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Hunt issues recall for 48 Limitless Aero Disc wheels - "worlds fastest road disc brake wheel set"

Brand new aero carbon wheels subject to recall following "significant damage as a result of impacts on potholes"

Hunt has issued a recall for its 48 Limitless Aero Disc wheels, which it boldly refers to as the "world’s fastest road disc brake wheelset up to 50mm, due to damage caused by potholes. 

The 48 Limitless Aero Disc wheel is a disc-specific aero wheel designed around 28mm tubeless tyres. They were launched in June this year, after extensive research and development, some of which road.cc's Mat Brett got to see firsthand. 

A lot of work has clearly gone into these new wheels, but they’ve hit a bit of a bump in the road with a few incidents reported by customers and in one case involving a crash. Luckily nobody was badly hurt.

Hunt 48 Limitless Aero Disc wheels  - 5

Here’s the official word from Hunt, which was communicated to all Limitless customers this week:

Unfortunately, we have had a small number of incidents reported with the new 48 Limitless wheels where the rims have suffered significant damage as a result of impacts on potholes, in one case resulting in a crash causing minor injuries to the rider.

Despite the wheels having passed the industry-standard stationary impact and cobbled rolling road tests, we have decided as a precaution to recall your wheels and replace the rims with a new updated and strengthened rim design.

Please stop riding the wheels immediately – and contact us by replying to this e-mail so we can arrange for the collection of your wheels and replacement of your rims as soon as possible.

We take safety incredibly seriously here, which is why we have decided to take a cautious approach and replace your rims with an improved design as soon as possible. We will keep you updated as we arrange this. Our current estimate is that the new rims will be available in late December/early January. We appreciate that this is far from ideal and we really thank you for your understanding while we get this sorted for you.

We will keep you updated and will be working as hard as we can to get your wheels back to you as soon as possible. We’re really keen to ensure you get rolling on your Limitless wheels again but please also be reassured that you can still choose to exchange your wheels for any others in our range, or cancel for a full refund. We know these are a world beating aerodynamic wheel design so we hope you are able to bear with us while we get the new rims sorted.

Thank you for your help with this matter. We have very comprehensive communication with you our riders, and always aim for the highest standards of safety data collection and safety actions, hence why we are contacting you about this issue. As is the way with all responsible companies, we issue updated safety advice to our customers where necessary to ensure riders can use our equipment with confidence ongoing.

We take testing and development very seriously, with full ISO lab testing and, going beyond these, real world testing and full safety procedures and documentation in place from all of our suppliers. We want to ensure you get back riding as soon as possible, so if you have any questions or if there’s anything at all we can help you with please don’t hesitate to contact us by replying to this e-mail.

Thank you again for all your support and help, from all the team here at HUNT | TheRiderFirm whilst we work to maintain the highest safety standards and keep doing the right thing by riders.

Have you bought a 48 Limitless Aero Disc wheelset this year and does this effect you? It should be added that Hunt has a very good reputation amongst cyclists with its wheels proving popular and a good customer service track record. 

More info at hwww.huntbikewheels.com/

David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. 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, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes

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16 comments

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Mathemagician | 4 years ago
2 likes

On a separate note, why doesn't this article appear if I search for "Hunt", or "Hunt recall" on this website's search engine?

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CyclingInBeastMode replied to Mathemagician | 4 years ago
1 like

Mathemagician wrote:

On a separate note, why doesn't this article appear if I search for "Hunt", or "Hunt recall" on this website's search engine?

The search is very hit and miss, I've found it easier to do a seperate search engine search to be fair even for specific RoadCC articles.

Regarding the Hunt wheels, it would be interesting to actually hear about the actual number of damaged wheels against the number sold, how many is a 'few'?

It's hard to imagine that they've sold a bucket load not just because they've only been out since June, so in % terms the number of damaged wheels could be relatively high when compared to the bigger/mass production companies who have a 'few' incidents and the recall job involves sometimes tens if not hundreds of thousands of units.

It's interesting reading the articles back (pt1&2) the subtitle reads "Find out how Hunt has been updating its new wheel design for the real world UK conditions"

it comes across as not much to do with actual UK road conditions and robustness - given the report and recall  and on the basis that Hunt have assessed there's a flaw/not up to snuff, not just a random scenario that would exceed the limitations of fair use which would have meant they'd not be recalling the product in the first instance, but lots to do with how windy it is.

