While these wheels won’t be released until Spring 2022, the sub-1000g weight makes them worth looking into. Claiming road bike wheels as light as 930g, One K Wheels uses a composite spoke structure to replace the steel spokes and reduce overall wheel weight by 20% or more.
Designed with two sheets of spokes per side, each sheet contains all of the spokes angled in one direction, then another sheet is laid over it with spokes angled the other direction.
These sheets are pre-formed to slot into small nubs on custom hubs (more on these below)…
…and once both layers are in place and they’re looped onto the nipples, it traps the hub between them and prevents it from spinning off. Or, in other words, it forces the hub to drive the spokes around, turning the wheel with it.
The ends of the spokes have a loop that’s slotted into titanium nipples.
Bolts thread into those from the rim, pulling everything tight and allowing the wheel to be built and trued.
The hubs come from Non Plus Components, who custom made these flanges with the hooks for One K’s carbon spoke sheets. Non Plus also make hubs with more traditional spoke flanges and a 6-bolt rotor mount that continues the bolt studs into the flange to improve overall stiffness:
Their main differentiation is an oversized drive ring that not only contains a lot of teeth, but also has a conical shape to maintain maximum engagement, even if you’re torquing the drivetrain hard enough to induce rear axle flex.
Which means they’re rated for everything from XC to long-travel eMTB, despite being exceptionally lightweight themselves. Claimed weights range from just 64g for a front Road hub to 169g for a rear Mountain Bike hub. The rear Road hub comes in at a claimed 145g, and this custom One K version at just 150g.
Note the extra machining at the ends of their Shimano Microspline-compatible freehub body.
One K says their wheels should start shipping in spring 2022, pricing TBD and will be based on rim selection. Because they’re using titanium nipples and bolts that match the diameter of a standard spoke nipple, the system is compatible with any standard rim.
