Aero is dead, The Future is Low Inertia... Elitewheels G45 Aero Gravel Wheels 

I'm not sure what RU-vid is doing but I've had a load of reports of comments being deleted, often within seconds of posting. For what it's worth, I'm not deleting them and as far as i can tell they aren't offensive so i don't know what is going on.

Hey Alexa, make "Hello Hambini Fans!" My doorbell ringer, and put it on repeat.

Have these wheels for a few months now. Love them. Thanks for the review.

I have the road version of the G45 (Drive 45D) which is a non-catalogue spec. I fully agree that this rim profile has real low inertia characteristics especially from fully stopped situations. They are really responsive and are the best profile for roads that have a mix of flats and rolling climbs. I love riding with them to my hairdresser these days 😆

I'll never get deep wheels again, I've always found shallower wheels faster simply because they're lighter rims (low inertia). However, these at 45mm deep are very light at 1300g! BUT, they have carbon spokes, only 20 spokes, ceramic bearings (they're lighter) and a fancy machined out freehub body, so I would question if the rims themselves are actually much lighter than others.

I winced when you touched that rotor 😂😂😂

26 is dead, aero is dead, 27,5 is dead blablabla. Cycling industry wants your money.

Nice job. The reduction in Rotational Inertia (Moment of Inertia) of your wheel also received a nice contribution from your RideNow TPU inner tubes. Their mass is significantly lower than a traditional butyl or latex inner tube. Because that mass savings occurs at the largest radius location of the wheel your choice of inner tubes also deserves a round of applause with regard to lowering rotational inertia. 👏👏👏

Hambini I’d love to see you give UberBike’s “ceramic” BB a good reaming… utter sh*** that was a rust bucket after not even 250 miles

60psi? i don't really do gravel but that sounds wayyy too high. i'm the same weight with the same tire size and the recommended pressure was under 30 iirc

I ordered their bog standard carbon gravel wheels with OEM hubs,hav their rim brake carbon wheels same set up 4 years ago , brilliant wheels.and bought 88 front and full disk for TT setup.thats how good their stuff is.

I absolutely love the finish on these.

Quick acceleration also means quick deceleration. It's part of that whole low rotational inertia thing. Heavier wheels are great if you want to travel long distances on flat, or mostly, flat wheels. That's why I have Aerospoke wheels on my touring bike, plus no spokes to break.

It's just nice to ride wheels that spins up very quickly, the nimble ride feel makes it worth it beyond the mathematical watt savings.

Elite Drive G45 or 9Velo Gravel Disc GV 2.0 ?? Which one shall I choose?

You should do a video on bearing maintenance from an informed engineering perspective, I find it hard to believe all if these 'bike cleaning products' such as muc off's bike cleaner etc. dont strip grease, i genuinely believe its all marketing. I've found that theres so many conflicting arguments on how to maintain bearings/your bike so it would be interesting to find out your unfilitered perspective.

One of a tiny few trusted technical reviewers. People now have a choice of relatively good value chinese brands to choose from whilst knowing they won't be disappointed. Thanks.

you had me at "...3 tenths of fuck all, you pedantic bastards!"

I’m grinning to myself whilst watching this video. Several year ago when everyone seamed to by swapping out their conventional wheels for aero wheels, I did the opposite. I didn’t have a aero bike so one less reason to go aero so I purchased some DT Swiss R21 Dicut wheels at 13000g ish. They changed the ride quality for the better with fast acceleration and lightened up an already light bike. This is particularly beneficial for large riders like me who don’t give a shit about Stava times. Yeh the aero brigade had better looking faster on the flat bikes, but I had the most fun and my climbing improved overnight. The moral is, don’t be a 🐑

Another good review thanks. Would it be possible to include a bit about spares availability and how the communication with the supplier went. What is the back up if there is an issue or when I need a new free hub. Thanks

"If you look closely". Ha, no need for that, can see the fingerprints from the moon..

Thoughts on running these on a road bike with a 28 or 30c road tire?

