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If you’ve looked at your road bike recently and thought, “I need more carbon, I want tubeless, and I like to buy US-made stuff,” you should start wearing a tin-foil hat, because ENVE read your mind. The company has a new hubset and rim that tick all your boxes.
The hubs have a simple name that undercompensates—ENVE Carbon Road Hub. The carbon fiber shells, manufactured in ENVE’s Ogden, Utah, facility begin as two halves: Each half is molded as one piece including flange and spoke holes, which are bonded together and finally co-molded to make the final shell. Enve promotes the hub as balanced, taking into account reliability, strength, weight, stiffness, and efficiency.
The rear hub uses a DT-Swiss star ratchet system, driver body, and axle (the front axle is ENVE’s design); it’s reliable, and replacement parts are easy to find. The ceramic-hybrid (steel races and ceramic balls) come from Ceramic Speed. The SES 2.2 carbon clincher rims are tubeless ready and feature a rain-friendly brake surface.
The hubs are only offered for rim brakes, with 20 front and 24 rear drilling; Campagnolo or SRAM/Shimano driver bodies; and are quick release-only (though the rear could be upgraded to thru-axle with DT’s parts).
ENVE claims the hubs’ weight is 232g: 74 grams front, 158 grams rear. For comparison, a DT-Swiss 240s hubset for J-bend spokes is 314g (claimed), while a Chris King R45 hubset is 318g (claimed). Price? Hold onto your tin-foil hats, because the suggested retail is $1,350. Yes, for the hubs alone. A complete Smart ENVE System wheelset built with the Carbon Road Hubs will sell for $3,300 tubular, or $3,500 clincher.
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This presents a perfect segue into ENVE’s other new product: the SES 2.2 Clincher rim, also made in Ogden. While other SES rims have differentiated depths and widths front and rear, the 2.2 rim is the same all around. The only differentiation is the front rim has 20 holes and the rear has 24.
It is the shallowest (25mm-deep, 27mm-wide, 18.5mm-internal width) and lightest (410 grams each, claimed) of ENVE’s SES rim series. It’s not pitched as an aerodynamic rim, but as a lightweight climber’s rim that is stable in crosswinds. It is also ENVE’s first road tubeless-ready rim.
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Like the 2.2 tubular rim unveiled earlier this year, the 2.2 clincher has the latest iteration of ENVE’s textured brake track. ENVE claims that, when paired with ENVE’s latest brake pads (included), the rim makes it possible to achieve the same amount of stopping power as first-gen brake tracks with 30 percent less effort, in wet and dry conditions. The 2.2 was optimized around 25mm-wide tires, though naturally it is compatible with almost any width tire that can be squeezed into a road frame.
Claimed wheelset weights start at 1,275 grams when built with ENVE’s new Carbon Road hub ($3,500), and top out at 1,458 grams when built with a DT-Swiss 350 hub ($2,575). The rims ($975 each) are also available, though harder to get.
The hubs are shipping now, and 2.2 clincher wheels should start shipping in October.
