In a copycat environment of generic carbon wheels, I gave this one a close look and came away pleased. With the proliferation of Asian carbon production, house brand wheels and many new wheel brands have come up to compete in the crowded all-mountain wheel landscape. Some of them are quite good, but they are getting harder and harder to differentiate. Unless one is very heavy or rough on equipment, it’s hard to decipher the differences among many of the latest carbon wheels.

The wheel we tested is the ISOS 33 with Quai’s 102t hub for $1,299. At first glance, 33mm seems like an odd internal rim width, but given our experience, it seems like the Goldilocks size at this point for all-mountain riding. Slightly narrower 30mm rims are quite good, as 2.3 to 2.4 tires have caught up in design to have the ideal profile for this rim width. But as wider acceptance and better tire designs in 2.5 and 2.6-inch tires arrive, 33mm is a good step-up to give these tires good girth, support and tread profile. And we’re confident that in two years or so, these will still be very relevant. We’ve tried 35’s as companies volleyed products in that space and that was clearly too wide for many tires.

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