DT Swiss's new wheelset boasts several innovative design features and is tubeless compatible. The 1450 refers to the claimed weight, though ours came in at 658g (front) and 826g (rear) – 1,484g in total – plus 76g for the skewers.
That’s light but not mega-light, although you do have the advantage of the tubeless option, with its better resistance to pinch punctures, and without standard inner tubes you’ll save about 200g so things start to look much more impressive.
After a bit of cursing we got the hang of getting ours inflated without tubes, with a track pump and no sealant, and they stayed up well too.
The beefed-up flanges are machined separately from the main hub shell and bonded in place, which DT Swiss reckon keeps the bearing seat tension-free, lowering rolling resistance and keeping them spinning more smoothly.
Those bearings are high-quality cartridge-type; they felt buttery out of the box and have stayed that way throughout testing – no worries there.
The rims are 22mm deep and come with concave sidewalls to handle the tyre pressure and the high spoke tension that DT Swiss use. Little reinforcing inserts anchor each spoke firmly while allowing the rim itself to be made light and airtight.
The straight-pull spokes are double butted and bladed for aerodynamics. You get 18 at the front and 24 at the rear, open crowfoot laced – a combination of radial and crossed – and they’re held in place with torx nipples that won’t round off. Just make sure you’ve got the right tool with you.
We’ve put several hundred miles into our Tricons and they’ve not needed any fettling so far. The Tricons are certainly energetic – really eager to pick up speed and exceptional on the climbs.
And whereas making lightweight wheels is easy enough if you don’t mind them bending about, the high spoke tension keeps these impressively stiff – we had just the slightest discernible flex when throwing the bike around ridiculously hard.
Our only real gripe is with the quick-release design. You wind it into place – there’s no cam – so it’s hard to position the lever where you want it and takes a bit more effort.
