First Look: Spengle Carbon wheelsets ready for gravel or mountain bikes
Tri-bladed carbon wheels ready for both gravel or mountain bikes
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We brought you news of the new Spengle carbon wheelset back in January 2018 at their launch. The brand called their monocoque wheels the most advanced in the world, now our chance has come to test them. We've got two sets of wheels in the office, we'll be working with the testers at road.cc to review one set as a gravel wheelset and one set on trail mountain bikes.
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Spengle has been producing wheels since the 80's and says that now, as technology and production methods catch up with their ambitions, the time has arrived to once again produce wheels which they say are the best on the planet. These wheels are essentially one design and one width of rim, configured for anything from cross-country to enduro to gravel bikes, boost or non-boost, you can have whatever you want for whatever bike you want, as long as it takes 27.5" wheels.
The wheelset in question is a one-piece carbon design, its got three blades spiralling out from the centre where the hub is located and bonded to the carbon, rather than the traditional wheel design of a separate rim with holes and spokes piecing together with the hub.
Why are they better than wheels with spokes?
Spengle says they use cutting-edge aerospace technology to provide safer handling, superior shock absorption, and the strongest tyre bed of its type. They also told us that a regular wheel struggles manage stresses through the spokes, rims and hubs where these three separate parts mean the forces are typically distributed across the wheel disproportionality, which results in the rim and spokes being prone to bending and buckling. They say their design distributes these forces evenly leaving no single area prone to failure.
There are other benefits too, Spengle say there is optimised braking force distribution, they are tubeless by default and we're guessing they are pretty easy to set up, having no spoke holes and all that!
They also say the design of the wheel decreases turbulence and therefore increases stability at high speeds. In addition the wheels are said to provide excellent strength and rigidity, reducing vibration, which Spengle says sims to keep you feeling connected to the trail. It'll be super interesting to see just how stiff these wheels are, especially at a time when other brands, such as Crankbrothers, have released a carbon wheelset promoting compliance.
Lastly, the wheels are said to be super strong, meaning you can go hard on low pressure without the worry that you are about to explode your fancy new wheels. Spengle reckons the use of that aforementioned aerospace technology provides safer handling, superior shock absorption, and the strongest tyre bed of its type, giving rise to the ability to run low pressures.
All the tech specs
Just available in 27.5" 650B, the wheels come in Boost (front 110, rear 148mm) or Standard (front 100, rear 142mm). The hubs are a custom design for Spengle, no doubt to encompass the hub casing which is bonded tot he carbon of the wheel.
They take centre lock discs but come with 6 bolt adapters too so no need to buy new parts. The rims have a 24mm internal diameter and are UST Tubeless Ready with a valve hole diameter 6mm and have hookless rim profile for easy mounting of tires.
We weighed our test sets, the scales showing these aren't the lightest:
Boost
Front - 1.02Kg
Rear - 1.32Kg
Wheelset - 2.32kg
Non-Boost
Front - 0.96Kg
Rear - 1.28Kg
Wheelset - 2.24kg
You can buy the wheels as a wheelset only for €1,490 or you can get a wheelset along with new cassette, chain, Schwable tyres and discs for €1,790 so you can literally just pop the wheel straight into the bike and go ride.
Finally, all wheels come with a lifetime warranty, good to know if you are planning on dropping all that cash on a pair. We'll be back soon with a review or two - stay tuned!
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Comments
I don't think that any engineer would agree with "They also told us that a regular wheel struggles manage stresses through the spokes, rims and hubs where these three separate parts mean the forces are typically distributed across the wheel disproportionately, which results in the rim and spokes being prone to bending and buckling."
Some of that is true, but tension spokes aren't subject to buckling forces. The buckling forces on the rims increase as the number of spokes decreases. Their spokes are massive to resist buckling forces.
Their objective is to produce a wheel that is simple to design and make. Unfortunately, that leads to a heavier wheel.
Carbon fibres are only strong in tension and CF composites would make excellent tension spokes. Motorcycle engineers have designed rims which are both spoked and air tight, but using metals.
An ambitious CF composite design would produce a one piece wheel with the spokes continuous with the rims and hubs and pre-tensioned before setting the matrix.
It seems to me that the put upon Spengle engineers are struggling to produce an affordable design and some (most?) of the development budget has been funnelled into "Marketing".