Received: Hunt 4Season Gravel Disc Wheels

Hunt Wheels is a relative newcomer to the wheelset world, but they’ve already caused quite the stir in a short space of time. Based out of the UK, Hunt Wheels designs and tests and its wheelset components locally, with production coming from a series of partners in Taiwan. With a focus on disc brake and tubeless tyre compatibility, Hunt Wheels is offering some pretty bang-up wheelsets at some very impressive price points.
To see what all the fuss is about, we’ve just received a set of Hunt 4Season Gravel Disc wheels to put to the test. With camera in hand, we decided to snap some photos to show you what exactly comes in the box with these sub-£400 wheels.

“Thanks to disc brakes, the line between road bikes and cross bikes has been well and truly blurred. Many of us now rightly see bikes as our keys to freedom; the freedom to roam and find undiscovered routes and just have a blast. We want to go fast on road, but often the routes we want to ride also lead off-road. The 4Season Gravel Disc wheelset is designed for all of us, high spoke count and large double-sealed cartridge bearings provide excellent durability and the extra-wide rim is ideal for gravel and cross tyres so you can explore, go bike-packing, rip any trails you fancy and go for it!  The great news is that we’ve invested in high-specification spokes, rims and hubsets so you don’t pay a massive weight penalty for that extra off-road durability. Long lasting speed on and off-road. Don’t be restricted, grasp your freedom.” – Hunt Wheels

The Hunt 4Season Gravel Disc Wheelset features:

• 6061-T6 Heat treated alloy tubeless-ready rims
• 25mm external rim width & 20mm internal
• Sealed bearing hubs w/7075-T6 axle and freehub
• Centre-lock disc mount w/6 bolt disc adapters included
• Anti-Bite Guard steel spline insert
• 4-pawl freehub mechamisn w/28t engagement
• Pillar stainless steel triple butted J-bend spokes
• Brass nipples
• Included in the box: quick release skewers, tubeless tape & valves, spare spokes, spoke key, 12mm front adapter (other adapters sold separately), pair of 6bolt disc adapters
• Claimed weight: 1629 grams (rims, hubs spokes and nipples)
• RRP: £359

Hunt Wheels offer a variety of different rim styles that are available in both carbon fibre and aluminium. You can 50mm deep section carbon aero wheels, 650b gravel wheels, and super-solid alloy training wheels. Most Hunt Wheels are disc specific, but they do offer some rim brake models too. The running characteristics that bind all of the Hunt Wheels together is that they’re all handbuilt, and they’re all built with tubeless compatibility.

Hunt Wheels don’t offer individual components. Instead, they offer complete, ready-to-ride wheels that come built, tensioned and ready to install. With a focus on the overall wheelbuild, there are plenty of nice touches that highlight Hunt’s attention to detail. Brass nipples are used throughout for added longterm durability compared to lighter alloy nipples, and the rims have an offset drilling to even out spoke tensions.

Like all of the Hunt Wheels, the 4Season Gravel Disc is tubeless ready. Rather than just being tubeless ready, they are legitimately tubeless ready. By that, we mean that the rims come pre-taped with tubeless rim tape, and valves are included in the box. So no need to shell out more coin on your new wheels just to achieve something the manufacturer has claimed.

The rims are made from 6061-T6 heat treated alloy, and they feature a 25mm external width and a 20mm internal width. The inside of the rim well is lowered to facilitate easier tubeless sealing, and a gentle bead hook is used to lock down the tyre beads. Want tubeless tyres too? You can buy a range of different tubeless tyres from Hunt Wheels, and your wheelset will arrive with the tyres installed too.

The new wider rim on the 4Season Gravel Disc wheelset can be run with tyres up to 50mm wide. That’s basically a 29in mountain bike tyre. Despite the ability to run high volume rubber, the rims are still capable of coping with pressures up to 120psi, so you can fit anything as narrow as a 25c road tyre.

As for the hubs, they’re nicely machined alloy numbers etched with the Hunt logo. They’re made by Novatec in Taiwan, and are packed with smooth rolling EZO bearings from Japan and 7075-T6 alloy axles. Centre-lock disc mounts come as standard, but Hunt include 6-bolt adapters in the box so you can run 6-bolt rotors too.

The rear hub also gets the EZO Japanese sealed cartridge bearings, and features a 4-pawl freehub mechanism to deliver 28 points of engagement. The standard freehub body is compatible with 9/10/11 speed Shimano and SRAM cassettes, though a Campagnolo freehub body and a SRAM XD freehub body are also available separately.

To keep weight down, the freehub body is made from 7075-T6 heat treated alloy. The only problem with alloy freehub bodies is that they typically get eaten into by cassette sprockets over time. To remedy this, the Hunt rear freehub body gets a stainless steel ABG (Anti-Bite Guard) insert. This steel insert is designed to stop the individual sprockets from rotating on their own and digging into the freehub body. It’s a design that’s used on other high-end Novatec hubs, and in my experience, it works well.

Hunt Wheels is extremely proud of its handbuilt products, and each wheelset includes a handwritten check list to ensure everything is ticked off before it makes it onto your bike. According to Hunt Wheels, their mate Mr. Hao-Cheng handbuilds and tensions every single pair of their wheels. Hunt sought him out as a highly regarded master wheel builder in Taiwan, and he’s the guy who signs off each of the above cards with each set of wheels. Nice work Hao-Cheng!

For the front wheel without a quick release or tubeless valve installed, the weight comes out to 785 grams.

And for the rear wheel, 898 grams for the bare wheel without any other bits installed. That makes the complete wheelset come in at 1683 grams, which is 54 grams over the claimed weight. However, bear in mind that Hunt weighs the complete wheels without centre-lock brake adapters or the tubeless rim tape. Once you factor those in, that weight is pretty much bang-on, so that’s impressive.

While the weight is pretty impressive for a sub-£400 wheelset, it’s really the accessory list that is included with the complete wheels that had us golf-clapping in the office. Whereas many wheel brands force you to buy all of the additional pieces that you may need to get your bike rolling, Hunt Wheels includes pretty much everything. Spare spokes, quick release axles, 6-bolt disc adapters, a spoke key, tubeless valves, cassette spacer and thru-axle hub adapters are all included in the box. That’s masses of value!

On paper, there’s certainly a lot to like about the 4Season Gravel Disc wheelset. They’re tubeless compatible, offer the ability to be run with centre-lock and 6-bolt disc brakes, and they use a nice ‘n’ normal build with standard J-bend spokes. Add in their sub-1700 gram weight and sub-£400 sticker price, and they’re very, very competitive.
We’ll be updating you on the progress of our test wheelset once we’ve got some proper saddle time aboard the stealthy black alloy hoops, so stay tuned to grit.cx for more information.
Hunt Wheels

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