Chris King hub and All Road wheel updates

Chris King (the company, that is) have been streamlining their hub options such that the axle fitments are more closely aligned with the hub's purpose. R45s are really for road, cross, and gravel, and 15mm forks aren't (generally) seen in those arenas, so they don't make a 15mm R45 front - QR or 12mm only. Centerlock rotors have become more standard on these kind of bikes, so they've decided to no longer have 6 bolt R45 disc hubs. 

(these wheels have CK R45s in Matte Jet, with 12mm axles on both ends. they're insanely nice)

Likewise, their ISO hubs are for mountain biking, so those only come in 15 or 20mm axle, although both 100mm and Boost (110mm) are there. But here comes the tricky part - quick release R45 disc hubs are going away, or so I was told by them the other day. We happened to snag a last pair of reds for an order. This is perhaps a bit ahead of the curve on where things are headed (I have two bikes for which I won't be able to get CK hubs after this all goes through) but it makes sense. 

A customer visited the shop the other day and though we had quite a few hubs in stock (we're ripping through builds right now), I go to explain once again how keeping hubs in stock is just a losing proposition - too many colors, too many hole counts, too many axle types, too many drive types, etc. Well now the hub makers are behind that curve too, and they are more and more keeping fewer and fewer hubs ready to go, instead applying adaptable inventory techniques to get things to balance between having supply for customers and not going broke sitting on working capital. So that's that. Our site doesn't yet reflect all of these changes with King hubs, but we'll get through them eventually.

The other thing we've been not making a lot of noise about is the All Road 38 and 50 wheels. Production has been slow to ramp up, and so we haven't been able to get off the back foot with deliveries, but holy S--T are these things nice. No pictures do them justice, but here are two:

These use a thoroughly up to the minute molding technique to eliminate post-mold finishing and the necessity of any clear coat. The finish on them is straight from the mold epoxy. They're gorgeous and really well molded. Weights are crazy consistent even in context of their normal weight accuracy - across 8 AR38 rims I think I got 4g variance. Nominal for 38s is 440, and 470 for 50s. For rims that are over 32mm wide external, that's quite light. But not too light. Good layup and good molding. The Continental GP5000TLs that are on the 38s here, at 30.25 fresh inflated width, are definitely the narrowest tires I'd put on them. For cross, I think GOATs or RCGs are the stronger go, as you have some small prayer of keeping a tubeless tire within 33mm if that matters to you, the RCGs and GOATs have a more aggressive bead lip, and the extra muffing top of a cross tire over a 28.5mm wide rim offers valuable protection of the rim. But for 36mm MSOs or 40mm gravel tires or whatever else, and wide but not that wide road tires (as covered here and here), holy mama these are nice. 

Have a good weekend.