Customer Review: Industry Nine Enduro S Wheelset

This review was written by one of our customers, Darryl Chereshkoff, on his new Industry Nine Enduro S wheelset. The Enduro S wheelset can be configured as either a 3 pawl or 6 pawl hub and features traditional steal spokes. The hubs themselves are machined out of the same materials used on all of the torch series wheels from Industry Nine. Let's see what Darryl has to say about his new wheels!

--

I pulled the trigger and bought the Industry Nine Enduro S 29er wheelset from Worldwide Cyclery. They arrived two days earlier than I was expecting and were packaged very well in a heavy duty box. While I don't have a spoke tension meter, my high tech 'squeeze test' indicated the spokes were tensioned on the higher side. The weights on my scale of my 15x100 / 12x142XD set with tape and valve installed are - Front: 881g / Rear: 999g / Total: 1880g

The wheelset is beautiful, with laser etched graphics and a nice bead blasted matte finish to the rim; and those hubs are gorgeous to look at, much less listen to. My XD driver rear hub came with 3 pawls equaling 6 degrees of engagement and sounds a lot like a Hope Pro 4 hub mixed with the standard 6 pawl 3 degree I9 hub in terms of loudness and buzz......Think "a little less buzz" than the standard I9 hub. The wheelset came taped with a valve installed making them ready to ride.

I have a RockShox Yari fork with the oversized RockShox Torque Cap interface, so I ordered a pair of Torque Cap end caps straight from I9, and they were super easy to install by simply pulling off the standard 15 millimeter caps and popping on the Torque Caps. I was able to mount my Schwalbe Nobby Nic 2.35 tires front and rear without tire levers. Although I have strong hands, it took a fair amount of effort to get the tire mounted, but nothing out of what I would consider normal. They inflated easily with my air compressor and a little soapy water on the bead and have held air perfectly with 2oz of Stan's sealant per tire.

My last wheelset was a custom hand-built set with Hope Pro 4 hubs, Stan's Flow MK3 rims and 32 count DT Swiss Competition spokes & brass nipples, so these Enduro S wheels had a lot to live up to...and they have done so easily, and then some! I'm a big strong guy weighing in a 225lbs all geared up, and I was a little concerned about the 28 spoke count versus the 32 of my previous wheelset, but it turned out I had nothing to worry about. The I9s feel just as stiff and responsive as my previous wheels and they are significantly lighter too. This can easily be felt when climbing up rocky, technical singletrack. As for the 6 degrees of engagement, it feels great but I would be lying if I said it's a lot more noticeable over my previous wheelsets 10 degrees....your mileage may vary depending on the importance you put on every single degree of engagement, which I don't.

Overall, I would buy these hand built, made in America wheels again without any hesitation, and I would only buy them from Worldwide Cyclery as they were awesome to work with. They kept me informed with a series of emails and were very knowledgeable on the product. I have purchased 2 sets of RockShox forks and now my wheelset through WWC, and they are a solid 3-3 in what I consider to be "expensive buys". I will be ordering from them again.....as soon as my wife lets me that is!