Freshly introduced into the Rapid Red family of gravel wheels is a brand new carbon model. It's designed for those who are looking to adventure with an extra helping of speed. To get there, the brand has applied the techy know-how from the top-of-the-range models to develop a lightweight but robust wheel.

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Fulcrum has built the new Rapid Red Carbon wheel using an s-shape asymmetrical profile carbon rim. This profile has been employed as it decreases the difference in dish angle between the spokes on either side of the wheel, improving the balance between the tension of the spokes. The brand says that this design improves performance over the long term.

The unique rim profile is also said to improve stiffness by 2.5% compared to the U-shaped profile we usually see.

Fulcrum has also put a lot of focus into the wheels' performance with tubeless tyres, designing the rim with a tubeless-specific non-drilled bridge: 2-way fit (clincher/tubeless). It's said that this is a practical, reliable and weight-saving method of seating tubeless tyres without the need to install tape. With that, the non-drilled bridge gets a mirror-like C-Lux Finish that's meant to make it easier to install a tyre.

Then, the wheels use Mo-Mag tech. It's essentially a way of seating the wheel's nipples in the rim hole using a magnet.

Offering compatibility with a wider range of tyres, the Rapid Red Carbon comes sorted with a 30mm high profile, 25mm internal width and a mini-hook system that, Fulcrum says, widens the range of compatible tyre pressures, seeing as not all tyres are hookless compatible. Similarly to hookless tech the mini-hooks ensure lightweight and stiffness as well as easy installation, which is only aided by the wheel's humpless design.

The humpless design offers a consistently linear rim/tyre bead surface, offering more security against a tyre rolling.

It's not all about functionality with the Rapid Red Carbon though, as it uses the brand's new Direct Inmold Matt Finish, or for short DIMF. This means that the rim's finish comes directly from the mould, rather than with post-mould painting. With this, Fulcrum builds the rum using high quality resins and unidirectional carbon fibres which lets the builders mould the rim without requiring any cuts, adding to the overall strength of the wheelset.

Moving onto the hubs, Fulcrum has opted for a straight-pull setup to optimise weights and to obtain the perfect radial assembly of the spokes. These hubs run on cup and cone bearings too. This is to guarantee better smoothness and to allow the user to check for any play. Cup and cone bearings also allow the user to easily upgrade to ceramic-coated bearings with an upgrade kit.

All of that together is claimed to weigh in at 1,490g.

The new Fulcrum Rapid Red Carbon wheelset is only available in the 700c wheelsize and will set you back £1,400.

• www.fulcrumwheels.com

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