Try these, bit heavier but quieter :- SwissStop Catalyst Race Centre Lock Disc Brake Rotor 160mm

Seems like there's a lot of confusion in the comments regarding the performance implications of inertia (rotational or otherwise)- might be worth doing a video on? The wheelset choice of low inertia vs aerodynamics is skewed for off road wheelsets vs road racing wheelsets. Speeds are generally lower and the larger, knobby tyres give the middle finger to a lot of the aerodynamic rim benefits before the air stream even hits them. For gravel bikes with suspension (or rigid being ridden out of the saddle with bent knees and elbows), Lighter wheels and frames reduce unsprung weight which makes for a smoother and more efficient ride. When you're accelerating suddenly and the frame bends instead of the bike moving forward immediately it is inertia that is stopping you (along with other forms of resistance, though these are not as relevant in that moment). Lowering your system's inertia helps the bike to zing forward- from a "feel perspective" it could be described as feeling stiffer. As hambini has stated- if you go out on the bike and test wheelsets back to back the difference in feeling is huge. However just because it feels big doesn't mean that it actually is big in terms of watts saved, seconds across the line etc. In the vast majority of road racing contexts this difference I don't believe this difference is significant, with crit racing and fixed gear street racing (where there is a metabolic cost associated with both accelerating & decelerating both of which happen frequently through big ratios) being notable exceptions. Truly though the big advantage of lower inertia is for those who aren't racing (against the clock, their strava or others) and who have lower overall power levels. These riders often find accelerating (at the lights, out of turns, on singletrack) and riding up hills the most intense and negative parts of a given ride. Lower inertia and lower weight help to reduce the actual and perceived difficulty of the ride and can help them feel more powerful on the bike- an enjoyable feeling I'm sure we can all relate to.

STOP TOUCHING THE ROTORRRRRRRERRRREERRRRERRRRRRRRRRRRRR😂

When applying teflon tape onto pipe threads, there is only 1 correct direction to apply the tape. Otherwise the tape comes undone when you thread the nut onto the pipe. In a similar fashion, those handlebar grips are wrapped the wrong way; that's why it's coming undone.

Enjoyed that, and I can appreciate your arguments for the higher tolerance fields relative to DT Swiss as a base yet can you demonstrate that in a real world case outcome with respect to say reliability and cost over time? What I'm getting at is something you said, this ain't aerospace, so if it just works, does it need to be 'that good' or is the DT swiss tolerance which is likely on the higher end comparatively to other brands, is that more than enough in a real world case. Cheers for the content.

Going from a deep section budget(ish) rim down to a mavic r sys shallow rim with a 23mm tyre highlights perfectly the benefits to be gained from low rotating mass and acceleration benefits therein. I like the tighter rim.

Untorqued wheel lugs can warp brake rotors on automobiles. Perhaps, brake discs on bikes are so sensitive to proper bolt torque too.

Nice review and points to ponder as always. - I'm not convinced this wheel is different enough in mass distribution to be called "low inertia". Sounds like marketing speak. (Surprised Hambini would fall for it.) Yes - we've all known rotating mass adds inertia to wheels. That's why for a century wheels have been getting lighter. - Tubed or not is a choice. Back in the day I commuted on tubes and would be hard pressed to give up their easy patchability. But after several years, several 500km+ bikepacking trips, two Unbound 200s (320km on flint rock), two BWRs, and countless local endurance gravel races, I'm no longer swayed by the "in the middle of nowhere" argument. Tubed or tubeless, carry a spare tube (and maybe old tire bits for sidewall slashes) if you worry about puncturing ITMoN. (Where is that in 2024 btw? lol) Tubeless adds self-sealing for the most frequent punctures. With all that riding I've never punctured a tubeless that didn't self-seal. Likely this is mainly due to the low pressures tubeless allows. (fwiw I run iRC tires and weigh 65kg.) 2. Those Elites look nice but I'm not into gloss coatings on a gravel wheel. As noted - it's asking for chips and dings. 3. The inner width is 24mm which is good but rolling resistance being king these days and all else equal - I'm still looking at Enve SES 4.5s for my next set.

I would think that, at your approx weight, you could run those tires at 3 bar / 40psi and enjoy better ride quality.

Can we have a review of Bitex Hubs and another HUNT reaming!! Thanks.

Low inertia really is a thing; you almost feel like the wheels are pulling you downhill on a descent. The kicker is the front of the bike feels very unsafe in gusty winds.

When you eff up any engineering competence with stupid tire pressure decisions based on sidewall stamping says a lot about your lack of general bicycling knowledge! Why are tires getting wider for both gravel and road and pressures getting lower? Because actual research has proven it to be faster!

