Words: NukeproofTo be honest, I’ve nearly forgotten how many weeks or months it was when we launched our new Horizon V2 wheels. Since March days have blurred into nights and weeks into months! But in recent weeks the UK has slowly emerged from a summer of hibernation and the walls of Wales have come down allowing people of the flatlands to visit their beautiful hills (and trails once more. Our destination of choice was One Giant Leap, where we had heard rumours Farmer Martin and his team had been busy building a new downhill track on the hallowed hillsides of Llangollen. For those not in the know, Llangollen is a steep slat ridden hill, that houses some of the finest of UK's downhill tracks and now with the new track some fine, fast drifty corners- worth a trip for sure!.
The test Guinea pigs for the day were Ant Hale and Lil’ Robbo, who as well as trying out the new track were there to shoot for our latest video to promote our new Horizon V2 Wheels. Despite their attempts, no wheels were harmed in the making of this edit- or incredibly since.
If you missed the press release on the wheels the basics premises is this: The Nukeproof Horizon V2 is a fresh start, starting from a clean sheet of paper and are designed and developed by our Northern Irish based team. With over 2 years of development and extensive testing by athletes, staff and locals to ensure they were tough enough for even the hardiest of huckers and could cope with all the conditions us Northern Irish riders experience (98% mud and rain 2% glorious sunshine and dry trails). They now feature high-performance Enduro ABEC 5 bearings. Featuring “LLU/LLB” seal type each bearing has 2 lips which make light contact in a groove to create a labyrinth where the water or dirt has a more difficult time to penetrate, this combined with Enduro bearings 80% grease fill on both sides to ensure long-lasting performance and quality. This gives complete coverage so there are no dry areas and avoids metal on metal contact /wear. The Horizon V2 hub features rapid engagement to allow riders to lay the power down fast with the hubs 102 points of engagement (every 3.52 degrees).
The rims are all new too, developed to meet the demands of Enduro & Downhill. The Horizon V2 rim uses dynamically aged magnesium-silicon enriched alloy blend to give the stiffness and hardness to 7-series alloy, but the ductility and yield properties of a 6-series. All in all a tough & durable set of performance rims.
Thanks to Martin at One Giant Leap and Jim and the One Planet Adventure, Llandegla team for the workshop use. Also huge thanks to Laurence Crossman-Emms for the camera work and Ben Roberts for piloting the drones.
www.nukeproof.com
Since purchasing my Mega 290 which I love as a frame, I chewed through 2 Nukeproof Neutron freehubs and then was 'upgraded' to a Horizon wheelset which I only accepted as it was claimed to have been updated and that the known and constant freehub failures with that wheel were resolved. Of course I managed to shred the drive ring and subsequently ovalize the hub shell as well with Horizon wheel and any of my riding buddies can attest that although I'm a reasonably competent rider, I'm hardly cranking out the miles many folks do since I have two small children and other priorities these days. I'm also nary 190lbs so I'm no clydesdale either.
Needless to say, having 3 periods of downtime as a result of warranty issues sucked. I've also been a bit miffed as the old hub failures were well publicized by way of customer and professional reviews and it was shared with me that the Horizon hub problems were addressed. After two years of constant issues, lost ride time (which I cherish due to my limited ride time), I was finally met with a sorry, but it's been 2+ years so no more warranty claims. Frankly these issues should have been a total recall of your wheel products IMO so I bit the bullet and acquired a real and user serviceable rear hub to lace up and use from DT Swiss.
For those considering these wheels, I'd maintain a level of skepticism until either real customer reviews come in or Nukeproof can indicate that real actions have been enacted upon to address massive design or outsourcing flaws that resulted in hubs that couldn't be used for actual mountain biking......
We are 100% confident in the new wheel sets. In fact, as a way to rebuild your trust drop me a DM on here and I will send you a new set to try out.
For the other readers/commenters - One thing I left out was that there were some details pertaining to some communications that were shared with me by the retailer (ChainReactionCycles) as part of the warranty process I was involved in that compounded the issues with my situation. Long story short, ChainReactionCycles made certain assurances and claims to me that influenced my decision surrounding the warranty options they presented to me. I'm extremely skeptical these claims were true based on how things panned out and when I ran into my last round of freehub issues there was no acknowledgement or recognition that maybe perhaps they shared inaccurate or uninformed information with me.
I'm happy to have my trust earned back (although I can be a stubborn about this stuff sometimes) and unlike CRC I appreciate desire to be credible.
PS - Nukeproof never completely lost my trust. I'm still constantly blown away by my bike. If only I had a bit more time on my hand and wasn't hemorrhaging money with the house, I'd be pinching pennies for one of the Dissent 29ers.....