Reserve 37 27.5 Wheelset DT350 Hubs

Plus-curious, but not willing to commit to an ultra-wide rim that’ll square off the swathe of 2.6 tires popping out of moulds around the world? The new Reserve 37’s width (37mm internal) is optimized for tires from 2.5 to 2.8 inches wide, and will still support a 3.0 nicely.

The designers tested a bunch of rim widths before committing to 37mm for their widest rim offering, and they feel it’s the best balance of support for wide-but-traditional tires (Maxxis’ 2.5 WT models, for instance), while also offering enough volume to let 2.8-3.0 tires solve the traction+volume=shred equation.

With more tire choices becoming available it’s a great time to have a rubber fetish. From the traditional widths and treads to the big meat of Plus size – and now the new Goldilock’s porridge of 2.6-inch tires that offer more volume and traction with less of the squirm of the widest ones – the Reserve 37 means you don’t need to swap out rims or wheels to try new things.

Whether it's a sunset lap with friends or a race run against the clock, a broken wheel ruins any ride. The designers set strength and impact resistance as their highest priority, but strength doesn't have to mean uncomfortably stiff. The Reserve Carbon Wheels are compliant enough to avoid that harsh "wooden" ride that gives some carbon rims a bad name offroad.

Reserve Wheels

• New Reserve 37 rim is optimised for tires from 2.5 to 2.8-inches wide and allows for up to a 3.0
• A new line of premium carbon mountain bike rims and wheels designed to be the strongest, most reliable on the market.
• Designed, tested and prototyped in California using a new in-house carbon lab and well-established carbon fibre expertise.
• Backed by the best product support program in the industry.

Everything from the thickness of rim beads to external spoke hole reinforcements comes purely from the experience of knowing what riders need at every level - from international racing to your local trails.

Material Where You Need It

With this information in hand, the designers set about determining how they might design a rim to mitigate past failures, and part of the result is the square-shaped reinforcements you can see around the spoke holes. Making plates of different carbon spoke hole designs in their carbon lab, they developed a test that mimics the sudden increase in pulling force associated with an impact. After spending a few months breaking bits, they got to the point where all that was being broken were spokes & nipples - no carbon.

They are far from the first company to reinforce high-stress areas with more material, but they're visible to ensure that the spoke hole drilling matches the reinforcement. Super-precise placement of these reinforcements allows for only the amount of material necessary to achieve the strength required, rather than reinforcing the entire rim. they then invest that extra material into the other common failure point of a rim - the bead.

The rim beads on the Reserve Wheels are thick, relative to other rims on the market. As much as a millimetre thicker on either side, in some cases. The material they saved by optimizing the placement of the spoke hole reinforcements went directly into the bead, making it extremely strong without adding weight to the overall construction. The beads are hookless: this makes for a better fit with modern tires, but also simplifies manufacturing, which results in more consistent carbon compaction - the technical way to say stronger rim.

• Putting carbon reinforcements around the spoke holes enabled for a stronger wheel while saving on overall weight.
• Because the reinforcements are positioned on the outside of the rim, they have ensured correct, centred drilling - previously an issue with internally reinforced rims.
• Those extra weight savings have been reinvested into the rim bead, where rock strikes are more likely.
• A Special wax bladder moulding technique ensures excellent compaction with no voids or air bubbles.
• This reduced level of manufacturing variability allows for a more consistent construction, making them more reliable.

Mountain Bike Specific Design & Testing

One thing they knew for certain when going into the Reserve Wheel project three years ago was that the industry standard impact test for carbon wheels wasn't going to cut it. That test, approved by the UCI, impacts both sides of a rim equally with a flat rubber pad without a tyre mounted on the wheel. It's designed to replicate a pothole-type impact on the road.

On a mountain bike, a rock is much more likely to only hit one side of the rim, so the rim beads have to be independently strong. They created a test in their lab that simulates one side of the rim landing directly on a square-edged rock from over 3 feet in the air with no suspension, and a lightweight tyre inflated to 25psi.

As they began to put some of the other rims on the market through this test, a lot of them broke more or less as they're expected to - on the bead - but the designers also found that a critical failure mode was the spoke nipples pulling through the rim due to the sudden increase in spoke tension as the wheel flexed on impact.

Like many of the tests and standards required today, rim and wheel benchmarks were ported over from road biking. The Reserve Wheels - unsurprisingly, pass those easily, but the designers don’t think they’re adequate for mountain biking, which is why they came up with their own.

• Because a majority of mountain bike rim failures occur from impacting rocks on a single side of the rim, they created a lab test that specifically simulates this.
• A spoke pull test is also performance, ensuring that all reinforcements are doing their job & don't fail before the rim.

Lifetime Warranty

Lifetime. No gimmicks. Not limited. If you do actually manage to break the Reserve Rims while out riding, they'll replace it for free. If it gets run over by a truck, they'll help you out with a low cost, accidental 'crash replacement', because life's too short to argue.

• Rock-solid lifetime warranty.
• 24-hour turnaround.
• Dedicated wheel service staff.