Hi folks.

I'm after some new wheels for my Tarmac SL6 Sport (lighter and more aero than the DT Swiss/105 ones it came with) and I'm looking at the Hunt Aerodynamicist 4454 set.

I was chatting to people at my club ride yesterday and there's one guy who has those wheels, albeit with the alu spokes, rather than the carbon spokes, and he absolutely loves them. However, I then got chatting to another guy and he's friends with a guy who is a mechanic at a local store and apparently they see lots of Hunt wheels with issues, so now I'm a little unsure. What are people's real world experiences of Hunt wheels?

If not Hunts, any alternatives?

It's come up a few times here in the forum but they're chinese wheels with western marketing.

I had a pair of the Aerodynamicist 54's and they were OK. They didn't have any issues and worked well tubeless. However they were lackluster and I didn't see any performance difference when compared to the Zipp 303s. They actually turned me off deeper section wheels since they took a lot of effort to get up to speed.

I don’t have Hunt carbon wheels, but I have a set of their aluminum Aero 4 Season wheels, and they’re great. I’ve used them on my road bike the past four years on all kinds of terrain and conditions. No complaints!

This probably includes most all CF wheels, for example Enve, owned by Anta Sports

Are you sure about that?

I'm sure that Enve is owned by a Chinese company, so they are Chinese wheels. But, then again, so are Volvos. Who cares?

The parent company of the parent company (grandparent company?) that owns Enve is Chinese. The manufacturing of the product happens in Utah. Enve does more than just assemble overseas parts.

Ok, and? If people think that the Chinese don't know how to work plastic, they're delusional.

You characterized Enve as "Chinese wheels with western marketing". IMO, Enve doesn't really match that description.

I have not made any comments about Chinese manufacturing capabilities.

Can we get back on topic now, please?

I've been running Hunt carbon 50 discs for a few years now. For the price point, they hit the spot IMO. No issues with them and I would buy them again.

I have Hunt 60s with carbon bladed spokes and prefer them by far over my Nir 35s. Reviews I have read said that 45s are the best of both worlds of aero and weight. I really enjoy how they cut the air but the 60s can be tricky on high speed descents with cross winds. If I were to do it over again, I would go with 50s or maybe 45s. I got their standard hub and it is LOUD, but the benefit is that pedestrians will get out of your way without saying a word.

The bike shop I frequent (mostly Italian racing bikes) says they have several members of their fast group rides on Hunts.

I had a set of hunt alu wheels years ago and I was unimpressed. I was glad they were still so popular then as I was able to sell them and recoup most of the money I'd spent.

I know many people who have Hunt wheels and am not aware of any widespread issues with them. I've looked at their products and considered buying from them, but I found the Zipp designs and lifetime warranty to be more compelling to me.

I assume Hunt is using Chinese manufacturing facilities, which is no different than Roval, Zipp, DT Swiss, Reynolds, etc. I don't think characterizing Hunt as "Chinese wheels with western marketing" is accurate. From what I can tell, they have a headquarters office in the UK. This seems a little different than a company like Light Bicycle, which has a "western marketing" style website, but their headquarters is in China. Also I know many people on this forum with Light Bicycle wheels who are happy with them and I also considered buying their products in the past.

Hunt's main selling points are availability, price to performance, and customer service. By no means are they the lowest price or the best performing wheel and quite frankly aesthetically and sound wise they are very subjective. Some people will love the low key matte black wheels and others will find it boring and some will hate the loud hub and others will really enjoy it. With this said I have had five sets of Hunt wheels and two of them had cracks at the nipples and returns and shipping was easy and fast since all you need to do is pack them up and drop them off usually at UPS and in the meantime Hunt will ship you replacements from their Colorado warehouse. I never kept my Hunts long enough to really determine long term reliability and to be frank I wouldn't want to own these past the standard 3 year warranty or buy these used since I have heard the rebranded Novatec hubs kind of start to fail.

