Industry Nine Enduro S Hydra Wheelset [Rider Review]

Our "Rider Review" article series features the honest reviews from verified purchasers of Worldwide Cyclery. They contain the photos, thoughts, feedback & overall review you are looking for. 

The Industry Nine Hydra hubs are the first hubs that come to mind when wanting a high engagement hub. The hub has an outstanding 690 points of engagement, which can be a huge help when it comes to technical sections of trail. Our friend, William has been running their Enduro S Hydra wheels. See what they think! 

Overview

Being an engineer, I created a spreadsheet with a number of carbon and alloy wheelsets with full specs. I thought hard about getting a carbon set but really wanted to keep my choice at around ~$1,000. My eventual shortlist included the DT Swiss XM1700 with the DT Swiss 350 hubs & 54t upgrade, Stan’s Flow Mk4 with Stans M-Pulse hubs, and the i9 Enduro S28h with the Hydra hub. All these fit my requirements for cost, weight, and engagement. I contacted the folks at World Wide Cyclery and peppered them with questions for weeks as I reviewed my options. Being on the US east coast, the WWC store in Lancaster, PA is actually about an hour from me and David Z. at that WWC location was very patient and answered all my questions, first suggesting the best ‘bang for the buck’ were the i9 Enduro rims with the 1/1 hubs, which was a very solid choice, but after watching a number of videos on both the WWC and i9 web sites, I really thought that spending the extra money on the Hydra would pay off.

What sold me on the i9 Endros with the Hydra were Dave’s comments on the engagement, ease of maintenance, and reviews of these wheels and hubs on their website, which were overwhelmingly positive. Also, these were in stock at WWC and I could have them within a couple of weeks. During this time, I pestered Dave about exactly how to install the wheels (had to upgrade the brake rotors, and swap my tubeless tires and cassette), none of which I had done on a mountain bike. By the time the wheels arrived, I was ready. Took a couple hours on a Friday afternoon to do the swap and everything went smoothly. The wheels, along with a new carbon bar I installed, makes the bike rides like a completely different beast - Much more feedback from the ground and I can really feel the ~1.5 lbs. of weight I saved in the rolling dynamics. And they look fantastic and sound great; I was apprehensive about the Hydra buzz that everyone talks about but Dave said that going with a greased freehub, instead of oil only, would really quiet down the buzz, and he was 100% correct. I can barely hear the Hydra buzz when I ride and re-greasing is a 5-minute job when they start to get louder. Oh, and did I mention the engagement? Unlike my old Shimano hub with 36 points of engagement, the Hydra has a whopping 690 points of engagement and have to be ridden to experience what this means fully; The pedaling power is instantaneous and I’ve experienced no kickback.

Final Thoughts

Very smooth ride and the rims are active. I couldn’t be happier with the entire experience.