60psi will be much too high for anything- even for an indoor wooden track with that setup. You're compromising your rolling resistance and comfort. Try 25psi or look at the Silca tyre pressure calculator.

Had a front wheel of this wheel set totally collapse last year whilst a decent in the forest. Caught a stick in the front wheel and all spokes of the front wheel broke in this accident. I'm never ever going to buy a carbon spoke wheel set for Gravel ever again. Maybe it's a good set for road riding.

In the meantime, I also checked the website of the manufacturer. At no place I could find any claim about their wheel construction focusing on low rotational inertia. Clearly, they do advertise their rather exceptional light weight, which in itself does result in lower energy take up to accelerate them both linearly and rotationally. Which is great! But claiming that these wheels excel in the lower rotational inertia (at least when comparing them to other wheels of equal weight) seems grossly exaggerated, and probably not even correct. In fact, most wheelsets of comparable lightweight will rather have a lower rim profile to bring the weight down, leading (probably) to even lower rim weight, and therefore leading to lower rotational inertia compared to these wheels (for the same overall wheel weight). OTOH, these wheels will be more aero (for what that is worth at typical modest gravel speeds), which is probably more beneficial than any claim on their exceptional rotational inertia.

Ha! Here I am working on a 20kg solid aluminum disc wheel for my next hour record attempt 😂

What are you thinking of the zipp303 xplr. I always think deep wheels that are much slimmer than the tire aren‘t really good for aero. You could just make a shallow even lighter one. If 9 Velo or Elite etc. would make a deepish (45 to 50mm) gravel wheel with a outer width of 40mm i would really buy it. Now i think i have to wait untill the chineses brands hop on this.

Brilliant vid as usual but am a bit worried about hub internal spares availability for a lot of these new Chinese wheels Brilliant as they are. I know eventually they will probably sort these problems but how are things at the moment with Elite and 9 velo?.

Anyone from Alaska Airlines call you recently? Something bolts...

Hambini have you done berd spokes vs metal spokes? Maybe also carbon, I'm curious power difference at same speed between them on road (rim and hub kept the same)

I've been using these with 42mm Pathfinder Pro tires and have had a good experience so far. They make my gravel bike feel more like a road bike especially compared to the other wheelset I have for the bike (45mm Maxxis Rambler with dt swiss gr1600 alloy wheels)

Thumbs down for shouting bye 😮

Jan Heine in "The All Road Bicycle Revolution " claims that there is a limit to how light that you can make the rim and not experience handling problems. He noted that makes of 20" folding bikes added mass to the rim. He said that the problem should not show up on 700c bicycles. I really didn't understand his argument. I am desiring of making my 26" wheels lightweight with light tires. 300g tires for my proposal! Jan's usage of the term "moment of inertia " was a bit flawed. He equated it with inertia. They are not the same. I have been meaning to write a polite letter to him.😊 My take is that a rider loses the kinetic energy that they built up in the wheels when they apply the brakes. So, we want light rims!

Another good reaming with stunning results. Drive it deep, drive it hard for those wheels, luvin the wheel testing👍👍👍👍👍

The lightness of the rim, which is the rotating mass gives less inertia. Spins up faster for less effort and had less gyroscopic effect.

I forgot to turn my headphone volume down for the into lol

Mr H, I’m a new subscriber to your show so I apologise if my question is not your neck of the woods. Cleaning bike parts in an ultrasonic cleaner - hit or miss? What do you recommend. Many thanks.😊

Regarding warped rotors, I've never warped a straight stainless rotor, even in bike park riding where I've had then turn blue from heat. Maybe worth trying some non-Shimano rotors that don't do the steel-alu-steel sandwich? They're likely to be less expensive if do do keep having to replace them too.

Aero is not dead. Nothing looks better then huge rims :).

Mate, do the calcs. How much energy/power do you think it takes to spin up a wheel compared to accelerating the total mass of rider and bike, it's next to nothing. Thats why you can stop a spinning wheel in the air with 1 finger in a second. Try and decellerate the entire mass of rider and bike with one finger. The differences in inertia of different wheelsets are negligable.

Did you receive some specially chosen wheels for you review to get the best wheels they had?

Low rotating mass - always a good idea. Edit: except maybe in a flywheel...

