Considering wheels for a new bike build. My wife has the trail wide wheels and they are great value and have all the features I’m after. Currently I have some nice LB carbon rims on my old bike (wrong size for new bike) so my instinct is to go carbon again. But the hunt carbon wheels are heavier than the alloy versions and slightly narrower. I guess they must be stronger, but other than that I can’t see a compelling reason to buy them over the alloy version.
An I missing something?

If its a hardtail go alu IMO

They’re going to be built for strength, carbon doesn’t ding and bend like alloy so if you’re not bending the trail wheels, the hunt carbons will be overkill.

I’ve both, and whilst trail wide is slightly lighter, the impact carbon are stiffer. I’m a total convert to the way the carbon set has made the bike feel. Oh and the hubs are gorgeous. You wont be disappointed with either and customer service is always excellent.

They’ll be going on a circa 150mm FS 29er. So extra strength is an attribute worthy of consideration. Stiffness…. Maybe I’d notice, I certainly can tell the difference in my xc wheels now they are built better and are stiffer just with the same rims!

I also have a pair of Hunt XC wide and they the most flexible of all three. Whilst they will stand some knar, a season has seen them go out of true, I also popped spokes in XC front. Hunt however where brilliant in sorting this though. Ultimately it depends how you like your bike setup. I love torqing rear end so carbon give that extra pop and jive out of corners. Im 73kg.

my new Trail Wide wheels have more dings in them than they’ve had rides.

disappointed. especially considering my tyres are still pretty firm from fitting them.

ive not been riding anything too fruity either.

incidentally – how does the crash replacement scheme i paid extra for work when they have zero stock of anything?

I use hunt carbons

800 miles on the trailwides.

Disappointing amount of dings – especially as this is all “no gnar, not far” local riding, and I’ve used volumous rubber. Managed to somehow burp a XR3 off the rim 34 miles from home the other day. Wouldn’t re-seal. had a tube. Covered myself in Stans. None of my other wheelsets have any dings over the same terrain.

My Aero Race road wheel is back with them too as the hub developed play after 150 miles. Told there is a two week wait on warranty stuff at the moment. So I am without a road bike.

They are reasonably priced. They are light. They are not as bomb proof as claimed.

Jury is out…..

Perhaps look at a custom build of something like Hope Pro4 with DT Swiss XM481 rims?

They should be spot on for a 150mm FS.

800 miles on the trailwides.

Disappointing amount of dings – especially as this is all “no gnar, not far” local riding, and I’ve used volumous rubber. Managed to somehow burp a XR3 off the rim 34 miles from home the other day. Wouldn’t re-seal. had a tube. Covered myself in Stans. None of my other wheelsets have any dings over the same terrain.

Looks like “light, cheap, strong: pick any two” applies to these too.

From experience, would agree with the soft nature of the Hunt rims. My other half had a set on her long termer test bike. She’s a competent rider, but not hard on kit – the rear wheel is literally peppered with dings. From memory we counted over 25 in total.

I’m a firm believer that carbon wheels don’t belong on MTB’s other than maybe XC bikes. I’ve wrecked so many over the years, and never been impressed with the ride quality, or feel over a decent set of aluminium wheels.

If you’re prepared to spend that much money, i’d be going for a set of Xm1501’s. As light as the Trail Wides, really tough & ride exceptionally well.

Looks like “light, cheap, strong: pick any two” applies to these too.

Beginning to think that.

I installed a new tyre on the trail wide today. Took it off the bike and the cassette was moving around. on closer inspection the end caps have undone and about to fall off.

I’ve done them up again with 17mm cone spanner. But FFS…. it just feels cheap.

Like many people I struggle to see past DT Swiss alloy rims after watching Aaron Gwin race almost the entire Leogang WC DH course with no tyre on an EX471!

If you break a rim how much are they to replace?

Hunts? Crash replacement is £80 fitted and delivered or £55 (I think) for just the rim.

Yeah, that’s about right mccraque. My trail wide rear is with them being rebuilt after knackering it on the first ride. The rebuild price is pretty good value really, it’s just annoying I’m having to do it immediately after shelling out for new wheels. I accept some clumsiness on my part but I’m normally quite light on parts and it didn’t do any damage to the tyre.

@bails that’s a pretty impressive ding for a first ride out! I bet you were gutted. Did it still hold air?

Is that £55 for the Ali rim? What’s the price for the carbon replacement?

How long does the replacement policy last?

mine did the same (endure wide) as the above on its first trip over a rocky trail, even with a foam insert. I’ve bent it back but it’ll need a rebuild. Will just watch the pressures next time.

Otherwise I think they’re fine and for the money they look neat. Still not a fan of carbon wheels though. Stiffness isn’t always good. And you can bend and beat alloy with a hammer…

It’s interesting to see real world feedback on Hunt rather than the 100s of gushing comments on the advert that seems to pop up on my Facebook feed. I’d definitely be going for Hope or DT hubs with DT rims for long term reliability and spares availability.

