At Sea Otter back in April, Wolf Tooth Components had its unreleased hubs hiding in plain sight on several of the display bikes at their booth. At the time, we learned everything we could about the soon-to-be-released hubs, but that did not include when they would hit the market. Well, that time has come, and today, Wolf Tooth is officially launching its US-made hubs for road, gravel, and mountain bikes.
As we learned months ago, Wolf Tooth’s new hubs are engineered and machined in-house in the USA and utilize the ENVE INNERDRIVE system. They will be available in three configurations, covering the needs of road, gravel, and mountain bike riders. Wolf Tooth is selling the hubs on their own for custom wheel builds and is currently partnering with ENVE and We Are One for complete wheelsets. Let’s check them out.
Wolf Tooth Hubs Details
Like everything else Wolf Tooth makes, its new hubs are engineered and machined in-house to the exacting standards that the brand is known for. The hubs are made from aerospace-grade 7075-T6 aluminum, with “angular form hub shells bringing the Wolf Tooth design language to wheel building for the first time.” At launch, the hubs come in three distinct configurations to fit all modern road, gravel, and mountain bikes. Those configurations are:
- Straight Pull Road / Gravel – 24h – 326g F/R Set
- Straight Pull MTB Boost (XC/Trail) – 28h – 371g F/R Set
- J-Bend MTB Boost (Aggressive Trail to DH) – 28h / 32h – 442g F/R Set
The straight pull hubs “feature aggressive machining and smart material use for weight reduction without sacrificing durability.” The J-bend hubs are built to handle the extra abuse of everything from aggressive trail to full-on DH riding with an oversized aesthetic, and the ability to accommodate both 15mm and 20mm front axles.
Wolf Tooth also designed the hubs with ease of maintenance in mind. This includes consistent spoke lengths per wheelset and standard bearing sizes across the front and rear hubs. They say that the hub ratchets can also be quickly and easily swapped, and they’ve included a circlip to hold them in place and ensure they don’t fall out while doing maintenance on the trail or in the shop.
As is typical of Wolf Tooth, its Hubs are currently available in six anodized finishes: Ultraviolet Purple, Black, Orange, Gold, Blue, and Red. Apparently, there are more colors to come. As usual, you can go to the Color Shop to mix or match colors with Wolf Tooth’s other components.
ENVE INNERDRIVE
All of Wolf Tooth’s Hubs run on the ENVE INNERDRIVE system. While the team at Wolf Tooth says it explored designing its own proprietary drive system, they concluded that ENVE’s system hit their benchmark targets and struck the performance balance they were looking for. They state that the oversized INNERDRIVE ratchet rings provide benefits over most other ratchet-style hubs.
Wolf Tooth claims “the larger 42mm diameter drive rings allow for higher engagement tooth counts without sacrificing durability.” Additionally, riders can tune the hub’s engagement to their preferences with the option to choose between 40T PRO*, 60T, 80T, or 100T drive ratchets. According to the brand, the highest tooth count results in quick, 3.6-degree engagement.
Wolf Tooth says that the 40T PRO ratchet is their preferred setup, and it comes stock in the road and gravel hubs. To save weight, they’ve milled additional material and reduced the standard ratchet’s diameter. They claim that when paired with the light force of the INNERDRIVE ratchet spring, this setup has minimal ratchet drag while delivering reliable engagement.
Perfect Preload
Wolf Tooth says its Perfect Preload System uses a tuned wave washer that eliminates the need for bearing preload adjustments. During assembly, the bearing preload is optimized “and dynamically adjusts over the life of the hub.” No special tools are required; all the rider needs to do is torque the hub’s endcap to spec and “perfect preload is set, every time.”
Complete Wheel Builds
Of course, Wolf Tooth is selling its new Hubs on their own so riders can build up their own custom, high-performance wheelset. For complete wheel builds, Wolf Tooth is partnering with ENVE and We Are One, both of which lay up their carbon rims in North America. The complete wheelset options have all of the bases covered, from high-performance road riding to gravity MTB. The options at launch are:
- Enve SES 4.5
- Enve G SES 4.5
- We Are One Whisp
- Enve M6
- We Are One Triad 29″ and Mullet
- Enve M8
Pricing and Availability
Wolf Tooth new Hubs have a retail price of $729.90 USD for the set ($239.95 front and $489.95 rear). The Hubs and complete wheelsets are available now through the brand’s website and Wolf Tooth’s worldwide network of dealers and distributors.
