DT Swiss M 1900 SPLINE 30 wheelset review

DT Swiss' M1900 all-mountain aluminium wheels are a 30mm internal width wheelset with a budget price tag. Using different hubs but the same rims as the lighter M1700 wheelset, we did have a bearing niggle with our front wheel but the wheelset has on the whole been hassle free. They are still straight and dent free after six months of testing too.

The M1900s are a pair of the cheaper wheels in a large DT Swiss line up, a set of these with Boost hubs in 27.5 or 29 will cost you pretty inexpensive £335. These wheels are available in the two aforementioned wheel sizes and in either a 25mm, a 30mm or a 35mm internal width.

I tested a 27.5” set with a 30mm internal width on my Cotic Rocket longterm test bike. For reference, the next wheels up in the range are the M1700s which will cost you £575 for a set. They use the same rims and spokes (DT Champion straight pull), the same DT Swiss 350 hubs but with a ratchet drive rear hub rather than the three-pawl with a slower pick up as on the M1900s. If you are after something more heavy duty for Enduro racing or harder riding, you can take a look at the E1900s and E1700s instead.

The M1900 Spline wheels will come ready tubeless taped for you, as ours did, just add tyres, a cassette, discs and go ride. As I mentioned there is a three-pawl rear hub (DT Swiss 370) here which offers an adequate pickup but it's not the fastest and feels a little lazy on the trail. The hubs are centre lock but DT Swiss distributor, Madison, will provide you with 6 bolt adaptors in the box anyway.

The trail rims aren’t the lightest but they also aren’t ridiculously heavy either. These weigh in at 1,908g for the set in this spec (Shimano freehub) compared to my previous set of Halo Vortex wheels which weighed 2,140g. There is a rival though, Hunt's Trailwide 30mm wide rims are £349 and weigh 1,764g for a boost 27.5" set. Our editor Jon has a set of those on test.

At 30mm wide these wheels accommodate up to 2.6” tyres very happily indeed, providing a nice tyre profile on all tyres I’ve shod them with. It’s a great rim width for trail riding; I’m an advocate of the new 2.6" ‘Wide Trail’ tyre movement and the M1900’s are an appropriate partner at a good price allowing me to spend more on the rubber.

I did experience some rough bearings about three months into the test, Madison says that it looked like the bearing grease had been partially broken down. They told me it looked like the bike has been coated with a cleaner and then jet washed, pushing the cleaner past the seals and into the bearings degrading the grease.

Not having access to a jet wash and being well versed enough in bike washing techniques to be certain I’d not been the cause of this problem I can only figured that the bearing grease had just degraded due to regular use in the winter, oddly the rear wheel has been fine. Madison says, in this case, they’d look at a warranty replacement or suggest the customer replace the bearings with the ones used in the 1501 wheelsets as they are a good value upgrade (£22) and are the only ones Madison stock. I’ve had no problems with the front wheel in the remainder of the test, but this bike has been used less regularly in the latter stages.

In other reliability terms, the M1900’s are still as straight as the day I received them and I haven’t had to touch them once with a spoke key. There are no dents or dings in the rims and I’ve treated these with as much respect and discourse as you can expect from a product tester, they’ve certainly stood the test of time well.

In conclusion, despite the bearing niggles, the M1900’s are a bargain wheelset, if you value the quality of the wheel build, want a hard wearing wheelset with great ride quality and don’t mind the slower engagement of the hub then these wheels could be on your shopping list. For the price, they are a reasonable weight, they come in a range of widths and sizes to suit your preferences and despite being a trail rim, they stand up to the abuse of ‘enduro’ style riding well.