No good having slippery wheels if they're made of biscuit and with the tubeless tech/designed for a wider than standard race tyre, this should surely have enhanced the wheelsets impact resistance compared to a narrower tubed tyre and narrower bead wheel. Hunt decided to overcome the weight conundrum that occurs with going with a much wider wheel track by using a LOW DENSITY polymer instead of actual carbon fibre because the polymer was lighter. How much they used to kep the wheel weight down who knows but that in itself rings alarm bells.

I've still got some CF wheels that have seen more than a few bumps and with a significant rider load on them (well over 100kg for too many miles), they're not amazingly light compared to modern rims but by god they are absolutely bombproof (24/20s on lightweight alloy Italian made hubs), if I had to choose a CF rim for a wheel build I'd prefer Gigantex every time if they're available, if not Corima, I'd rather have superior robustness over a small incremental weight advantage and indeed aero advantage.

Maybe the industry standards aren't representitve of real world use, maybe that's what needs addressing, similarly to the way some wheels seem to be knocked out that aren't meeting ETRTO standards accurately which comes up many times with regards to tyres fitting or not to certain rims, Veloflex specifically mentions this in a recent article with regards their updated/strengthened tyres to combat this problem.

And lastly regards to what a recall means, to my mind its' the minimum a company should be doing, it doesn't reflect "positively", it reflects that a company is abiding by the law to not sell substandard products that don't meet the criteria that you thought they were been sold on not to mention being a premium product to boot with the matching price tag (admittedly the Hunt wheels are lower priced compared to similar branded products but that's all for nought if you're left face down because you hit a pothole you'd ordinarily expect to get through just fine but didn't.

Avatar
fukawitribe replied to Mathemagician | 4 years ago
0 likes

Mathemagician wrote:

On a separate note, why doesn't this article appear if I search for "Hunt", or "Hunt recall" on this website's search engine?

..because the search functions on this site are almost entirely broken, have been since the last re-write. Only real way of finding stuff (unless lucky) is via Google (or similar) with a 'site' option to road.cc. The feedback from road.cc staffers has been (IME) that it works fine - it's trivial to show it's not, so not really sure why that is. If you do get some results on road.cc itself, good luck sorting or filtering anything. Christ, gopher had better functionality...

Avatar
rjfrussell | 4 years ago
5 likes

"It should be added that Hunt has a very good reputation amongst cyclists with its wheels proving popular and a good customer service track record. "

 

The love-in continues.  Even in an article about a product recall road.cc manages to give Hunt a blow job.

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DoctorFish replied to rjfrussell | 4 years ago
2 likes

rjfrussell wrote:

"It should be added that Hunt has a very good reputation amongst cyclists with its wheels proving popular and a good customer service track record. "

 

The love-in continues.  Even in an article about a product recall road.cc manages to give Hunt a blow job.

Product recalls are a good thing.  I had one on a wheel for my Arkose (Evans just sent a new wheel, also had the option to take it to the shop for them to swap it over), and I've had a couple of recalls for my car.  This is a lot better than a company that shirks its responsibilities and doesn't recall a product with a fault. 

Obviously a product that never needs a recall is the ideal.

Avatar
Mathemagician replied to DoctorFish | 4 years ago
4 likes

DoctorFish wrote:

rjfrussell wrote:

"It should be added that Hunt has a very good reputation amongst cyclists with its wheels proving popular and a good customer service track record. "

 

The love-in continues.  Even in an article about a product recall road.cc manages to give Hunt a blow job.

Product recalls are a good thing.  I had one on a wheel for my Arkose (Evans just sent a new wheel, also had the option to take it to the shop for them to swap it over), and I've had a couple of recalls for my car.  This is a lot better than a company that shirks its responsibilities and doesn't recall a product with a fault. 

Obviously a product that never needs a recall is the ideal.

You're kind of missing the point. There's no getting around the fact that a recall is bad publicity, and it's an editorial decision to attempt to soften this by inserting a sentence that belongs to an opinion piece into a news article. 

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks road.cc is biased toward Hunt. Mason too, in my opinion. 

Avatar
RobD replied to Mathemagician | 4 years ago
3 likes

Mathemagician wrote:

DoctorFish wrote:

rjfrussell wrote:

"It should be added that Hunt has a very good reputation amongst cyclists with its wheels proving popular and a good customer service track record. "

 

The love-in continues.  Even in an article about a product recall road.cc manages to give Hunt a blow job.

