Up next in 10
David takes you through the details of these remarkable wheels from top hoop makers ENVE.
Stay tuned for David's outtakes after the credits.
ENVE’s Foundation Series of carbon mountain bike wheels, launched earlier this year, is something entirely new for the Utah based company, who design and manufacture all their own carbon fibre rims in the US. They have a reputation for high end wheels, and with that come high end prices. The Foundation series though, including these AM30 mountain wheels, is aimed at providing Enve’s design at a lower price point.
In this overview, we’re going to take a look at all the features of the Foundation Series AM30 wheels, and one of the most notable is that they’re carbon wheels with a lifetime warranty attached.
These were sent to us unbuilt so we could get a detailed look at every component. It’s important to note that, if you buy some from UK distributor Saddleback, they’ll come fully built and thoroughly checked over by Saddlebacks own team of wheelbuilders. That’s the case whether they ship from ENVE to Saddleback as components, or as fully built wheels.
Continues...
You can read the full feature on our website here...
https://singletrackworld.com/2020/09/enve-am30-wheelset-an-indepth-look/
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0:01
[Music]
0:05
hi
0:05
david here with single track and today
0:07
we're going to be taking an in-depth
0:09
look at
0:09
mb's new foundation series am30 wheel
0:12
set
0:14
these are a little different to andy's
0:16
other wheels and if you look them up
0:17
online
0:18
probably the largest and first
0:20
difference you'll notice
0:21
is the price 1850 pounds through uk
0:25
distributes the saddleback
0:27
makes these significantly cheaper than
0:29
nb's other high-end wheel offerings
0:31
with the foundation range nv had two
0:34
main goals
0:35
and one of them was to make their
0:37
technology and research and development
0:39
accessible to people working with lower
0:41
budgets
0:42
the other was to design wheel sets that
0:45
are more accessible to people in terms
0:47
of being maintainable
0:49
at home as we'll see when we go through
0:51
all of the features
0:52
on here so working from the outside in
0:55
let's start with the rim
0:56
carbon fiber made by envy and neuter
0:59
according to the label this one
1:01
hand made by sir js there is no
1:05
bringing in cheaper rooms and re-badging
1:07
them for their budget wheel sets
1:08
uh this is purely a product of envy's r
1:12
d and it is made by them in america
1:15
they've built a couple of unique
1:17
features into the rim which we'll go
1:18
through but first off the basics are
1:20
that it has a 20 millimeter vertical
1:22
section for compliance
1:24
and a 30 millimeter in a width as is
1:27
pretty much
1:27
standard nowadays that seems to be a
1:30
width that many tire designers work to
1:33
and that means that you can put any
1:34
modern tire in this room
1:36
and know that it will have the exact
1:38
right tread profile
1:40
another thing wider rims do is increase
1:43
the tire volume
1:44
and in turn that reduces your chance of
1:46
pinch flats effectively
1:48
putting more padding between the rim and
1:51
the trail by increasing
1:52
that higher air volume another thing
1:54
envy have done to reduce the chance of
1:57
pinch flats or rim damage
1:58
is completely straight sided bead seats
2:01
we've seen a few rim manufacturers doing
2:03
this in the past half decade or so
2:06
and instead of using the traditional
2:08
bead hook design to grip onto your tire
2:11
these completely straight-sided bead
2:13
seats can transmit forces
2:14
all the way down into the profile of the
2:16
rim where they can be handled
2:18
by that whole structure in contrast to
2:21
the traditional hook shape
2:22
which has a weak spot at the side here
2:24
to fold and crack and take all sights of
2:26
damage especially on carbon fiber rims
2:30
and we have eliminated that with these
2:33
straight sided
2:34
bead seats but they've done more than
2:36
that i'm going to show you by guessing a
2:38
caliper on it
2:42
that bead seat is more than four and a
2:44
half millimeters
2:45
wide and that is well over double the
2:48
width of the bead seats on any rims i'm
2:51
running on any of the bikes i'm riding
2:53
at the moment
2:55
this is a feature ambi have patented and
2:57
what it means
2:58
is that if anything does compress your
3:00
tire all the way to the rim
3:02
any resulting impact forces on the rim
3:05
are distributed over a much
3:06
larger area in turn massively reducing
3:10
the chances of damage to the rim
3:12
in mb's words a dull knife doesn't cut
3:14
through things so well
3:16
the thinner your bead hook the the more
3:18
likely it is it's going to slice through
3:20
that tire whereas this
3:21
is going to squish it and bounce back
3:23
off
3:25
envy are so confident in their rim
3:27
design that they say
3:29
no inserts are necessary with these
