Specialized used their nearby, gnarly trails as testing ground for the Traverse 27.5 Carbon wheels. The steep climbs and descents inspired radical designs and left their engineers with no doubt that these wheels will exceed your expectations.
Such expectations include everything from the ability to stay true after launching off drops to being light enough to efficiently pedal to the top of a climb - and they all start with the rim. Specialized's engineers knew they wanted carbon fibre, and with the inclusion of a Zero Bead Hook design, they were able to implement a continuous fibre layup across the sidewall and rim bed. When paired with a whopping 30-millimetre internal rim width, they made a wheel that's super resilient to impact with low rolling resistance and incredible traction. You'll also find that it helps prevent "burping" during hard cornering, while making tubeless set up quick and easy.
As well as light overall weight, stiffness, and durability, another top priority for the Traverse was ease of use. First off, the creaky straight-pull spokes and corrosion-prone alloy nipples were discarded. Next up, Specialized landed on 28 J-bend spokes, for front and rear wheels, that are all the same length, making it easy to find replacements if needed. Finally, a new hub design was engineered with a wider profile and higher flange to aid in overall stiffness.
A wider rim does a variety of things for ride performance; it better supports the tyre for increased confidence and grip, and it affords you the ability to run lower pressures that help spread impact out over a larger surface area to reduce the risk of damage. When you combine this girth with the notoriously nimble and playful 27.5 platform, you’re left with an incredibly stiff, quick-to-accelerate wheelset that climbs just as well as it shreds descents.
After designing the perfect trail rim, Specialized kept their lightweight and durable design properties in mind with the wheel build, hand-lacing the rims DT Swiss 350 Classic hubs via 28 DT Swiss Competition Race spokes and brass Pro Lock nipples. Inside, you'll find sealed cartridge bearings and a 36t quick engagement ratchet system for quick accelerations. They also wanted to ensure that each wheel was built correctly, and found that this could only be achieved by hand. Machines, they found, have a tendency to miss little mistakes that humans catch.
Each wheelset comes packaged with a SRAM XD driver, 11-speed freehub, and a tubeless valve stem in order to make tubeless set-up a touch easier. *Please note that Shimano freehubs are sold separately.