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TECH NEWS

Mason and Hunt collaborate on 650B Adventure Sport Disc wheelset

New wheels are designed specifically for drop-bar adventure/gravel riding

British brands Hunt Bike Wheels and Mason Cycles have collaborated on a new 650B Adventure Sport Disc wheelset that’s ready to pre-order now for September delivery.

If you looked very closely you might have noticed that these are the wheels on the aluminium Mason Bokeh that we exclusively revealed on road.cc yesterday. 

Check out the new Mason Cycles Bokeh and Bokeh Ti AdventureSport bikes here. 

The wheels are intended for drop-bar adventure/gravel riding and they feature a new rim profile designed for that specific purpose. 

MASONxHUNT 650B Adventure Sport Disc wheelset - 1.jpg

The rims are wide with a 25mm external width and a 20mm internal width. The idea is to provide support for wider tyres and Hunt suggests that you can happily use up to 2.1in.

MASONxHUNT 650B Adventure Sport Disc wheelset 3 - 3.jpg

At 24mm, the rims are slightly deeper than normal mountain bike rims. Why?

“The lower spoke count wheels and higher gear torques from road groupsets mean those extra few millimetres of depth add very welcome stiffness,” says Hunt’s Tom Marchment.

“The extra depth also adds a very small extra margin of aero benefit, but obviously only marginal. Having an asymmetric rim was important for us as it can be swapped front and rear to accommodate the front disc and rear cassette offsets and help build an even stronger and more durable build thanks to more even spoke tension.”

MASONxHUNT 650B Adventure Sport Disc wheelset - 4.jpg

The rims feature a sleeved rim joint construction that’s designed to be reliable and durable while saving significant weight over pinned rims, and also Hunt’s Tubeless H-lock rim bed profile with up-kicks to the shoulders of the tubeless steps. These are designed to create a better rim-well seal for first installation and also to lock the beads in place more securely once seated. Hunt says this is especially important when running lower pressures off road.

MASONxHUNT 650B Adventure Sport Disc wheelset 3 - 4.jpg

The wheels have fully adaptable axles with the most common thru axles included. The hubs are centre-lock with 6-bolt adapters included so they’ll work with Shimano road groupsets or SRAM 1x. SRAM now offers centre-lock rotors.

Check out our review of the Hunt 4Season Dura road wheelset here.

MASONxHUNT 650B Adventure Sport Disc wheelset 3 - 1.jpg

As well as our rolling road tests, we’ve been ride testing them too. Josh Ibbett [last year’s Transcontinental race winner who works for Hunt Bike Wheels] and other riders from Hunt and Mason have already put in serious miles on these wheels with Panaracer Gravel Kings, Schwalbe G-one 27.5s and Challenge tyres and we’re really pleased with the performance.”

The MASONxHUNT 650B Adventure Sport Disc wheelset is priced at £339. For all the details go to the Hunt Bike Wheels website.
 

Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. We send him off around the world to get all the news from launches and shows too. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.

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5 comments

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HuntBikeWheels | 7 years ago
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Hi KiwiMike, you're calcs look good. As you say it is slightly smaller with the 27.5x1.50 (=38c) so your bb and pedals would be a few mms lower, so worth considering, but it may well work on bikes that have a reasonable bb height already. Also, you'll probably be able to fit these into the chainstay/seatstay/fork on some road/cross bikes. Obviously we would suggest making sure you have the tyre width clearance as of course that is not always the case.  The idea with the Mason Bokeh is that the geo and ride is not compromised at all by the swap and there is not guessing on the tyre clearance, plus the attention to detail and craftsmanship on Dom's bike's is incredible!

I hope this helps and enjoy your riding,
Tom Marchment - HuntBikeWheels | TheRiderFirm.CC

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Luv2ride | 7 years ago
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Hmm, tempted for my Arkose singlespeed.....

Avatar
KiwiMike | 7 years ago
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1579g. There, fixed that for you Mat smiley

Noting a 650b wheelset with a lovely fat, comfy Schwalbe 27.5 x 1.5 G-One tire is exactly 17mm smaller in circumference (or 0.8%/gnat's testicle) than your average 23mm tyre on a 700C rim. There might be a bit of variance depending on internal width, but not much.

So unless I'm missing something fundamental here, you could pop these onto any roadbike with enough width clearance and go plush.

 

 

 

Avatar
Ush | 7 years ago
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Those are rather nice.  And Xmas isn't so far away.  *strokes chin thoughtfully*

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antigee | 7 years ago
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"The wheels have fully adaptable axles with the most common thru axles included."

should that read    The wheels have fully adaptable axles with the most common thru axles adaptors  included. ?

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