Industry Nine sent us a set of their recently updated Trail 270 wheels. The mid duty wheels got a bit wider at the rim to support the current trend of beefier tires. Per usual however, they are still available with an enormous amount of color options for hubs, spokes and valves. We’ve just finished our first couple of rides on them and wanted to update our readers on the new wheels. With that in mind, a long term test will follow in the coming months…
One of the more unique features on offer from Industry Nine is the massive amount of colors and combinations on offer in their AnoLab custom wheel program. In our case, we picked gold anodized valves and accent spokes to subtly match our SRAM Eagle XX1 group. If you should choose, you can get completely carried away with loads of color options for spokes, hubs and valves. The Trail 270 are offered in both 24 hole and 32 hole (tested) depending on your needs, riding style, weight, ability, etc…
The other big story with the Trail 270 is that the rim has gained some width so it will play nicely with wider tires. To be precise, it’s 2.5mm wider compared to the wheelset it is replacing – the Trail 245…The new rims feature a 27mm inner diameter and a 30.9mm outer diameter.
ALL of the details…
Inside of there is a very, very fast engagement mechanism. 6 pawls and a 120 tooth drive ring offer 3º engagement, which is basically instant. The wheels have a nice, pleasant buzz to them.
Another nice feature of these hubs is high quality double row bearings. That costs some extra $$$ and weight, but make for a highly durable hub. The Torch hubs are available separately with traditional J-Bend flanges in the event that you wanted to lace them with your own rims and spokes.
I9 take a rather unconventional approach to wheel design and forgo the nipples altogether…The I9 spoke thread directly into the hub shell.
Rocking a newish RockShox fork? Bonus: Industry Nine wheelsets are torque cap compatible.
Here is a closer look at the hub’s endcap interface with a 2018 RockShox Pike.
We slapped these wheels onto our 29″ Trek Fuel EX long term test bike. We’ve had some time aboard the bike with both a carbon fiber wheelset as well as a fairly standard set of aluminum wheels. It’s worth noting that our measured weight of the Trail 270 wheels was pretty darn close to the carbon fiber wheels we had just pulled off of the bike.
Although we haven’t spent a ton of time on the new wheels yet, we’ve had enough time to glean some initial insight into their ride quality & characteristics. If we had to rate the Trail 270 in a broad sense, we’d say that they fall somewhere between your run of the mill aluminum wheelset and a high end carbon fiber wheelset in terms of overall feel on the trail. While their feel isn’t quite as resilient as a carbon wheelset, they feel almost every bit as stiff. Compared to your average aluminum wheel, they are certainly livelier and far stiffer; mainly because of to the burly aluminum (not steel) spokes, and also possibly due to lack of an additional interface due to the absence of nipples. Additionally, we noticed and appreciated the insanely fast engagement immediately. That particular feature that makes technical climbs and pedaling out of awkward turns much more bearable. All in all, the build and finish is super high quality. That’s all we’ve got for now, but we’ll keep you updated in the coming months…Check back for the long term review.
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