Product recalls are a good thing.  I had one on a wheel for my Arkose (Evans just sent a new wheel, also had the option to take it to the shop for them to swap it over), and I've had a couple of recalls for my car.  This is a lot better than a company that shirks its responsibilities and doesn't recall a product with a fault. 

Obviously a product that never needs a recall is the ideal.

You're kind of missing the point. There's no getting around the fact that a recall is bad publicity, and it's an editorial decision to attempt to soften this by inserting a sentence that belongs to an opinion piece into a news article. 

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks road.cc is biased toward Hunt. Mason too, in my opinion. 

And if there was a recall from a customer with a notorious reputation for bad customer service and they happened to mention this in the article you'd be querying it as well?

Yes they do seem very pro Hunt, Mason and a few other brands, but usually because these brands have provided reasons to be very positive, openness, great customer service, a product they stand by etc.

It's a shame that they've had to issue a recall, but as others have said, I'd rather a company did this than looked at the numbers, went 'it's very unlikely to happen to most riders' and just set aside a provision to cover the occasional cost of damaged wheels, which is what a lot of companies do when they identify a potential fault.

Avatar
RNTRMP replied to RobD | 4 years ago
3 likes

RobD wrote:

Mathemagician wrote:

DoctorFish wrote:

rjfrussell wrote:

"It should be added that Hunt has a very good reputation amongst cyclists with its wheels proving popular and a good customer service track record. "

 

The love-in continues.  Even in an article about a product recall road.cc manages to give Hunt a blow job.

Product recalls are a good thing.  I had one on a wheel for my Arkose (Evans just sent a new wheel, also had the option to take it to the shop for them to swap it over), and I've had a couple of recalls for my car.  This is a lot better than a company that shirks its responsibilities and doesn't recall a product with a fault. 

Obviously a product that never needs a recall is the ideal.

You're kind of missing the point. There's no getting around the fact that a recall is bad publicity, and it's an editorial decision to attempt to soften this by inserting a sentence that belongs to an opinion piece into a news article. 

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks road.cc is biased toward Hunt. Mason too, in my opinion. 

And if there was a recall from a customer with a notorious reputation for bad customer service and they happened to mention this in the article you'd be querying it as well?

Yes they do seem very pro-Hunt, Mason and a few other brands, but usually because these brands have provided reasons to be very positive, openness, great customer service, a product they stand by etc.

It's a shame that they've had to issue a recall, but as others have said, I'd rather a company did this than looked at the numbers, went 'it's very unlikely to happen to most riders' and just set aside a provision to cover the occasional cost of damaged wheels, which is what a lot of companies do when they identify a potential fault.

 

I thought it was a strange sentence to add to the end of the recall article too. Taking a quick look at some other articles regarding recalls, road.cc haven't mentioned a company's popularity or level of customer service in those. Definitely a tad biased.

Avatar
Mathemagician replied to RobD | 4 years ago
3 likes

RobD wrote:

And if there was a recall from a customer with a notorious reputation for bad customer service and they happened to mention this in the article you'd be querying it as well?

I don't see what your fictional scenario has to do with what we're talking about here. But yes, if road.cc were to put a negative vague and unprovable opinion at the end of a product recall article, I would question both its validity and the motives behind putting it. 

Avatar
DoctorFish replied to Mathemagician | 4 years ago
0 likes

Mathemagician wrote:

RobD wrote:

And if there was a recall from a customer with a notorious reputation for bad customer service and they happened to mention this in the article you'd be querying it as well?

I don't see what your fictional scenario has to do with what we're talking about here. But yes, if road.cc were to put a negative vague and unprovable opinion at the end of a product recall article, I would question both its validity and the motives behind putting it. 

I'm not convinced that a recall is bad publicity.  I'd happily buy another toyota for example, knowing that recalls have been dealt with quickly and efficently before.  I've got a set of Hunt wheels (aluminium ones) and I would buy from them again.

I do agree that the opinion comment isn't needed in the last sentance of this news item.

Avatar
check12 | 4 years ago
2 likes

Don’t run road tyres at 20psi mkay!

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Calc | 4 years ago
1 like

Keith Bontrager: Still correct after all these years.

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hawkinspeter replied to Nick T | 4 years ago
0 likes

Nick T wrote:

https://www.singletracks.com/blog/mtb-videos/watch-danny-macaskill-try-d...

Wow - those are impressively strong rims.

Avatar
Nick T | 4 years ago
3 likes

No

Avatar
Rapha Nadal | 4 years ago
0 likes

Wouldn't most carbon wheels be written off if you smashed them into a pothole?

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