British wheel brand Hunt has just revealed three brand new wheelsets and as per usual, they offer brilliant bang for your buck.

• The best mountain bikes for under £1000

• 5 cool things from Peaty's, 661, Crank Brothers, ODI and Pirelli

• Is it worth converting your mountain bike to tubeless?

The three new wheelsets are the £789 27.5/29er All-Mountain Carbon H_Impact, £399 Race XC Wide 29er, and £359 27.5/29er Downhill Privateer.

All the wheelsets are hand-assembled in the UK and come ready to go tubeless with spare spokes too.

All-Mountain Carbon H_Impact

Hunt’s All-Mountain wheelset is based around their freshly designed new rim with its 28mm internal width; in fact, it’s actually based around two different rims as they have utilised different layups for the front and rear rims to cope with the different stresses and strains that each requires.

Both rims get reinforced spoke holes, extra-thick sidewalls for impact protection, and both use a combination of unidirectional T24/30 carbon. Where they differ is in the layup. The front is tuned for compliance and handling with a "lower material density lay-up". This is laced with 28 spokes in a traditional 3X pattern.

The rear gets added impact resistance from the extra material used in the layup. The rim is therefore slightly heavier at 530g (27.5) and gets 32 spokes, again in a 3X pattern. 

As carbon wheels have a reputation for being a bit brittle, Hunt has put emphasis on durability for their wheelset. They've reinforced the spoke holes with a 3K weave, added that extra sidewall material, and used a lower temperature resin in the layup.

To add to this effort to ensure durability, Hunt is advertising a lifetime crash replacement service and a three-year warranty against material or workmanship defects.

One of the highlights of buying from Hunt is the free tubeless installation service. yes, you can probably do this yourself, but if you buy tyres with your new wheels, Hunt will fit them for free, including adding the sealant, so you don't need to get it all over the kitchen floor...

The 28mm wide hookless rims come in 27.5" and 29er sizes and are designed to work best with  2.3"-2.5" tyres. Tubeless tape and valves are included with the wheelset.

Race XC Wide

For all you XC racers out there, Hunt has come up with a set of 29er race wheels which with a 24mm wide internal rim and low 1517g shave nearly 150g off the previous XC Wide wheels, while apparently maintaining the same strength.

Hunt has designed these new Race XC Wide wheels to cope with the demands of the increasingly technical XC racecourses which appear to feature more roots and rocks each year. To cope with this the rims are now 6069-T6 heat-treated aluminium alloy which Hunt says increases tensile strength by 69% over standard 6061-T6.

Being race wheels, the hubs need to engage quickly so Hunt has used 5º RapidEngage hubs for minimal drivetrain lag. Those hubs are laced with 28 spokes front and rear using their straight-pull PSR spokes with a reinforced head.

Hub sizes are Boost 148x12mm (Rear) with 110x15mm (Front). 141x9mm (Rear) QR with 110x9mm (Front) QR adapters and Rock Shox Torque Caps are available too. 

The rims are 24mm wide internally and are optimised for 2.0"-2.3" tyres set up tubeless. Like the All-Mountain Carbon wheels above, Hunt will install tubeless tyres for you.

Downhill Privateer 

Calling a wheelset the ‘Downhill Privateer’ is putting it into the seriously tough and reliable category of hoops. Privateer means that there are no sponsors picking up the bills and no one to give you free stuff so all your kit has to be tough and work well time and time and again.

Again, Hunt is using 6069-T6 for the 26mm internal width rims. Combine this with 32F/36R J-bend spoke count, brass nipples, and double-sealed bearings and you’ve got the potential for a long-lasting and hassle-free wheelset. 

To improve the durability over their impressive Enduro wheels, Hunt has increased the sidewall thickness and added extra material around the rim. With such a strong build, it is a little surprising to see that the weight for these wheels comes in at a very respectable 2136g for the 27.5” especially considering their £359 price tag.

In order to maintain speed on DH courses, Hunt has used hubs with a scant 3º engagement for rapid acceleration out of the start gate and technical sections.

Hunt’s hookless H-Lock rim profile helps to get tubeless tyres seated and like the wheels above, Hunt is more than happy to fit new tyres for you at no extra cost for the fitting. If you’d prefer to do it yourself, the wheels come with tubeless tape and valves and like all Hunt Wheels you also get a set of spare spokes and a spoke key which will come in handy if you break a spoke on an unplanned detour into the undergrowth.

We’ll be getting some of these new hoops in for testing soon so check back here for full review or two.

• huntbikewheels

You might also like:

• Five things that weren't cool - until enduro happened
• How are bicycle spokes made?
• The best four-piston disc brakes you can buy for all-mountain, enduro and trail MTBs