Satisfying to discover that my Salter kitchen scales are endorsed by Hambini

5:49 I say the same thing on a daily basis at work 😄

For real aero gravel wheels youd need like 80mm depth absolute minimum, 120+ more normally. So it doesnt make sense and you might as well go light instead

60 psi into 45c tyres... I didn't know you were a fellow BDSM practitioner. Please do tell us more about it

don't lie - you are touching the rotor to trigger people right? it worked xD

This guy is a bike engineer and puts 60psi in 45mm gravel tires? Wild ..... WAY TO MUCH PRESSURE ...

The only bad thing I found with my 50v Drive is that I can't get the spokes to be parallel when I true them. 😢 Any advice would be appreciated 👍🏼!

Get the campy disk, it's amazing, best disk on the market at the moment

They accelerate really well... oké but do they also hold their speed well?

Unlike the rest of us, Hambini's skin oil actually enhances braking performance.

Brake pads are way too aggressive 😅

regarding the disc rotors warping - get Hope floating rotors. they're lighter, have a better aerodynamic profile, and are far less likely to warp. downside is they're expensive.

An idea how much the sheer deformation of the tyre impacts acceleration? i.e changing the tyre pressure not only affects rolling resistance but also sidewall deformation.

11:50 That is basically XC widths, do you think they would hold up for that sort of riding?

Needs to be an AUDIO WARNING at the beginning of each video

So you took very off-roadey tyres, and put basically road pressure in them. That is an *interesting* approach to gravel riding.

Firstly, I do love your videos! I'm not sure whats going on though... A low inertia object is an object which is low in mass, yes? It will spin up to speed quickly. (Force, mass, accelleration) These wheels, with these tyres are heavy compaired to most. These will be considered a high inertia wheelset as they take more force to accellerate the higher mass... A set of lighter wheels and tyres would have waaaaayyy lower inertia. On the other hand, a high inertia object is of high mass which takes more force to accellate, once up to speed it may keep spinning for longer, like a heavy fly wheel. I struggle to believe from my riding experience that these wheels spin up to speed easily as you suggested. On top of this there is the massive rolling resistance of nobbly tyres. I guess it all depends what you are comparing it too, a tractor wheel or a road race bike wheel?? If I'm wrong please put me right.

I have the wheel since 10 months/1400km and the front bearing failed me. the inside of the hub seems dry and the bearings lubed, they sound dry or damaged from the inside however.

285 big macs

Very informative, helps in improving riding performance.

Can you please make a video on Buycycle? I am torn about this platform...

60 psi! Holy hail that tells me you aren’t riding on any real gravel

Got these with steel spokes for my Roadmachine. I paired them with 28mm Pirelli P zero race tlr. What an absolute joy to have such air volume on the rough roads. 75kg rider and pressure set at 60 front 65 rear. Super stable in winds and just as fast as specific aero wheels of not faster

285lbs!? Woohoo! In with 2lbs under!!! 🤣

They should bring out a brand of car wheels and call it "Ride"

Hello Sir, great Video! I'm in the market for MTB XC racing wheel, so I look at the weight first, then hub quality and ofc price. But what is your recommendation on 6 bolt vs Centerlock? I would go for Galfer discs, thanks!

Great as usual. I Would love to see the DRIVE SIX model reviewed by you, explaining the implications of riding a full carbon six spoke wheel in the gravel world, regarding extreme stiffness and so. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

With tires like that you must have been in east germany

Hambini reams? Not today, it seems. Speaking of bike computers/head units. Garmins are utter shite. Like an idiot i bought the same model when mine got stolen. My fault. I took it off, put it into a plant pot and then locked up my bike. I forget to take it with me. As i was leaving some other cyclist rolled up. I hold the firm belief that he stole it. Anyway, Garmin bugs in first unit were also present in second unit. Garmin Edge Touring Model (the white touring model not the main stream units) bug list: randomly shuts off will not remember your settings - as in back light will do what it wants. One day it will shut off at the 15 sec mark like it is supposed to. The next day it will stay on till i go to settings page that displays shut off timer. Only then will it rem to shut off at the right time. the screen boxes do what they want in whatever space they want ( this is a bad bug ). Current speed box plays musical chairs on the display. Nice one eh? When selecting minimise assent on routes it will send you over the moors in devon, which is out highest point, rather than go underneath it which google and all other online route planners do. When selecting minimise total distance it will send you in 3.4 squares around farmers fields rather than stayin on the road you are on. Funny thing is that when your 3/4 trip around the farmers fields is done you are routed back onto the same road you were just on. Instead of 200 mets goign straight you are send around the field. Not joking. I have screenshots of my european tour trips where this happened lots of times. I can almost reproduce a bug, i have to have good timing on a button press, that completely blanks the screen to the point that nothing but pure luck, or a dead battery, will bring back the unit to life. During the automatic screen shutdown function, if you press the right bottom button, at just the right time your screen will go completely blank. You cant see anything adn no amount of button pushing will turn it back on. If you are lucky then you can shut down the unit and press where the shutdown button is. Trouble is the screen is blank and you are just pressing on the space your fingers remembered. The shutdown button you cant see. It is hidden underneath the blank screen. Fucking joke that one. Routing randomly sends up dead end cul de sac's. They have been there for decades and are not a new feature on a new map. Due to the sheer amount of trouble i had with garmins i am not buying another one and giving wahoo a try next time.