Three alternatives that I think offer better value and or performance but simply don't have Hunt's customer service and availability just yet are: Winspace's Hyper Wheels, Elite Wheels Drive Series, and 9Velo's LV or CD Series. IMO the 2023 Hyper D45 are hands down some of the best wheels you can buy in terms of weight and performance and price. The Elite Wheels are some of the lightest wheels at $1000 shipped and w/ 50mm wheels weighing 1290g. The 9Velo LV series has to be one of the best value wheels out there since you can get a set for under $800 shipped and these wheels are more robust yet lighter than Hunt's entry level Aero line. A LV35 wheelset starts at 1300g.

Whatever you do, I urge you not to fall into the Zipp 303s trap. Yes Zipp 303s are well priced and yes SRAM has an amazing warranty but these are such "mid" wheels that force you onto basically a gravel wheel at 25mm internal width and to go hookless and basically force you to go tubeless. Those are too many caveats to simply overlook that the 303s are well priced and offer a good warranty. I am not against wider internal rims or hookless but I do believe these shouldn't be on "race" bikes but rather gravel and MTB

The Zipp 303s has an internal width of 23mm. However this year's Tour de France showed tubeless and 28c tires are becoming the norm. Hookless and tubeless aren't for everyone but so are disc brakes.

My initial comment about Chinese manufacturing with Western marketing applies to other companies such as Scribe Wheels. I'm talking about "boutique" wheels made overseas in Asia with a headquarters in the UK. The message I was trying to convey is that the wheels aren't bad or inferior but don't offer anything noteworthy aside from cost. However Light Bicycle offers similar spec'd wheels for about a 1/3 less money if you can wait.

Getting back on topic with Hunt wheels, I had ridden them for about a year and thought the Hunt 54's were unremarkable but solid. To be fair, that rim depth didn't fit my riding style. A buddy of mine uses the Hunt 44's on his Aethos and hasn't had any issues after a few thousand miles. He originally was eyeing the Zipp 303s but turned off with being hookless and tubeless. However low and behold, look who's been running road tubeless on the Hunt's now?

I've owned Superteam, Scribe, Hunt and Zipp wheels through the years. I've only kept the Scribe 32's as spares and the Zipp 303s as the daily drivers. The Superteam, Scribe and Hunt wheels were all hooked carbon rims but had their own style hubs.

Pro race teams seem to disagree with this take. Most of them are on wider tubeless tires now.

UAE was running 28mm tubeless on 25mm internal hookless Enve rims during the Tour de France.

https://www.bikeradar.com/features/p...nce-tyre-tech/

You mean the women are. There are very few teams that run a 23mm+ internal width wheel and tubeless besides the women teams
https://road.cc/content/feature/tour...3-bikes-302799

Works for a team with average 65kg body weight.
Interesting though, Silca's pro pressure calculator returns ideal pressure of about 77psi for tubeless pro tour rider with total system weight of 75kg and 28mm tires. That's above the supposed 'safe' inflation hookless limit.

The link I posted literally includes photo's of Tadej Pogacar's tire measuring 31.3mm wide on a digital caliper. This is a tubeless tire with a labeled width of 28mm mounted on an Enve SES 4.5 wheel that has an internal measurement of 25mm.

18 of 21 stage winning bikes were running tubeless tires at the 2023 Tour de France.

5 stages were won on wheels of 23mm internal or wider. These included:
Enve SES 4.5 = 25mm internal (3 stage wins)
Black Inc 28//33 = 23mm internal
Bontrager Aeolus RSL 62 = 23mm internal

Tour de France Tech Trends 2023 - Who won what with what? | Cyclingnews
The Stage-Winning Bikes from the 2023 Tour de France – The Pro's Closet (theproscloset.com)

this kind of clear my mind regarding terra cl for my road bike, at internal width of 25mm, light and resistant.

I have a set of 48 limitless and a pair of 60 limitless on. different bike, I have more miles on the 48s which I really like, the 60s do catch more cross wind than the 48s, I actually bought a different front wheel for that bike with the 60s in case its a really windy day. most people probable wouldn't need to do that but I just am a little concerned with the 60s on a really windy day

the 48s have an internal width of 22.5 which they say is perfect for 28s (what hunt told me)