Easton’s rowdy off-road brother, Race Face, revamped its mountain bike wheelsets last season around the rapid-engaging Vault freehub. Now, Easton is incorporating this hub design into its road wheelsets, starting with the privateer’s favorite, the EA90 SL Disc.
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Easton EA90 SL Disc highlights
- Claimed wheelset weight: 1,537g
- Welded aluminum rims
- 27mm deep
- 19.5mm internal width
- Tubeless compatible
- $900 (UK and Australian pricing TBC)
- Available now
The tubeless-compatible aluminum EA90 SL remain unchanged from last season, with an internal width of 19.5mm and a depth of 27mm. Laced to these rims are the oversized Vault hubs.
The Vault freehub mechanism is backward from most other designs, with the 60-tooth drive-ring built into the freehub, as opposed to the hub body. A trio of pawls each with a pair of stepped teeth are housed in the hub shell. The Vault freehub has six–degrees of engagement.
In addition to 50 percent faster engagement, Easton claims the Vault hub design shaves 48g from the previous M1 hubset.
Easton also set out to make spoke replacement easy, with a single length of Sapim straight-pull spokes used for the entire wheelset. Tool-free end-caps available in all major axle standards is another plus.
The EA90 SL Disc is available now and retails for $900. (UK and Australian pricing TBC.)
Easton's new Vault hubs are strung in the new EA90SL Disc wheels
