good wheel hunting

HUNT TRAIL WIDE V2 WHEELS

Wheel snobbery is a thing. I suffer from it. I covet insanely expensive wheels. I go to unusual lengths to justify them on my bikes. I neeeeeeeed them. When scanning the spec sheet of any potential test bike, my eyes lock in on the wheel spec before really even getting a chance to focus on anything else. It is a burdensome affliction, and given that wheels are usually the first place that brands will quietly downgrade spec in order to hit a given price point (but hey, check out that rear derailleur!), it inevitably leads to a feeling of sour grapes before even swinging a leg over a new test bike. I want my wheels light, strong, and fancy. Inevitably, this means that I tend to get drawn toward these exercises in reductive carbon fiber wallet purging in much the same way magpies are attracted to shiny things.

This does not usually play out well in the real world. At a rough squint, most decent trail bikes these days come equipped with stock wheels weighing around 2000 grams for the set. Because I am a wheel snob, I see about 600-700 grams of needless rotational pork. The reality, though, is the feathery light wheels that I prefer are probably nowhere near as durable as the chunkers that come stock on most bikes. But there I go, lusting after wheelsets that cost not only upward of $2000, but are probably more likely to die a painful premature death in some rocky hell.

And yet, here I am, 700-some miles into a set of Hunt Trail Wide wheels, and to all intents and purposes, happy as a clam.

The happiness of clams is clearly arguable. It’s not an area of heavy study, so who’s to say what, exactly, constitutes happiness in a clam’s mind? It’s hard enough to figure out what makes humans happy with any real consistency. That said, I have been riding these wheels as a control set for tire reviews since last summer, and am very happy with their performance thus far, maybe even clammily so (who knows?), even though they do absolutely nothing to scratch my wheel snob itch.

These, the second generation of Hunt Trail Wides, are intentionally UN-fancy wheels. They’re matte black, aluminum, front and rear rims are identical, spokes are laced 3x, and there’s no “woohoo” shaping or asymmetry at work. You’ll find 30mm internal width 6069 aluminum rims, weighing 511 grams apiece. An aluminum freehub body uses a staggered six-pawl arrangement to ratchet across a 36-tooth ring in the hubshell for a short five-degree engagement. There are 28 triple butted (2.0-1.8-2.0, then 2.2 at the head) J-bend “Pillar” spokes on each wheel, made from Sandvik T302 stainless steel. Alloy spoke nipples are about the only concession toward fanciness. The whole shot-peened shebang weighs 1831 grams per set and is on sale right now from Hunt for $524US. Each set comes with rims taped, valve stems installed, and four spare spokes and nipples – one of each length.

I’ve ridden the Trail Wides on two different bikes test bikes since they arrived last summer. On the Trek Fuel EX, they replaced a set of Bontrager Line Comp 30s, and chopped about 200 grams in weight from those. They are currently serving time on a test bike that’ll get released in a month, where they are subbing in for a set of Formula hub/RaceFace ARC rim wheels, and saving about 150 grams in the process. In each case the ride behavior/feel is similar to the wheels that were replaced, although the hub engagement is ever so slightly less quick than the 3.3 degrees of engagement on the Bontrager Line 30s. That aside, there isn’t any detectable difference in flex or ride quality. They are a solid wheelset, and if I was being nitpicky, I’d say that Hunt erred on the side of caution and slightly overbuilt these – they feel more stout than the previous generation Trail Wide.

Six sets of tires have been thumbed onto them, and five sets have been squeezed back off. In each instance, the fit was tight and installation without levers was definitely in the “shop mechanic/rock climber” realm. This is in no way a complaint. Snug is good. Hunt’s H-Lock bead seats are wonderful. All tires set up tubelessly with ease using a floor pump, even without sealant.

I’m notoriously soft on wheels, because I am not very rad. That said, the rear has felt rocks about 4 times when finding the edge of XC tires, and the front has been clanked once. No dings yet, spoke tension remains even all the way around each wheel, both wheels are still true and round, and I have not yet felt any need to touch them with a wrench. And today is the first day that I’ve peeked inside the rear hub since new. After over 700 miles of exceptionally dusty use, there is some very light ingress on the pawls, about what I would expect to see on any hub. The bearings are all still spinning smoothly, and the grease in them looks fresh as new. I do not know where Hunt actually sources its bearings, nor do I have any history with these particular units, but finding the name “Revo Cream” molded on the dust seal made me chuckle. So far, they are working great.

