SunRingle ADD Wheel Review
SunRingle has been on a roll lately, as they have revamped their entire line of wheels. Beginning last year with a revamp of their XC, Trail, and AM lines of wheels, they’ve just completed the full rework with their DJ and DH wheels.
I was talking with Scott, the production manager from SunRingle, a while ago, and he mentioned that they were working on these new wheels, but couldn’t give me the details. With the release of the new ADD I finally had a chance to try them out!
Specs
What exactly is new here? Well, nearly everything. Like the new Charger Pro wheels, these hoops feature SunRingle’s new 28-hole straight-pull spoked hub. With a 20mm only front hub but a rear hub with all four configurations using adapters (135×12, 142×12, 150×12, and 157×12), these will surely fit your gravity ride.
Along with the redesign of the hub to accept the straight pull spokes, you get premium sealed cartridge bearings which keep things spinning smoothly. As an added feature to help keep the weight down, SunRingle decided to run double-butted Wheelsmith spokes and alloy nipples to shave a few grams without compromising strength too much. The new 30mm hoops utilize Stan’s no tube technology and come installed with Stan’s rim strips. Included, but not installed, are the Stan’s valves and bottles of sealant to get you started if you’re going tubeless right away. Outwardly fresh graphics and your choice of hub color finishes off the wheels.
These wheels come in at 2,000 grams ± a few (depending on axle configuration), making these pretty competitive as far as weight is concerned.
Installation
Installing a set of Schwalbe Muddy Mary UST tires was a snap (literally)–all that was needed to seat the beads on the rim was a quality floor pump. I have heard people complain about the troubles of setting tires on rims before, but if you just follow what Stans says on the website, it is foolproof. After the initial set-up of shaking the Stan’s sealant in the tires, I was ready to go. I set the tires to 26 PSI, installed an 11-25 cassette, and set off. Nearly all the testing was done at the Dagmar test site, with both myself and Bob_the_Builder taking turns punishing these wheels.
Testing
As a standalone test, not thinking about any other specific wheel sets I have tested before, I could tell these wheels were a bit different. Not so much in performance, but in sound. The ADD wheels feature a slightly deeper tone to the cassette body compared to other wheels. Along with the sound, the cassette engagement is a bit coarser than other brands, meaning it takes more crank rotation to engage the cassette–about 10-12 degrees compared to about 6 degrees on others. It’s not much of a difference, but I noticed it nevertheless.
As far as rolling speed with tires, these keep up with the best of them! The ADD wheels roll very fast, and even when we tossed the bike hard into berms, we felt very little flex. What both I and Bob_the_Builder loved was the durability and solid feel of the wheels while taking off and landing. Even if we had the wheel slightly sideways coming in for a landing, we noticed very little flex, where with other wheels you hear pinging spokes. Sailing off rock gardens as fast as I was willing to send it, these wheels took the abuse without a ding, which is a good testament to the design of the rim profile. Not once did I burp or flat a tire during all that jumping and abuse.
But perhaps the best thing about the ADD wheels: they sell for about $750, a couple of hundred dollars cheaper than their competitors.
I would like to thank the folks at SunRingle for sending down the ADD wheels for a review. Stay tuned for a head-to-head comparison of these and other wheels in the coming months.
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January 9th, 2012 at 11:01 am
Dude, you guys are sending it! Just seeing pics like this is a good endorsement for these wheels.
January 9th, 2012 at 5:16 pm
These look to be a great bang for your buck (Weight savings for your buck Wheels). Too bad the cassette isn’t higher engagement but you can’t get everything for cheap…
And yeah… Nice Photos! I love the roost shot.
January 9th, 2012 at 7:29 pm
Great review as always element22, if that is you in the first pic you’re flying! If you guys are launching like that and the rims are holding up, it speaks volumes about the quality of these rims.
January 10th, 2012 at 7:06 am
It really seems like Sun has some of the best value wheelsets out right now. Lots of bang for your buck.
January 10th, 2012 at 8:51 am
Great review Element! How would you compare these to like the WTB Speedidsc DH or the Mavic Deetrak wheels sets? Just curious of your take on that. Thanks for a great review, as i have been looking into another set of wheels.
January 10th, 2012 at 10:02 am
Presently the Deetrak have been discontinued for the 2012 line up …As far as how do these compare, I would say they are at a higher level than both wheels. Due to the new technology straight pull design and the Stan’s profile rim. Weight wise these are much lighter, close to a Deemax in weight.