Fulcrum’s road bike wheel range is already deep with specialized wheels across a range of depths & materials to suit many riding types & budgets. At the heart of that line are the kind of low & mid-depth, all around clinchers of the “Racing” family that probably appeal to the majority of road cyclists. Now with the continued shift towards disc brake road bikes, Fulcrum is greatly expanding on the two disc wheels already in the Racing lineup with four new aluminum disc brake wheelsets tailored to four different styles of road riding…
Fulcrum Racing 4 DB wheels
Fulcrum say each of the four new wheelsets gets its own personality. The Racing 4 DB is the top of the new offerings and only one to get classified as medium depth with its 40mm deep profile. It’s not overly light at 1690g, but combining the Campy tubeless-ready 2-Way Fit rim profile it should make for a solid all around wheel.
Curiously Fulcrum sticks with a 17mm inner diameter to keep it in line with ETRTO certification that allows them say the wheels are designed for 25-50mm tires. Note of course that 23s are not officially approved at that 17mm internal width (23.5mm external), even though we regularly see riders (and do ourselves) put narrow tires on ever wider rims. It can be a safety concern with some other rim makers not sticking to tested & approved rim & bead dimensions. It remains a bit of a shame that Fulcrum/Campagnolo who are obeying the industry rules get flak (& a bit left behind) for not acting reckless. In any case the Racing 4 DBs are intended for road & triathlon and stick with a more narrow, aero tire & profile to keep that mid section weight down as much as possible with an alloy rim.
Fulcrum Racing 5 DB wheels
The Racing 5 DBs also go for a 17mm internal width (21.8mm external), but have a much lower 26mm depth to keep weight down to 1610g while also making them less affected by riding in windy conditions. Again not super light, but for an alloy disc brake wheelset they aren’t too shabby, and actually trim 100g off the last generation of Racing 5 DB wheels.
Fulcrum calls the Racing 5 DBs more of a climber’s wheel (which might be a bit of a stretch at 1.6kg) but they should make a good all-rounder road riding & training wheelset. They are also 2-Way Fit tubeless-ready which adds versatility (even into cyclocross?) and justifies a decent amount of that weight, and again get rated for 25-50mm tires.
Fulcrum Racing 6 DB wheels
The Racing 6 DB wheelset looks like it gets the same 26mm deep rim profile of the Racing 5, just with a more traditional (read: more affordable) hubset. That only gains a few grams at the hub, getting back up to 1690g for the set.
That’s a low impact place to put an extra 80g and probably make this one of the highest value wheelsets out of the bunch, still getting 2-Way Fit tubeless in the 17mm wide internal rim.
Fulcrum Racing 7 DB wheels
The last in the new disc brake Racing family is the Racing 7 DB which aims to move a bit more in the gravel direction with a slightly wider rim. This time Fulcrum steps up to 19mm internal (23.8mm external) which gives them the ETRTO OK to specify 28-62mm wide tires. 19mm is a pretty versatile size, and for sure some buyers will end up even riding 25mm tires on these.
Fulcrums thoughts on this 22mm deep alloy rim profile were to build a 2-Way Fit tubeless-ready wheel that really caters to the all-road surface ideal that drove the move to road disc brakes in the first place. At 1740g it is the heaviest of the new wheels (and specifically the heaviest rims), but that was a conscious decision to build in all terrain capabilities. Still called a road wheelset, Fulcrum expects this one to get more gravel & even cyclocross time under its tires.
Tech details
All of the Racing DB wheels get 24 evenly spaced round stainless steel spokes front & rear and aluminum nipples, with the Campagnolo-developed 2:1 lacing. That means 16 spokes on the disc-side of the front wheel (vs. 8 on the driveside) and 16 spokes on driveside of the rear wheel (vs. 8 on the disc-side) to more evenly balance spoke tension for what tends to be longer lasting wheels.
The Racing 4 & 5 DBs both use the same lower profile hubs with straight pull spokes.
Then the 6 & 7s also share a second aluminum hubset with medium height, machined out flanges and traditional j-bend spokes, and both get asymmetric rim profiles. Both hubsets come stock with Shimano cassette bodies but can be swapped in with an aftermarket Campagnolo body or a SRAM XD driver.
Each of the new alloy Racing DB wheelsets are compatible with QRs, 12mm or 15mm thru-axles up front & QRs or 12×142 out back, but don’t include skewers. They all have disc brake only rims with no braking surfaces and use Centerlock (Campy Fulcrum calls it by the non-Shimano name AFS) rotor interfaces. The all get sealed bearings in the hubs and are rated for road or gravel use with a max rider limit of 109kg/240lb.
