AX-Lightness

Premium 29in Tune Hub Clincher Wheelset

When you combine a barely-believable claimed weight of 1,255 grams with the aggressive rolling and confident contact patch of 29-inch tires, the effect is a ride that's as forgiving and lightweight as riding on clouds. At least, that was our experience on AX-Lightness's Premium 29in Tune Hub Clinchers.

Of course, a low weight means beans if it comes with safety compromises, and the meticulous Bavarians at AX make no concessions to the gods of broken rims and battered bodies. Every step of these wheels' lives — from conception to cutting carbon to the final stages of curing — takes place under one roof in Creußen, Germany.

After all the fancy software testing (and less-productive but equally whiteboard doodling) of the design process is over, the material process begins with a carbon weave. AX uses a weave because, unlike the ubiquitous unidirectional fibers, a woven fabric has multi-angle load bearing properties that recommend it for a wheel's rim, which experiences dynamic directions of pressure as it spins. This means efficient power transfer and torsional stiffness can be achieved with less material, which in turn results in less weight.

The wheels' reliability is boosted by AX's Spoke Reinforcement Technology, which creates the spoke holes during the manufacturing process itself. There is no post-production drilling once the rims come out of the autoclave, so there's no additional structural weakness. As a result, the Premium 55Ts can bear five tons of nipple resistance, which AX-Lightness takes advantage of by tensioning the spokes to 1300 N. The hubs are provided by Tune, a boutique manufacturer in Germany's Black Forest. The flanges are reduced and wrapped in carbon, which makes for a lighter overall unit that doesn't sacrifice stiffness.

Please note that AX-Lightness recommends a rider weight limit of 220 pounds/100 kilograms.