3:31
wheels they even claim that under some
3:33
circumstances
3:34
inserts can reduce the strength of a
3:36
carbon rim
3:37
even so they say they will honor their
3:40
warranty even if their customers choose
3:42
to run inserts with these wheels
3:44
there is a five-year guarantee against
3:46
any defects
3:47
in all the parts of the wheel but on top
3:50
of that
3:51
there is a lifetime rim replacement
3:54
guarantee
3:56
if you smash one of these rims whether
3:58
it's riding on the trail or whether
4:00
you're unfortunate enough for it to
4:01
happen
4:01
on a bike rack or even in your garage if
4:04
you manage to break one of these rims
4:06
within the lifetime of the product envy
4:08
will replace it
4:10
free of charge another clever feature
4:13
they've built into
4:14
these is the spoke holes so normally a
4:17
carbon fiber rim would be laid up
4:19
as a whole big single piece and then it
4:21
would be set and then
4:23
once it's cured spoke holes would be
4:25
drilled
4:26
in that rim that though
4:29
shreds some of the fibers and reduces
4:32
the strength of the rim
4:33
so rim designers have to build that in
4:35
and allow for it
4:37
what envy have done that is unique to
4:39
them is that these spoke holes
4:42
are molded into the rim and they're
4:45
actually put in
4:46
as part of the initial carbon fiber
4:47
layup and when it comes out of the mold
4:49
all the spoke holes
4:50
are there and what that means is that
4:53
there are
4:54
continuous fibers running around every
4:56
hole
4:57
in that rim the the lack of shredded
4:59
fibers means that
5:01
for a given weight and we are able to
5:03
make a stronger rim
5:05
final feature i'd like to point out in
5:07
these rims is that they're also
5:08
asymmetric you may be able to see but in
5:11
the case of this front wheel the spoke
5:12
holes are offset from the center
5:14
three millimeters that way this is for a
5:16
very good reason
5:17
so you need your wheels to sit centrally
5:20
on the bike
5:21
otherwise it's going to be better at
5:22
turning one-way family over
5:24
but you also need to fit in the case of
5:27
this front wheel a brake disc
5:28
and in the case of the back both a brake
5:30
disc mount and
5:32
your cassette and what that means is
5:34
that the flanges on a hub
5:36
are not central so as you build up to
5:40
say a traditional rim with centrally
5:41
drilled spoke holes
5:43
rather than having a balanced triangle
5:45
of spoke tensions you end up with an
5:48
uneven one
5:50
and that's so you can bring that rim
5:52
over to the center line of the bike and
5:54
have your bike handled properly
5:55
but it does mean having much more
5:57
tension on the spokes one side of the
5:59
wheel
5:59
than the other by offsetting the spoke
6:02
holes it means you can balance those
6:04
spoke tensions
6:05
and end up with a much stronger wheel
6:07
build so moving into the spokes and
6:10
nipples
6:10
uh the spokes are traditional j-bend
6:12
spokes they're also round
6:14
rather than any fancy arrow spokes they
6:16
are safe and race
6:17
double-butted so plenty strong enough
6:20
these wheels were sent to me unbuilt so
6:22
i could get a good look at every
6:23
individual component before lacing them
6:25
up and tensioning them
6:26
myself these spoke nipples in particular
6:29
i was very pleased to see were part of
6:31
this wheel build
6:32
and that is for a reason you might not
6:35
see if you buy some of these built
6:37
and pre-taped by saddleback they're not
6:39
just traditional spoke nipples with
6:41
flaps down here for a spoke key
6:43
they are sapim's double square nipples
6:46
meaning
6:46
that they also have a set of square
6:48
flats on the back
6:49
and with the right driver tool you can
6:51
actually work on
6:53
and tension the wheel from outside the
6:55
rim
6:56
there are two reasons i really like that
6:59
one is
7:00
being able to work from here when i'm
7:02
building a wheel puts me in a much more
7:04
natural range of motion
7:06
and it also puts me in a more consistent
7:09
one and what i mean by that is
7:11
no matter how many beers i drink while
7:13
building the wheel
7:14
working from here i never get mixed up
7:17
over clockwise or anti-clockwise or end
7:19
up
7:19
loosening spokes or tightening them when
7:21
i mean to do the opposite
7:23
overall that speeds up the wheel
7:25
building process and
7:26
makes it much more fun one other thing i
7:29
like
7:30
about these spoke nipples is that
7:31
they're brass
7:33
now that's a little heavier than alloy
7:34
nipples but in the uk i think this is a
7:37
good thing
7:37
because it makes them much more
7:39
corrosion resistant
7:40
and we deal with riding in bad weather
7:42
all year round sometimes
7:44
and especially in winter have to deal
7:46
with salted roads
7:48
these will give your wheels a lot more
7:50
longevity in those conditions
7:52
looking further into the hubs these are
7:54
industry nines
7:55
