RaceFace Aeffect R Front Wheel: Rider Review

The right wheel set up can be hard to come by. Fortunately for our customer Karl, he seems to have found the sweet spot. He recently purchased a RaceFace Aeffect R wheel for the front of his Intense Tracer. After a few hundred miles he is still all smiles. Check out his review to hear more! 

Overview

I bought the RaceFace Aeffect R wheel to go on the front of my 2018 Tracer. I already had a rear wheel with an i9 hub and Easton / RaceFace i30 rim. I needed a front wheel to go with it. In my opinion, it's not worth building a front wheel with an expensive hub. All it has to do is spin. I have become a fan of the Easton/RaceFace rims and this front wheel is a bargain.

Durability

With other Easton/Raceface Arc rims I've used in the past I felt they were a bit soft. This is likely due to the low weight. That resulted in several small dings in the rims as I was pushing the limits of low tire pressures but never anything I needed to fix or that caused my tubeless set up to lose air. Since I've added Huck Norris inserts, however, I still get rim strikes but no dents and no pinch flats and have been able to run even lower pressures. So, I've found these rims to be a good combo of lightweight and compliant (compared to carbon) but durable too, especially with an insert.

Performance and Final Thoughts

I am a few hundred miles in on my Tracer with this front wheel and have hammered it off the sharpest rocks Phoenix has to throw at it. So far the wheel is perfectly true. I'm running it with a Huck Norris and a 2.4 minion DHR II. No signs of any appreciable wear to the rim or wheel. The Huck Norris certainly helps to protect the rim but I have had some rims strikes and there are no dents and no need to true the wheel. I am over 190lbs with riding gear and I'm running the tire at about 20 to 21 PSI so the rim is seeing some abuse.

Very happy. Would buy again.