First Look: On the Hunt for a new gravel 650b wheelset? Look no further…

• Model: 650b Adventure Carbon
• From: Hunt 
• Price: £879, optional extra Schwalbe G-One Bite 2.1in tyres tubeless fitted £100

Sorry, sorry. Bad pun, but the Hunt 650b Adventure Carbon wheelset is a product that we reckon quite a few people will be tempted by. It’s an old truism that wheels offer the best bang-for-buck when it comes to upgrading. Whether it be lighter rolling mass or a little more stiffness, there are good reasons to upgrade a stock wheelset on many off the shelf bikes.

Those who are looking to upgrade may well look to Hunt. We’ve reviewed the Brighton-based company’s 4Season Gravel wheelset and were highly impressed, especially for the money. The 650b Adventure Carbon wheelset takes things up a notch or two, not least thanks to the rim material. At the wheels heart is the same 4Season hubs – no complaints from us, Wil got on with them very nicely.

The hubs are laced to “unidirectional T24/30 with 3K weave carbon rims with reinforced spoke holes”, feature a hookless profile and are tubeless ready. The rims measure 22mm deep, with a 30mm external width “aero U-profile”. The 24mm inner profile makes them compatible with tyres from 28mm up to 55mm, although we expect most of our readers will be keen to make the most of the broader end of the spectrum – we certainly will.

Full specification

• Disc-specific, tubeless-ready hookless profile
• H-lock rim shoulders, for easy and secure tubeless installation
• Unidirectional T24/30 carbon fibre with 3K weave re-enforced spoke holes
• 30mm outer and 24mm inner width ideal for 28-55mm tyre widths
• 22mm depth
• 28 front and rear laced 2 cross spokes
• Aero Butted 2.0-2.2/0.95-2.0 then PSR section is 2.2
• J-Bend for ease of replacement
• Cold drawn from high grade T302 (18/10) stainless steel wire by Sandvik Sweden
• Patented Pillar Spoke Re-enforcement, butted again just before the spoke head providing more durability in high stress area.
• Black stainless treatment
• HUNT 4Season Disc hub designed for 4Season use with extra bearing shielding and sealing.
• Center-lock disc mounts (comes with adaptors for six bolt)
• Front compatible with 9mm QR and 12mm bolt thru
• Rear compatible with 9mmx135mm 12mmx135mm and 12mmx142mm
• Shimano/SRAM cassette and SRAM XD Driver free hubs available
• Weight (claimed): 1425g

Tyres

One of the nice optional extras that Hunt offers is fitting a fresh set of tyres for you and taking the pain out of a tubeless conversion. It’s been a while since we’ve had any hassle tubelessing a wheelset, but it’s still made a nice change to have a set of wheels that just needed rotors and a cassette adding before we could hit the trails.

Hunt has a few tyre options available, but we chose the Schwalbe G-One Bites in a 2.1in flavour. We rode the 700c version of the tyre at the Canyon Grail launch earlier in the year and were impressed, so look forward to trying out the larger volume, smaller diameter version. One thing we’ve already noticed is the side-knobs add a bit more width to the tyre than the 2.1in WTB Nanos that they replace. Luckily there’s plenty of room in the Bombtrack Hook EXT to accommodate the extra rubber, and we think we’ll appreciate them as this summer’s dust is quickly being dampened down by the August bank holiday weather.

Time to hit the trails, and we’ll report back soon.

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