Today, Race Face is announcing an updated version of the Turbine aluminum wheelset, which I am fortunate unbearable to have been riding for the last few weeks. While on the surface, the wheels don’t squint drastically variegated than their predecessor, there are some key updates that are very much worth discussing in detail. Let’s swoop in…
Details
- 27.5″, mixed (tested) and 29″ available
- Boost (tested) and Super Boost spacing
- 6-bolt restriction interface
- MS, XD (tested) and HG drivers available
- 28 slum front and rear
- 30mm rim width
- Straight pull double butted spokes
- Alloy nipples
- Front/rear specific rim profiles with 4mm offset
- 1895 grams personal (29″) / 1850 grams (our scale, mixed setup with tubeless valves and tape)
- Lifetime warranty
- $799 USD
Starting with the rims, the new Turbines see a 4mm offset front and rear for a profoundly improved bracing wile and increasingly plane tension between the momentum and non-drive side. Both of these diamond choices modernize the overall integrity of the wheel as a well-constructed unit.
A new speciality of the rim’s profile is its wider rim wall. By making this part of the rim powerfully increasingly blunt, it substantially reduces the chances of having it cut through your tire and thus is less likely to pinch flat. It’s moreover thicker and therefore should be largest at warding off dents and unappetizing spots.
Another interesting diamond speciality to the new rims is that their front and rear specific diamond is aimed at improving ride quality. While both rims are 30mm wide, the front rim is 18mm deep and the rear is 20mm deep. The shallower front profile should squire in providing a increasingly well-appointed and compliant ride, whereas that is less of a snooping out when and instead the greater snooping is strength and rigidty, which are increased at the rear wheel due to the taller profile.
Central to the Turbine wheelset are Race Face’s burly Vault hubs, which have garnered a solid reputation over the years. An interesting diamond speciality to them – in wing to their massive size – is the fact that the main situation are spaced very widely apart, thus improving their longevity and reducing the endangerment of rear trestle failure. Compared to the popular DT Swiss 240 hub, the Vault’s main situation have a stance that is roughly 10mm wider.
The Vault hubs are completely designed virtually straight pull spokes. 28 of them front and rear to be exact.
While the momentum side flange is quite large on the rear hub, the opposite is true for the front hub, as shown above. It’s worth pointing out that both the front and rear hubs are tool free, so the end caps and suburbanite persons can all be removed by hand for a quick service.
With the suburbanite soul removed, you can see the 6 pawls revealed. Each pawl has two teeth for increased bite/contact and the layout is such that there are two opposing groups of three pawls with only one set engaged at a time. Moreover note the large labyrinth seal which is hands removable for service and wangle to the springs.
The steel momentum ring has 60 teeth for blazing fast 3º engagement. Moreover note that the Vaults full-length oversized 6902 Enduro situation throughout.
On the trail
The Turbines victorious taped with valves installed and I found that installing tires and inflating them with a floor pump was a breeze. Right yonder I noticed and appreciated the speedy engagement. The hub situation were smooth and the size of the hub shells are something to behold. Given that these wheels full-length aluminum rims, they offered a very nice on-trail finger with a unconfined wastefulness of stiffness and compliance – expressly given their low-ish 28 slum spoke count. While some aluminum wheelsets can finger a bit “dead” on trail compared to stat webbing options, this was not the case. Rather, the ride quality was such that the Turbines are precisely the kind of wheelset that has me increasingly skeptical well-nigh the specimen for stat wheelsets in unstipulated – particularly from a value perspective.
While it is a bit premature for a full long term review, I have had a handful of rides in reasonably rugged terrain and I’ve cased a handful of jumps without the Turbines flinching one bit. I’ve moreover run the tires well unelevated my standard pressure and haven’t managed to unappetizing my tires on them. How well does the wider rim wall prevent flats? Much like the requirement regarding the shallower front rim profile exhibiting a increasingly gentle ride quality, it’s difficult to gauge on how well unrepealable diamond aspects work in the real world, particularly when the differences measure within a few millimeters. In theory however, both of those things do make sense and the wheels walkout an spanking-new ride quality. If I had to nit pick and squint for any sort of shortcoming, I’d likely point to the straight pull spokes. Surely they may have helped Race Face unzip their goals for the Vault hubs from a diamond standpoint and they do have their merits and demerits. However, I personally find them worrying to deal with in a truing stand. All told however, 1,850 grams is quite light for an aluminum wheelset with such burly hubs, so that’s flipside positive.
Overall
As mentioned prior, it will take increasingly time on the trails to make a broader towage of the Turbines, but so far so good. Regarding where they stand from a value perspective, I think they are a unconfined deal. $799 USD for a well thought out premium aluminum wheelset rolling on upper end hubs self-aggrandizing a realistic lifetime warranty is an wool bargain. That they offer a ride quality that will likely have you second guessing the utility of stat webbing wheels just makes them that much increasingly convincing.
www.raceface.com
