2008 CrankBrothers (Part 2)

Sorry for the late post, been busy studying for end year examination. Anyway time for part 2 of 08 Crank Bros extensive coverage. CrankBrothers has build their reputation from their 4 sided clipless pedal and last year they expand their range to crankset. This year its planning to expand its production, one of which I would like to post about today is their new range of wheelset.

For 2008, CrankBrothers will be releasing 2 wheelsets for different purposes. For cross country (XC) usage, its called the Cobalt (blue coloured), while for all-mountain (AM) is Iodine(copper coloured) (Gotta love the names). The wheels is only offered in a set, which means you cant get just the rims or the hubs or the unique spokes.




So what so special bout CrankBrothers wheels? From the pic CrankBros has decided not to stick with traditional rim design in favour of a 'Y' shaped rim design and it has eliminated the need of drilled rim holes, except the valve hole. The advantage of this is the wheels will be much stiffer and at the same time reduce weight cause the wheels wont be needing any unnecessary metal. Being hole less naturally mean its a tubeless rim. The design of the rim is clean and simple, I wonder why no company ever though of this design.

The most eye catching part of the wheelset is the spokes. The spokes is a CrankBrothers exclusive 2 piece spoked called 'TwinPair Spokes'. Its made out of 2 materials (the coloured is made out of aluminium while the silver/non-coloured is steel). The spoke is connected to the rim via a plug (see the small silver round shaped thing?) and is connected directly straight to the hub. This 2 piece spoke design is totally a new design so they is nothing can be said bout the durability of the spokes.




Next is the hubs, the 6 bolt disc hub works on four cartridge bearings and incorporates a six-pawl driver mechanism. The body of the hub is made of aluminum. CrankBrothers is plannning to offer the front hub in both 9mm quick-release and 20mm thru-axle. There is no news if CrankBrothers is planning to offer the 6 bolt disc hub in Shimano Centre Lock configuration.

Lastly, its the QuickRelease lever (QR). CrankBrothers again has decided not to follow other wheelmakers in the QR design. CrankBrothers QR works on a 2 step process. As you can see in the Iodine QR (see below pic)



CrankBrothers said the reason for this design is to reduce the effort needed to close the QR with the same clamping force compared to conventional QR design and it will be very sad once you get scratches on the beautifully design quick release lever.

CrankBrothers have been secretive bout the price of the wheels and when it will make its debut so only time will tell. BikeMag states in their site that the Cobalt wheelset (XC-usage) will weight around 1550 - 1600 gram. Being CrankBrothers, the price of the wheels most probably aint going to be cheap and with the weight around 1.5-1.6kg, CrankBrothers need to make it lighter to make the money spent worth it.

*Pic taken from MTBR.com CrankBrothers Interbike virtual booth