one one hubs now these are industry 9's
7:58
budget hubs but by budget i mean budget
8:02
relative to industry 9's other hubs
8:04
there is certainly nothing cheap or low
8:06
quality about them
8:07
they are super nice hubs most important
8:09
of all
8:10
the rear hub sounds like this
8:12
[Music]
8:18
at industry 9 i've done a few clever and
8:21
nice things
8:21
with this hub first of all you can
8:24
mostly
8:25
do the basic service operations with
8:27
little to no tools
8:29
the end cap just pulls off alice does
8:32
the free hub and this seal just gently
8:36
prys up
8:37
with a pick
8:42
in there you can see there is a 45 tooth
8:45
ratchet ring
8:46
which normally would give eight degrees
8:48
of engagement which is pretty good
8:50
and what that means is when you go to
8:53
pedal
8:53
there may be up to eight degrees of dead
8:55
stroke before
8:57
the hub engages and starts to pull on
8:59
the back wheel
9:00
but industry nine as you'll see there
9:03
are six pulls
9:04
on the back of that freehub there are
9:06
actually two sets of pulls
9:08
one of them offset from the other
9:10
meaning only three
9:11
engage at once and what that means is
9:14
they have the strength
9:16
of a 45 tooth driver in there but with
9:18
the engagement
9:19
of a 92th one lowering that engagement
9:22
angle to four degrees
9:23
giving you super fast pickup at the
9:25
pedals
9:26
another feature i really really like
9:28
about this hub is
9:29
there is a retaining ring on the back of
9:32
that freehub
9:33
and what that means is when you're
9:35
removing it from the hub putting it back
9:36
in putting it down into bench
9:39
there is no losing pulls or springs they
9:41
all stay put
9:43
to put it back together again it goes
9:46
back together entirely by hand
9:48
the end caps are machined to really nice
9:51
tolerances
9:51
so they're not difficult to remove but
9:54
they also
9:55
won't fall off in the back of your car
9:57
or the car park
9:59
and finally that seal
10:02
just pushes them by hand make sure to
10:05
work all the way around it
10:07
it's properly seated great in all these
10:09
are
10:10
super nice hubs they certainly don't
10:12
feel like budget hubs
10:15
so what about the weight well i have
10:17
some scales here
10:18
let's actually zero them get the front
10:20
wheel on there
10:21
[Music]
10:23
and that is 867 grams
10:28
and the rear
10:33
1008 grams these came to me unbuilt so i
10:37
could get a good look at each of the
10:38
individual components before lacing them
10:41
up
10:41
that also meant i had a chance to weigh
10:43
those components individually
10:46
now bear in mind these scales only work
10:48
to a resolution of one gram
10:50
they may be rounding up or down half a
10:52
gram but the rims weighed in at 518
10:55
grams
10:56
each the valves eight grams each brass
11:00
nipples
11:01
31 grams per wheel spokes 190 grams per
11:04
wheel
11:05
front hub here 138 grams and this rear
11:09
hub
11:10
272 grams all
11:12
in that comes out at a 1.8 kilogram
11:16
burley all mountain wheel set with the
11:19
jben spokes and external nipples these
11:21
certainly look more like traditional
11:23
mountain bike wheels than anything we're
11:24
used to seeing from
11:26
envy but the rims give you some cutting
11:29
edge features in terms of
11:30
impact resistance strength and longevity
11:34
these are available through uk
11:36
distributor saddleback at a price of
11:37
1850 pounds
11:39
when you buy something with a premium
11:42
price tag such as this wheel set
11:44
you're going to want to know what your
11:45
support is and in the case of envy it is
11:48
that
11:48
saddleback are the official distributor
11:50
for the uk and germany
11:52
they hold stock here in the uk as well
11:54
as having their customer service
11:56
team based here and on top of that they
11:58
have a dedicated wheel building facility
12:00
and team
12:01
all based in the uk that should give you
12:03
some reassurance as a customer when you
12:05
order these either direct from
12:07
saddleback or through your local dealer
12:09
as i said these came to me and built
12:11
if you buy some through saddleback they
12:13
will come fully built and checked over
12:15
by saddleback's in-house team of wheel
12:18
builders
12:19
this was an in-depth look at mv's new
12:21
foundation series
12:22
am30 wheel set thanks for watching
12:26
[Music]
12:29
this is purely a product of mv's r d
12:36
and
12:38
cool it's off the room
12:42
[Music]
12:44
maybe if i just ignore the flies
12:52
[Applause]
12:56
the nipples in particular i was very
12:58
pleased to see
13:00
can hear voices
13:04
oh it's people fine
13:05
[Music]
13:12
what was i gonna say next i
13:16
just don't stephen would like that
13:18
wouldn't
13:24
that's a very loud helicopter
13:30
it's quite low please don't blow up the
13:34
studio
13:37
holy i just caught that with my
13:39
[Music]
13:43
hands
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