We must be nearing peak disc road bike pretty soon, but at least there are now plenty of good aftermarket upgrade disc wheelsets on the market. The latest comes from Barnoldswick’s Hope Technology, a company rooted in mountain biking and famed for its beautiful hubs.
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The 20Five-SP24 features a 25mm deep aluminium rim with a 20mm internal and 24mm external width, and weighs a claimed 425g, numbers that compare favourably with a Pacenti SL23 or Stan’s NoTubes Alpha 340. It’s a wide enough rim to work well with wider tyres which are popular with disc and tubeless fans.
The rims are tubeless-ready, but you do have to fit your own tubeless rim tape (or Gorilla tape if you want to save some pennies) and tubeless valves, neither of which are supplied with the wheels.
Double butted Sapim Sprint spokes, 24 of them in each wheel, with brass nipples are used to lace the hubs to Hope’s road-specific SP24 hubs, which are available in a choice of six colours. The hubs come supplied with quick release end caps but they can easily be converted to thru-axle by simply swapping the end caps, which are sold separately.
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Disc brakes are fitted to the hubs using the regular 6-bolt mounting.
Weight is a claimed 1,640g (755g front, 885g rear) and they cost £450.
David has worked on the road.cc tech team since July 2012. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds.