For the last three years SRAM’s Roam wheel line-up has been aimed at getting trail riders up the climbs faster and then faster down the descents on the other side. From the beginning they talked a lot about balance, where it wasn’t necessarily the lightest, stiffest, or toughest wheelset that would carry riders across the trails fastest. But with an all new, wider carbon Roam 60 wheelset, weights haven’t changed much, but wheels have gotten a lot stiffer and tougher, and now promise even more speed. Plus SRAM are adding a new stand alone 900 disc brake hubset to build up custom wheels to suit whatever style of riding you can imagine, on any of the newest rim and tire formats…
The new wider Roam wheels are really made for the well-rounded mountain rider. By balancing a low rotating weight design with improved hub and rim durability and a wider tire platform the Roams should stand-up to the abuse of all-day trail shredding, yet still be light enough for a day at the races.
Built with a new high-strength carbon rim the Roam 60 is a premier, no-compromise wheelset that SRAM targets for trail and enduro riding, with the possibility to even cross over for aggressive cross-country too due to their low weight. The new asymmetric rims are 30mm wide inside (up from 21mm on the previous generation), hookless, and tubeless-ready.
Their 6-bolt hubs get laced up with 24 double-butted, bladed spokes front and rear and use SRAM’s Double Time 52 point tech for fast and durable 6.9° engagement, XD drivers for wide range 1x drivetrains, and Boost spacing for modern stiffness. Standard cassette body and Non-Boost versions are available as well and include modular end caps for everything from QRs front and rear, 15 and 20mm front, and 12×142 rear thru-axles. The Boost front version also includes 21mm and 31mm RockShox Torque caps for even more front-end stiffness.
The updated Roam 60 wheels get a new stealthy gray-on-black set of graphics, and come with a 7-color customizable sticker pack to dial in a personalized look that fits with your bike. In their lightest axle setups, the 27.5″-only wheels have claimed weights of 750g for the front and 875g out back. The wheels sell individually front and rear for $900/940€/£720 and $1000/1045€/£800, respectively.
In addition to the new top-end trail wheels, SRAM has a new set of sealed-bearing, oversized-shell aluminum 900 hubs that literally cover the entire modern 11 speed disc-brake spectrum. Slotting in somewhat between X0 and X9 hubsets level-wise, SRAM rates the 900 hubs for road, time trialling, gravel, cyclocross, cross country, all-mountain trail, and even enduro riding. The 6-bolt, traditional j-bend flange hubs use the same fast engaging Double Time internals and can also use both standard or XD cassette bodies for road or mountain drivetrain setups. They are available in 24, 28 & 32 hole drilling and Boost or standard spacing, all with tool-free snap-in modular end caps to fit pretty much any axle standard out there. The black-ano hub weights go as low as 150g for the front and 275g for the rear depending on axle setup, and will sell for $80/€85/£65 and $200/210€/£160, respectively.
Availability of both the new wheels and hubs is slated for April 2016 in time to get you rolling for summer riding.
