Mercury Wheels

X1 Carbon 27.5in Boost Wheelset

Given that Mercury Wheels is headquartered just up the road from our offices, we've had the opportunity to spend some time hitting local trails and putting the Mercury Wheels X1 Carbon 27.5in Boost Wheelset through its paces. The rims are stoutly stiff, which is further enhanced by Boost axle widths and translates to fast response on climbs and confident tracking through technical terrain. Whether you're clearing loose, hard, or chunky trails, the X1 Carbon will go where you point it without any hesitations.

The rims are built with a hookless bead, which—contrary to what common sense might suggest—makes the rim-to-tire bead connection more reliable. Burping and tire blow-offs are actually more common with hooked rims, and the hookless models demonstrate improved tire retention on-trail. By eliminating the ridge of material constituting the hook, hookless beads also enjoy increased structural integrity — a definite plus when you consider that the X1 Carbon is built for the big hits of enduro and all-mountain riding. We have found that mounting some tire brands can be a little tricky, but once they're on, the bead holds a tubeless setup as steady as any other manufacturer's.

Finally, those stiff carbon rims are laced to Mercury's own hubs by 28 spokes. Before we get into the details on the spoke count, it bears mentioning that the weight bearing threads are laced in a two-cross pattern, which further increases stiffness for sharper mashing and tracking. Stiffness is already guaranteed with a carbon rim, though, which is one reason why we aren't sorry to trade the additional (and unnecessary) stiffness of a 32 spoke build for the lower weight of 28 spokes. Mercury drills their spoke holes post-rim production, and fewer spoke holes mean less drilling and, ultimately, a more structurally sound rim.

Finally, note that the rims don't include tape or tubeless valves, but we've had luck installing most readily available tubeless conversion kits and wouldn't recommend running the X1 Carbon wheelset any other way.