Industry Nine Ultralite 235 Wheelset: 29" Boost, SRAM XD Freehub: Customer Review

One of the biggest upgrades for your bike not only in size but in sheer cost is a new wheelset. Our valued customer Frank Glomb gives us his take on his new Industry Nine 29er Boost Ultralite 235 Wheelset. Check it out below!

Overview

After doing over a month's worth of research, I purchased this Industry Nine 29er Boost Ultralite 235 24 hole, 23.5mm internal width wheelset about a month ago for my KTM Scarp full suspension XC race bike. To date, I've done two 4 hour+ endurance races with them on some techie trails. I've also had a few casual rides on them. So far after about 150+ miles on them, all the spokes are holding their tension and the hubs have no play in them. As with some of Industry Nine's hubs, they are a little noisy when freewheeling. Two of my other bikes have I9 hubs and make the same noise. I kind of like the noise, but it drives some people crazy! LOL. Noisy or not, I9's hubs are pretty much indestructible in my book.

The other bikes that I have and previous bikes have always had aluminum wheelsets, so I can't really compare these to any carbon wheelsets as far as stiffness, etc. Having replaced the stock DT Swiss 1700 wheelset that came on the bike, I can say these wheels roll and accelerate a lot faster than the DT Swiss wheels did. Off the line, they take off like a rocket and don't feel like they are flexing at all. They appeared to roll smoothly and engaged quickly when pedaling. The wheelset out of the box with rim tape, valves, and a SRAM XD driver weighed in at 1,516 grams. Which isn't bad for a 29er aluminum wheelset and I9 does state on their website that the recommended rider weight for this set is 190lbs. Being 148lbs I am well under that.

As with most of Industry Nine's products, the craftsmanship, machining, and the quality of this wheelset is second to none. I mounted a 2.35 Maxxis Ardent Race on the front and a 2.25 Maxxis Aspen on the rear. The tires blew up instantly and really haven't lost any air so far. I run Orange Sealed Endurance sealant in all my tires. Not to jinx myself, but I haven't had one flat this year with this sealant. A huge plus in my opinion with this wheelset is that it's pretty much the same weight as a carbon set with comparable specs and they are aluminum. With carbon wheels you have to be so extra careful when installing tires or changing a flat tire. There's nothing worse than being in the middle of a long race, getting a flat and having to worry about damaging a carbon wheel fixing a flat on the side of a trail. Plus, I think these are more durable pertaining to rock strikes, etc. The wheels each have 24 aluminum spokes that appeared to be a little larger in diameter than the normal steel spokes you see.

This wheelset came with the stock decals and black hubs. Although you can special order these wheels with pretty much any spoke/hub color combination. Even being a special order (with stock specs), Worldwide Cyclery had these wheels to me in about a week. I did order a custom set of decals for the wheelset through www.stikrd.com which are custom made for the I9 specific wheels.

Final thoughts

So to sum everything up, if you're looking for a lightweight XC race wheelset, I think this wheelset is a win-win especially if you buy them from the awesome gang at Worldwide Cyclery! For the price (starting at $1,225.00), reliability of Industry Nine's products, and the weight of them they can't be beat!

And lastly, over the years, I've probably purchased bike parts from 30+ vendors and I must say Worldwide Cyclery's customer service and shipping is the best by far!