Hunt Bike Wheels (United Kingdom) - Press Release: HUNT 48 Limitless Aero Disc Wheelset. The world's fastest disc-brake wheels up to (and including) 50mm.

The Purpose:

You are driven to ride faster, we are driven to develop faster wheels for you.

Wind tunnel proven against world leading wheels. See the research white paper for full technical details of our wind tunnel testing methodology, including data/graphs and the full range of wheels we tested against.

Designed by HUNT Product Engineering Manager, Luisa Grappone (MSc Aerospace Engineering).

HUNT LIMITLESS technology (patent pending*) allows for low weight and extra-wide aerodynamics.

Fully compliant with new ETRTO tubeless road guidelines (yet to be released) for 23/25/28mm+ road tyres. As with all our current HUNT rims, the LIMITLESS wheels have a normal hooked sidewall and are suitable for all clincher road tyres including Continental.

CeramicSpeed’s world renowned low-friction bearings.

Wider tyres & wider wheels | ride faster:

Leading rim-brake wheels have been at the 27-28mm wide mark for some time, with undisputed aero benefits over narrower designs. However, they are aerodynamically limited by rim brake calipers limiting the maximum width of the brake track. Further, most are optimised for narrower tyres. 23mm tyres used to be the standard… but for us, you and most pro riders, 25/28 and even 30mm tyres are the preferred choice. Let’s face it: when leaning in on the final turn of a mass bunch sprint or descending sweeping alpine bends, you want serious grip! Plus, the lower rolling resistance benefits of 25 and 28mm tyres* mean that road disc aero wheels should be specifically designed around these wider tyres. Accordingly, this wheelset has been designed using schematics and feedback from Schwalbe's own engineers.

*Especially rider-system benefits, wheel & tyre only tests do not include rider damped losses, and how lower pressures reduce these losses by reducing rider movement. This is a whole other area we will be releasing scientific data on.

Industry-leading aero knowledge:

We were ecstatic when luisa grappone (msc aerospace engineering) approached us in 2017 about joining hunt. Luisa’s experience in wind tunnel testing and developing wheels for 10 years (with World Tour pros from BMC Racing, Team Movistar & Cervelo Test Team) showed her industry-leading experience. So of course we welcomed Luisa to join us as HUNT Product Engineering Manager in August 2017. Using Luisa as our Engineering lead, Peter (Co-Founder & Materials Scientist), Tom (Co-Founder & Product Manager) and the whole team here set to work immediately to develop you the fastest ‘unlimited’ road disc-brake wheelset in the world!

How wide? 34.5mm!

In the last 9 months, road aero disc-brake rim widths have been creeping out to 30-32mm, with several leading wheel and bike companies realizing the benefits of having a rim wider than the tyre (even a 28mm tyre). This creates the most effective overall aerofoil shape (when considering the wheel and tyre together) and reduces turbulence as airflow transitions into the spoke bed. It is now obvious that disc-brake road rims need to be significantly wider to be at their best aerodynamically. With our experience at HUNT, we knew disc brakes provided us a huge opportunity to smash open this area of wheel development. In autumn 2017, a full year before anyone knew about any other wheel companies’ 30mm+ development, we set about unleashing wheel widths, and Luisa designed several 3D-printed prototypes for wind tunnel testing. Luisa worked closely with Europe’s leading bicycle wind tunnel, and over 18 months of painstaking research, design and multiple wind tunnel visits, developed the 34.5mm wide shape for the new 48 Limitless Aero Disc.

Wide rim = weight or tyre problem?

The aero benefits of going wide, can come with downsides, as usually a compromise choice has to be made:

• Go for a wider internal rim of 24 or 25mm = LOSE TYRE COMPATABILITY with 23/25mm tyres from leading brands.
• Choose to add extra carbon material to thicken the sidewalls, in order to maintain the wide aero shape = HEAVY RIM WEIGHT

The solution | Hunt Limitless Technology (patent pending):

The hunt 48 limitless aero disc rim has as much carbon-fibre material and mass as any other comparable road disc wheelset, and far surpasses iso impact testing. Added to the sidewall area is an extra-strengthening co-molded low density polymer (density only 0.7g/cm3 vs carbon fibre prepreg of 1.6g/cm3) that keeps the weight low whilst allowing the extra width. LIMITLESS is a pending patent owned by HUNT and developed by Luisa, Tom and Pete, and is exclusive to HUNT wheels. So, you can have a wheelset with the world’s fastest aero shape but also impressively low weight.

The results…

The results speak for themselves. It was amazing to see Luisa’s face when it became evident what we'd achieved for riders. It’s been hard work but it’s been very worthwhile. This process and the knowledge gained from pushing the boundaries of aero wheel development creates huge opportunities to serve you with a wide range of world leading aerodynamic wheels…this is just the beginning! Thank you.