My experience with hunt wheels has been nothing but positive, good guys to speak to and service was great, have a set of 27.5 trail wides, no dings and no issues over the last year, also survived a trip to bike park wales with zero issues.

I’m not the gnarliest of riders but i am heavy at around 95-100 kgs.

I run around 28psi with no inserts and my rims are fine.

I very nearly went for DT Swiss as the german sites seem to have some very good deals.

Dinged my trailwides quite a bit, but they’re holding up better than Easton/RaceFace and Stans rims I used before. The tougher WTB rims are the only ones I’ve used that are less prone to this than the Hunts.

Geez, you guys are making me paranoid now. 2 rides in so about 50 miles and I cased a jump onto a log the other day definately heard a funny sort of twang. After reading this I’ve been out to check the rim and it seems to be ok. Not taken the tyre off.

Must say I have noticed a big difference in how these roll compared to my old rims. They are about 1.2Kg lighter.

They’re certainly light. But I don’t think there is a magic formula that makes them strong AND light. They zip along nicely. Once I managed to get through to the customer services they were pretty decent to deal with and I just drove my wheel over to where they are as they’re local to me. But there is a 2 week wait for warranty. I managed to bend the trail wide back into action…although with all the dings it is starting to look like a cookie cutter.

The road wheel is with them and I am without my road bike for the duration. I would be two bikes down if I wasn’t taking a chance with the pliers.

And as for my end caps self loosening….

Well this doesn’t bode well….
I’ve bent my wtb i30 beyond tubeless sealant capability’s and was looking at these as a replacement.
I think I may wait abit and go with the dt Swiss instead, they were flawless on previous bikes, or maybe the new spank vibrocore wheels

DT genuinely do seem to have mastered strong and light, tbh. Though obviously not cheap, and I don’t like their squorx…

Maybe this is just me, but it seems like the general state of mtb rims just now is that in the rush for wide and light, most have gone soft. Soft’s better than too hard and too light, because that’s when they explode or crack instead of bending, but it’s not great. For sure that’s where a lot of WTB’s rims are at just now

My stans flow ex are holding up well, hand built onto hope pro 4. Not the lightest but certainly seem to be strong.

I did consider the hunts, they look good and up until this thread I’ve never seen any bad feedback. It’s been nothing but praise for them.

“My stans flow ex are holding up well, hand built onto hope pro 4. Not the lightest but certainly seem to be strong.”

My Flow EX are still doing very well after years and thousands of miles. It was interesting to hear they’re stronger than the Flow Mk3, hence the new EX3 which is wide like the Mk3 but strong like the EX!

Flow Ex is pretty strong but because of the low height rim walls it doesn’t take a big dent to kill them- damage that would just bend out of some rims will go straight into the rim bed.. But especially considering their age they were ace. And miles better than the cracky Mk3.

I have been smashing the hunt carbons with no issues at all. Love em

Two years on a set of XM481’s, over 500,000ft of descening (couple of trips to italy, multiple uplifts, 10 days in Morzine) and there are no dents. Looks like someone has taken an angle grinder to the rim in places, plenty of marring from rock strikes.

£500 buys you XM481 on either DT350’s or Hopes, fit and near enough forget.

Trail Wide are sh!te!

First ride yesterday. 10 miles around a trail at Afan in the pouring rain on a 150mm/160mm bike. Brand new Maxxis DHR II tyre with DD carcass too.

I’m not interested in paying Hunt £80 to put another soft cheese rim on. So I’ve just bought a DT Swiss XM481 to replace the rear rim – based upon advice in this thread.

Pretty gutted because I just bought their Microspline freehub for £50 so I’ve invested over £400 in them.

I can’t believe no bike journalists have dinged theirs like this when you see/read the input above from bikers.

In 25 years of mountain biking this is the most pathetic, supposedly fit for purpose, rim I’ve used (except maybe Mavic XM819 – they were very “pliable” too).

One ride only, shocking.

My rear Trailwide is with Hunt at the moment for a rebuild too. They’re doing it under warranty, which is nice of them, but I’d rather they didn’t need to.

6 dings in the first 2 rides, then a full on crimp it flat jobbie a couple of rides later (which I barely felt happen), despite me being sub 10stone at the mo, and using a 1.4kg WTB Judge tough carcass tyre.

I got my rear wheel back from Hunt today, after sending it to them in April.

I’ve got some Rimpact tyre inserts to go in it, hopefully £40 on those will avoid several £80 rebuilds.

Those of you with big dings in your Hunt rims, what sort of weight are you and what tyre pressure are you running?

I’m 70kg and running just under 25psi.

Thanks Bails, that’ good to know. I’m 65kgs and run similar psi so perhaps I’ll look at different options for my next build.

80kg and 28psi or so.

I have set of the Enduro wide on order, I’m wondering if i should cancel that based on this thread.

For those who have them what are the hubs like? just pondering whether it would be worth buying them and getting the rear rebuilt with a different rim if they do get heavily dinged?

I like the hubs, but for obvious reasons haven’t put many miles on them. They’re a very fast engaging freehub and they spin really freely.