Having ducked into SLC a day early for PressCamp, I hopped on a ride with Reynold’s lead designer Paul Lew, shown here in front of me on the climb up Big Mountain (just before he dropped me like I was pedaling backward). When we stopped at the top, he mentioned the hubs were prototypes in development for a 2015 or 2016 product. The rims are their current 72mm deep Aero models,
introduced last year at PressCamp. Pics below.
Then he showed me the new Cryo Blue brake pads on his bike…
The current hubs are all alloy and use a chunkier surface with the spoke heads visible on the ends of small flanges. These keep everything smooth and bond the alloy section to a full width carbon fiber inner shell.
Lew says the aerodynamics of the hub have a minimal impact on overall wheel aerodynamics. The important aspext of hubs is durability, smooth rolling and stiffness. He said the design may change before production.
The rims aren’t new, but prototype stickers make everything look better.
Coming at Eurobike are all-new Cryo Blue brake pads for their carbon rims. The resin and materials are changed to more closely match the resin makeup in the rims. This is to create better friction between the two surfaces while minimizing heat gain. Ideally, you’d have heatless friction, but that’s impossible, so materials development is where they can at least move closer to that ideal.
They also have 50% more braking surface, which effectively makes them act like you have a third brake pad. Besides more power, it also gives them slightly better heat dissipation. Lastly, the additional water grooves slice rain off the rims quickly. The combination of increased pad contact area, new compounds and reduced surface wetness have everyone there pretty excited. Word is the testers that have them have vehemently refused to give them up for other employees to try. Lew himself says he thinks they best alloy rim brake performance.
Unfortunately, since they are designed around their rims’ specific resins, they’re designed only for use with Reynolds rims.
