Tested

SILT ALL-MOUNTAIN WHEELS

£370 pair

SPECIFICATION Size: 29in • Axle: Boost • Weight: 1,890g pair • Contact: siltmtb.com

Based in Northern Ireland, Silt is a new brand putting together complete wheels at a sensible price. Plenty of others, like Hunt, have successfully done this before, so what is Silt bringing to the party?

First off, despite the very reasonable price for such a competitive weight, its MTB wheels are more than just a bunch of random components slung together. Silt uses its own patented Ratchet Drive freehub design, which is a DT Swiss-style star ratchet with a spring-loaded washer and only one moving part. The leaf spring engages when the freehub is driven, with both ratchet teeth contacting simultaneously. The system has a rapid pick up and worked perfectly throughout testing.

Silt’s own drilled-flange hubs use double-sealed bearings at both ends. The front has two bearings and the rear has double bearings stacked side-by-side for extra durability. Rubber seal lips on the bearing cartridge are 1x contact and 1x non-contact, and Silt also specs its own special ‘aqua’ grease with a claimed greater water resistance before breaking down. These endurance bearings also sell on the website for £15 a set.

The aluminium rim is a heat treated and hardened T10 blend – an alloy I’ve not encountered before. It has an external width of 35mm, reducing to 30mm inside for a good tyre footprint, and it is drilled 28h front and 32h rear. Spoke eyelets are angled to help point the Sapim D-Light spokes at the hub flanges, and they are positioned asymmetrically (offset) for more even spoke tension. The double-butted spokes are J-bend for ease of replacement with alloy nipples and built two-cross front and three-cross rear. A nice touch is that tubeless valves, spare spokes and nipples are included in the box.

So, Silt has sweated the details,