the wider the rim, the more air volume there is for a given tyre size, and the more adjustment is available in terms of useable traction and useable air pressure.

A lot of the increases in rim width have been carried out in the upper echelons of the wheel market – basically put, if you wanted wide in the past, you went carbon. We chose a budget of £500 for our grouptest, as trickle-down technology, and the advent of chubby 27.5+ bikes, has seen a shift in what constitutes ‘normal’ further down the tiers, to the point where such wheels, with decent hubs and still decent, light aluminium rims, are slightly more affordable – at least, they’re less than the month’s salary that carbon ones can sometimes cost.

One of the things that this wheelset test brought home to us was how fragmented the wheel market has become. After a rear wheel? You can order your wheels in 135mm QR, 142mm thru-axle, 148mm Boost, with either a Shimano or a SRAM XD driver. That’s six options already, with a similar number on the front. And while fewer companies are now offering 26in wheels, they’re still available, along with 27.5in and 29in wheels. And let’s not even talk about 6-bolt or centrelock rotor fittings...

Hopefully in a year or two the industry will settle down – Boost will be here for a good while we suspect – but as it stands, there is a bewildering array of choices available to snag the unwary. But for now, allow us to give you the skinny on the wide:

DT SWISS E 1700 SPLINE TWO WHEELSET

Price: £499.00 per pair // From: Madison, madison.co.uk

Weight: 1,940g // Size Tested: 29in // Internal width: 25mm

The somewhat cumbersomely named E 1700 Spline Two wheels (hereinafter called the Splines) are, if you look at DT’s website, aimed squarely at enduro. But as enduro is essentially competitivised trail riding, they work extremely well for, well, just regular riding, too.

Let’s start in the middle. DT have used their patented ratchet freewheel system in the rear hub – so instead of a number of sprung pawls on the freehub and an immobile ratchet in the hub body, there are two floating, sprung, ratcheted plates which abut against each other. It sounds a lot more complicated than it is, but compared to a regular hub, there are fewer moving parts, it’s easy to break down and service, and there are no teeny tiny parts to spring out at high velocity and disappear under the fridge.