Bottom line: these are solid, no-nonsense, mid-grade mountain bike wheels. They’ll chop a little weight compared to most OE wheelsets, without any compromise in strength or durability. The Trail Wides are not going to deliver that addictive feathery faux-pro ride feel of dedicated snob wheels, but they’re a fraction of the cost. So far, they are doing their job with the predictable reliability of a favorite hammer, and for that I am very grateful. Slap a little light grease on the pawls and back onto the bike they go for the next six sets of tires!

SPECIALIZED ELIMINATOR 29×2.6 T7 TIRES

One of the odd contingent discoveries with tire testing is realizing how adaptable we are. With enough time and some experimenting with boundaries, we can get used to just about anything. Case in point; my recent forays into the desert riding of Baja on tires that, in retrospect, can only be described as “very poor choices”. The thing about very poor choices is that they need to be made, and then they need to be explored, so as to hopefully not be made again. But then, while exploring said very poor choice, one kind of gets used to the squishing sidewalls, the squirming knobs, the sudden and dramatic losses of traction, the knifing in sand, the pinballing in rocks, the ominous “ping” of rocks on rims. One begins to accept that this just might be the way things are, here in the desert.

Until a new set of tires gets kneaded onto the wheels, and it is as if the heavenly clouds parted, a chorus of angels trumpeting; heralding peace, goodwill, proper sidewall support and a wondrous level of floatation in the sandy shit.

Behold the Specialized Eliminator T7 Grid Trail 2.6” tire. This might be the best tire ever for riding blown out desert garbage. It hooks up where other tires churn and slip. It has just the right amount of side knob to provide a ton of edge grip and feedback, but doesn’t turn into too much of a rudder. It has legitimate volume so it can float on top of the sandpits for longer than smaller tires without being a bloated, squishy, compromised mess everywhere else. It doesn’t weigh a ton, so it doesn’t suck to pedal. In fact, it rolls a lot better than one would expect a massive tire weighing about a kilogram should. The casing is just the right kind of robust to feel comfortable at low-ish pressure without flexing and wallowing. After the previous three sets of tires had me feeling like I had forgotten how to steer, the big Eliminator restored some sense of dignity to my riding. There’s just one small catch. Specialized apparently doesn’t make it anymore.

A year ago, Specialized revised the Eliminator. Made it meatier, toothier, more aligned with the Butcher (which also got revised in a more badass direction). This came as a bit of a surprise to me, since the previous generation – the tire I am raving about here – had only been around for about two years. The Eliminator preceding that had been quietly phased out after a few years of failing to inspire much goodwill with anyone. Then this Eliminator came along, and sat smack in between the Purgatory and Butcher in both intent and performance. Faster than the Butcher, but not as grippy in the soft stuff. Meatier and stickier than the Purgatory, but still pretty quick on its feet. I rode the smaller 2.4 size and found it to be very capable in the granite and sandstone chunk of the dry American west. I had pretty good luck with them, but apparently not everyone else did. They (and apparently the Butcher) developed a bit of a reputation for peeling off knobs, and most people felt they rolled great but braked poorly.

This may have hastened the next revision along. I didn’t realize it had happened at all (even though Dario and Cy both wrote about the new tires A YEAR AGO), until I pulled these from my tire stash, had my mind blown, then went to write a review only to find that they no longer exist.

So, big deal. Just get the new-new, right? Well, no. Specialized does not offer the new-new in a 2.6” width anymore. The new-new is (according to Dario and Cy, anyway) more aggressive and knobbier, and more comfortable in the dank northwestern loam, but it is only available in a 29×2.4 width. We are still retreating from the plus-size tire experiments of a decade ago. While Maxxis seems to be solidly invested in providing 2.5” and 2.6” rubber, most everyone else has retreated to the safety of the known quantity; 2.4”.

And that’s fine. Most places, 2.4” is the sweet spot. Big enough to offer some cushion, stiff enough to get smashed into turns, and small enough to fit just about any frame. But down here, in this world of endless looseness, where traction is conceptual rather than actual, where trails are etched into sandy or rocky dirt by animals who don’t give a rat’s ass about your cornering needs, big tires are still worth their weight in gold. Sure, I could tuck tail and go back to the fat bike experiment, but while the trails here suck they don’t suck that much.

I’m pretty sure I have another pair of these stashed, so I’m reasonably set for “hateful desert” tires. But I worry that the “slightly meatier than 2.4 but not all the way plus” tire market is about to disappear again. Maybe I better stock up on 2.6″ Maxxis Rekons and Forekasters and Minion DHFs before they go away too. In the meantime, if you need some great tires for sucky terrain, find a set of these big Eliminators. They’re not all gone, yet. They cost $70US, or less. They rate.