It’s not just mountain bikers that are benefitting from carbon wheel technology. The benefits of hookless beads and carbon’s light weight and impact resistance work very well on gravel bikes. With gravel bikes adopting tubeless technology and its lower pressures, the wide carbon beads can help with snakebite resistance too. The new ENVE Foundation AG25 and AG28 wheels are part of ENVE’s new Foundation range of complete wheels.
Coming in at £1850, the new Foundation AG25 and AG28 wheels aren’t cheap, but there’s a five year ENVE warranty as well as a ‘Lifetime Incident Protection Program’. In addition, all wheels that come into importers, Saddleback, get a tweak from the ENVE wheel builders in their wheel lab in Bristol before heading out into the world.
On to the specs: The ENVE Foundation AG25 is the 700C wheel of the pair, with a rim weight of 360g and an internal width of 25mm (who remembers when that was wide for a mountain bike rim?) a depth of 21mm and it comes as a 24/24 spoke pair with Sapim CX Sprint spokes and brass nipples. It’ll take a tyre from 36mm-50mm. Hubs are ENVE’s own Foundation alloy hubs and there’ll be freehubs for XDR and Shimano 11 speed. Weights will be around 1470g a pair.
The AG28 is the 27.5in/650B offering and again comes in 24/24. The 28mm internal width rim weighs around 372g and the recommended tyre sizes are 47mm-57mm (or 2.25in in old money).
The wheels should be heading to shops about… now, but it sounds like demand is high and supplies are reasonably limited. So if you’re building that ultimate summer bike, get ordering.
For more details, head over to Saddleback
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Expensive but many folks will buy them.
I’d be interested to know why the factory build is not considered up to spec that they have to be fettled before going out from Saddleback.
For some reason when I read the word Foundation I was expecting a much lower price than £1850!
@mudeverywhere You’re not the only one.
So what’s the difference between these the SC reserve, Reynolds ATR, etc? Where’s the price coming from other than the name?
In terms of pricing, ENVE would point to its US-made rims compared to many rims that are made in China. In addition, ENVE’s rim design (and patent) moulds the spoke holes in to the rims, rather than drilling a ‘blind’ rim, which cuts through the carbon fibres.