What started out as a tri-spoke full carbon wheel concept became a simple, extremely light carbon rim.
“We started out with a traditional shape like what we were used to, but we weren’t going to get to a weight that we wanted,” said Steve Hed. “We knew we wanted tubeless and we wanted it to be as light as possible. We started out with a target of 550g. Then we got to 450g, now we’re 420g and we’re not sure how light we an go yet.”
It uses a twin channel system. You put the bead in the center and it settles into the inside channels. At that point, it’s sealed and you just start pumping it up. Once it gets to a certain pressure, it just pops out to the outside bead hook. Hed says there are a lot of pieces in the mold to get the internal shaping right.
Check out detail pics and more, plus their new Ardennes road wheels, disc hub updates and an actual complete steel bike…
These are set up with the 45 North tire and just one scoop of Stan’s sealant and Gorilla tape just over the spoke holes. He says it can hold on as low as 5-7psi.
A complete set of wheels is likely to come in just under $2,000. They’re still testing the water on final pricing and whether they’ll sell just rims. They’re not quoting pricing for rims, but back out the math a bit from a complete build and you’re likely looking at about $800 per rim. Shipping in November.
He’s still considering final spike hole placement. A single straight line is easiest to seal, but they’re looking at how well that builds up.
They had a gravel bike at NAHBS to showcase the new Ardennes+ disc brake wheels, they just didn’t call a lot of attention to it. It’s built by Erik Noren of Peacock Groove, and they’re likely going to offer it for sale. It’ll be $1,795 for frame and fork.
The fork is made to fit 650B mountain bike wheels and tires.
Thru axle front and rear, so all the disc brake hubs are convertible from QR to TA.
Also, all disc hubs will be CenterLock instead of six bolt…like on the Ardennes+ shown at NAHBS (more info here and here).
The new Ardennes FR that takes the tubeless ready bead hook of the wider “+” models and puts it on their lighter 23mm wide (17.5mm inside) rims. They’re 25mm deep and weigh in at 420g each. Complete wheelset is 1,335g. Retail is $1,400.
They use a new, lighter front hub with better bearings. Spokes move a bit further outboard so it can be stiffer, and overall it drops about 10g to come in around 70g.
And did you know they do anodized color accents for their hubs?
