Reynolds All Terrain Road Tubeless wheels

These Reynolds All Terrain Road (ATR) wheels are good all-rounders for bikes with plenty of clearance; they're light, strong and versatile. They're expensive though, and it'd be interesting to see how much of the same performance would be possible with alloy rims instead of carbon ones.

The ATRs feature a brand new rim from Reynolds. It's a whopping 21mm wide internally and 29mm across the outside, so it's not going to fit in your tight-tolerance road disc frame. This is one for adventure and 'cross bikes. The ISO 5775 standards (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_5775) suggest that the narrowest tyre you'll be wanting to fit is a 35mm, but we fitted 28mm tyres with no issues at all, and some narrower tyres with significant issues. More on that later.

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Anyway, 28mm and up is probably what you're looking at if you're eyeing up these wheels. They're designed to "keep going even when the smooth pavement doesn't," according to Reynolds, and they're built to withstand a bit of rougher terrain. There are 24 spokes front and rear, both laced in a two-cross pattern, and the spokes fit into straight-pull hubs with Centerlock disc rotor mounts.

The wheels are adaptable to different axle standards. There's standard quick release equipment, but you can remove the push-fit axle hardware and replace it with the supplied thru-axle kit if that's what your bike runs. The ATRs come with 15mm front and 142x12mm rear kits but not, at time of writing, the newer 12mm front axle fittings. They will no doubt be available in time though.

The rim is tubeless-compatible and comes pre-taped and supplied with a valve. We fitted a variety of tubeless tyres to the ATRs, and were mostly successful in getting them inflated although some tyres were better than others. At one point the rear rim wouldn't hold pressure and it turned out to be the tape that was the issue rather than the tyre; once it was re-taped it was fine.

For the most part the ATRs performed admirably. They're nice and stiff and the 1,510g weight is low for a pair of disc wheels. The spokes were a bit pingy to begin with but they calmed down after a while.

I used the ATRs for general riding duties aboard my Kinesis Tripster ATR and they were an excellent match. They roll very well with a 28mm tyre and I completed some long rides on them with no issues. I also raced a few times on the ATRs aboard a Merida 'cross bike, and swapped out the quick release front hub kit for the 15mm thru-axle fittings which is a two-minute job. For both racing CX and just ranting about round the lanes, they were generally very good.

At one point we attempted to fit some 23mm tubeless tyres to the ATRs, just to see if they would work. The answer is yes, but they were so tightly set to the rim, and there was so little tyre to grab hold of once they were on, that we had to cut them free. So don't try that at home, folks.

At the other end of the tyre spectrum 33mm Bontrager CX3 tyres went up a treat, but we had a few issues with them burping air during races, suggesting the rim/bead interface wasn't quite snug. Whether that was the tyre, or the rim, or simply that particular combination, is difficult to say, although the tyres have been better behaved on a set of Zipps I'm also testing.

We're still seeing a fair bit of variation with sealing for different tyre and rim pairings and it's not restricted to these wheels. Road tubeless still feels like a bit of a work in progress, especially at the cross/adventure end of the market where the tyre pressures are lower and the integrity of the rim/bead seal is more critical.

I'm convinced that tubeless tyres will become increasingly popular, though, especially in the adventure and cross sector where you're running bigger tyres at lower pressures and the risk of a pinch flat is so much higher. I'm not so sure I'm convinced that a wheel like this needs – or wants – to be carbon. There's a minor weight penalty for alloy, but that's less of an issue with an adventure wheel, as is the shock absorbing quality of carbon once you're sticking a 30mm tyre on to soak up the bumps.

Extruding the correct rim profile to lock a tubeless bead is a much simpler process than creating it from carbon, which means the wheel can be much cheaper. I'd love to see Reynolds bringing out a metal version of the ATR wheels, and if it was my money I'm sure it would be that one I'd go for. As it is, there are an increasing number of alloy road disc wheels out there, with only a minor weight penalty, for considerably less than this.

Verdict

Good quality, lightweight adventure wheels but you're paying a premium for carbon where it's maybe not needed