Fast engagement, light, stiff, customer service

Require maintenance if you ride in wet, muddy conditions. Some cogs (esp. Chris King) can be a *very* tight fit.

These are great XC race wheels! The engagement is super-better than King IMO, and quite a bit better than the Hope Pro II. The wheels are stiff, even when built with Stan's 355 rims. (Note: I'm about 160 lbs soaking wet)

Couple of issues: Riding in the winter in the Northwest means you are gonna need to service these hubs twice a year. Not unexpected, as these are ment to be race wheels. But I just rebuilt the Hope Pro II's after 4 years of riding...

Some cogs just don't fit early editions of this hub. I had a nice set of Chris King cogs that simply will not fit on this hub. I ended up getting a set of Surly cogs just of this hub. Not a problem for me, as I have two singlespeeds that I use for endurance racing. But this might be an issue if you only ride one bike at a time...

I understand this issue has been fixed with newer wheels.

Final note: The guys at I9 have been great to work with. I sent one wheel back to have some work done on the rear hub, and the service what cheap and fast, even thought I could not produce a receipt. I had to send the front wheel back to have it rebuild after I killed it doing Things That Should Not Be Done with a super-light singlespeed wheel. The rebuild it for cheap and did it quick. I can't say enough good things about the customer service.

Similar Products Used:

Hand-Build Hope Pro II on Bontrager Mustang rims (Thanks Mike Curiak!)

You name it. Strong power transfer, light weight, custom build, wide choice of colors, looks incredible, stiff, etc, etc.

steep price. zzzzzzzz down the hill

Incredible Wheel set! Manufactered in the hills of NC. I was concerned about the aluminum spokes but they are thick and very strong. If you have ever heard these wheels you know they make a mean noise do to the 9 pawls rather than 2 or 4 which other wheels have. This makes for a faster engagement. This makes riding through rocky technical sections a little easier. There is no "dead spot in the engagemant. I did not want to pay the price for these wheels but after riding them I have no regrets. If you are a single speeder, want to upgrade to a high-end wheel set, and don't mind dropping the bucks this is a great set.

Similar Products Used:

Mavic SLR, Chris King SS hubs