Panic! At the Disc-o

Had to do it, sorry. We've fortunately got the opposite of a Panic! situation with discs. We've always sought to under-promise and over-deliver, which at times has caused us to have to do some very fancy dancing (see what I did there?) behind the scenes. This time, we've been guiding to a nebulous, milquetoast "this summer" or "sometime in July" availability date for Nimbus Ti Disc, hoping that we wouldn't wind up with egg on our faces at that. Well, no egg - Nimbus Ti Disc builds ship in June. 

This is what's known as a teaser spot, so we won't be revealing all the details here. Here are the things we will say right now: 

  • Hubs are center lock. After using center locks for the past year, I'm never going back to 6 bolts. If you plan to use Shimano brakes, you have to use center lock hubs if you want to maintain your brake warranty, as IceTech(tm) rotors only come in center lock. 
  • Ti cassette body (duh, we couldn't call it Nimbus Ti Disc otherwise), steel rear axle. 
  • Pacenti SL25s will be the standard rim, with the same ultra sexy bead blast finish as the updated SL23 road rim that's been such a huge hit in the Nimbus Ti builds. 
  • Black Lasers will again be the stock spoke.
  • Hub color and graphics will be the same as Nimbus Ti.
  • Builds will ship with our new tubeless tape installed. 
  • Lacing choices will be 24/24, 24/28, and 28/28. 2x lacing on everything. 
  • Set weights will start at 1580g for 24/24 and go up to 1640g for 28/28. That's pretty light.
  • Pricing will be great, though slightly higher than Nimbus Ti (which it should be since costs are higher - if the price wasn't higher it would mean we hadn't priced Nimbus Ti as low as possible. But we have.)
  • There will be 15mm TA and 142x12 fitment options. 

 

Here is what's going on in the background now, not ready for release:

  • Tubeless CX tire testing has begun. We'll give you way better info than any other brand does on what to use and how to set it up.
  • Tubulars will be available. The "disc specific aluminum tubular" market is fairly limited, but there are some very good options.
  • Carbon tubulars will also be available. We're in the tortured throes of deciding between two great options, both produced by the company that does Rail rims for us. 
  • XD driver is unlikely. 

 

There's been a ton of interest already, so we're going to open up for pre-sales in about 10 days. This is more like giving out numbers at the deli counter, not like a pre-sale. 

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12 comments

Are the various axle options hot-swappable, or is what you choose at build time what you've chosen for all eternity?

Mike

Nathan – Thanks for the comment. First off, a 135mm spaced disc hub based wheel is indeed quite a bit stronger than a 130-spaced rim brake wheel. Our weight guidance that you're working from is for rim brake wheels. Second, for us it's simply sales volume. We offer, and are very happy to make, 32h CLD-based builds. They are still VERY reasonably priced, and a good option if you're bigger. It's only by comparison to the Nimbus builds, price-wise, that they suffer at all. They blow doors off of whatever else you'll get at their price. For rim brake Nimbus hubs, 32h rears have been <10% of sales. That volume doesn't support us being efficient to the point where we can offer the lowest possible price to the greatest part of our buyers. But we do offer a better deal than anyone else out there on ultra high quality, high spoke count disc wheels.

Dave

What's with all the companies making disc brake wheels only going up to 28 spokes? It seems like some sort of trend. You sell 32 spoke rim brake wheels, and I've never found out any reason wheels would be more robust on a per-spoke basis for disc brake wheels than rim brakes.Is there something I'm missing here, either technically, logistically, or practically? Per your weight recommendations, we're now at a point where 52mm carbon fiber wheels are necessary for anyone >215 lbs. That seems a bit odd to me.

Nathan Bialke

I wouldn't necessarily infer that, no.

Dave Kirkpatrick

Would it be fair to infer that a non-disc carbon tubular option might also be an option?

Triston

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