Hambini, what do you think about tantan cycling bikes and wheels? They’re also Chinese and really cheap, maybe even too cheap for good standards. Do you plan on doing a review on these in the future? Really love your videos they’re well done (for a 5 yr old)

The downside of low inertia is loss of flywheel effect. When you have downhill followed by a short uphill the flywheel effect really helps. Also, a high inertia wheel will maintain it's momentum through short rough bumpy sections, though if do slow down low inertia will get you back up to speed quicker. For gravel robustness is the most important attribute for wheels.

Huh. I use those same rotors on my Roubaix. I put them on a set of Elite Drive 50D wheels, at least partially based on your review. Anyway, I don’t have any issue with them warping. My typical ride on that bike is about 6000ft of climbing, with screaming descents, often in varying conditions. It’s usually wet during some part of that ride. So I feel like I encounter some similar, possibly more extreme conditions. After a big braking event from 40mph or so, I can get some brake rub for ten seconds or so. But then it goes away. Is that what you’re referring to? Or more permanent warping?

135kg!? Fucking hell. That's massive. I won't worry about my weight on carbon wheels any more 😂

Go galfer discs! They make rotors for moto gp teams and for companies like hope. There absolutely mega, ive put em on all my bikes now, there pads are amazing aswell

I use campagnolo disc rotors with my shimano grx di2 brakes. I’m 90 kg heavy and had no trouble ever (including riding my gravel bike in the alps or up and down the “Großer Arber” = highest Peak of the bavarian/bohemian forest mountain range> resulting in a 18 km/800 hm downhill).

Hey hambini - not a question about this video but would you be open to doing a video on lube / wax and your preferences / experience - keen to hear views on some of the ZFC data

Hello friend, I have a great question. When I turn the cranks I notice that the chainrings have an oscillation, as if they were misaligned or bent. crankset, crowns, and frame are new. Check the crowns and the connecting rod spider on a flat surface and they are correct, there are no waviness or bends. The axle enters smoothly through the bottom bracket, rotates smoothly. I turned the axis of the left crank mounted on the frame and without the crowns, I don't notice that the axis is twisted. Assemble the complete crankset without crowns, and you can see the oscillation movement in the spider. So I don't know what it could be, or if that movement is normal and to what extent. I have seen this in other cranks of different materials and brands and different frames that I have had, but on this occasion I see that the movement is greater.

Idea for rear rotor: can you increase diameter (140 to 160). Idea #2: try a thicker rotor (1.8 or 2.0mm width)

Low inertia? You mean light weight?

Try these SwissStop Catalyst Race Centre Lock Disc Brake Rotor 160mm

But what's it sound like???

I think RU-vid might delete anything with “A.l.i. Express”. Maybe they think the comment is intended to sell something. Anyway, love the review.

I've had these wheels for about a year and some of my bearings died after about a thousand miles, the rest have been fine since (9000 miles). There seems to be a lot of variability in their bearing quality.

I have a set of Elite 50D road wheels. They ride great(!!), but a couple of the bearings in the rear wheel went to crap in 3 months. I weigh about 90 kg. The good news is that they sent me replacement bearings that I received about a week later. So, in my opinion a company you can trust. (But maybe a different hub design compared to the gravel wheels?)

A brand of Chinese wheelchair is Drive, and uses a similar logo! They're mediocre.

Q: How many roadie/engineers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: 4. One to inspect the threads. Another to boff the job, choosing to lube the threads. Yet another agrees to actually do it, but not till after he's had his coffee. And the fourth to record and put on RU-vid.