Hello and welcome everyone!
BERD as in BERD spokes have been in the news quite a bit lately but
not many of us know that BERD actually produces wheels as well.
What I have here for you guys today is the TR30, this is an All Mountain wheelset
Let's take a closer look at it!
And without making this a comprehensive video
I'm going to give you some information on the rims, a tiny bit about hubs, definitely spokes
and finally, riding impressions but first let's take a look at the rims.
You can see the BERD logo here on the rims however the rims are not made by them
they are made by an undisclosed third party
and TR30 refers to the internal dimension of these rims 30 millimeter ID.
That information is usually specified here next to the valve but in this case they prefer to mention
the 40 PSIs maximum pressure of the tire remember
that is a characteristic of the rim more than the tire,
and the other thing is the patents. I assume these have to do with the ultra special spokes that they use.
On their website you're gonna see that these rims are offset even though they don't specify the offset
and they have a lot more options for us these days
from road, to gravel, to trail, to all mountain, and even fat bike wheels are listed from them on the website.
The finish of these rims is pretty interesting, it reminds me of the raw Yeti ARC.
This seems to be just out of the mold with the sealant on top, that usually keeps the weight down because these are not painted
and if you look at this TR30 specific rim, the height of this is 25 mm so that should make it pretty stiff vertically
as opposed to the shallower rims that are more popular these days.
All BERD wheels use Industry Nine hubs and I did cover these in a recent video when I talked about high versus low engagement POE hubs.
These hubs, the Hydra, have 690 POE, that's a ton,
and in that video and in the comments you can see a lot of the pros and cons for using such hubs.
I think BERD considers the wheels to be high-end, and that's the reason why they went with Industry Nine,
but remember you can get your custom wheel set built by them with their special spokes.
And I would argue that the BERD Polylite polymer spokes is what BERD is usually known for.
These are very special because they are not made out of metal, this is a polymer.
You can call it shoe laces if you want to, but their qualities make them a very interesting alternative
to the regular steel spokes.
And one of those qualities has to be weight, these weight about 2.5 grams per spoke
as opposed to something like CX-Ray from Sapim that is 2 grams heavier per spoke compared to these
So building with these spokes makes for a really light wheelset
you can see this XC Series wheelset from BERD at 1230 grams.
But there's no free lunch and that weight saving comes with a bit more complication when it comes to building these wheels.
BERD provides what's called a Corner Rounding Tool to take the edge off of these spoke holes.
Otherwise the spokes can get cut by the edge of that regular spoke hole.
And you're gonna use this tiny tiny rod just to hold it in place
otherwise this looks just like a little loop.
Polymer spoke looks like a double butter spoke and it finishes here with a metallic part.
This is a 14 gauge or 2 mm and that's the type of nipples that you should be using with it.
However you need a special tool to hold on to the end when you're tightening the spokes.
I have tried to use a blade spoke holder like this one from DT and I think you can make it work
but they provide their own proprietary tool with the wheel set anyway.
Then you cannot really use a regular nipple wrench like this
but you can buy the BERD proprietary tool or Park Tools gives you an option as well.
And we're not done yet!
Because the material stretches quite a bit, it actually takes about 2 to 5 days for them to build one of these wheels
because they have to build up the tension in these polymer spokes but also allow them the time to stretch.
Finally, in about 6 months from when they're built, these spokes are supposed to lose about 30 percent of their tension
again, due to stretching of the material,
and that's gonna affect your lateral stiffness of the wheel
BERD mentions about 10% higher deflection side-to-side of the wheels in about 6 months
something that you won't notice and it won't be the end of the world for most of us
One standard tool that you can use though is a spoke tension tool
and they recommend about 12 to 15 here on the TM-1 from Park Tool.
For some reason this wheelset has slightly higher tension than that.
I assume to make up that 30% loss of tension in 6 months.
And another aspect of these spokes that is not that much talked about
is the dampening effect compared to the steel counterparts.
When I reviewed the Peacemaker, the Mullet Cycles Peacemaker I did ride these wheels
and let me tell you that I was impressed!
And that wasn't just because the weight of this BERD wheelset is about 1460 grams, which is definitely noticeable
but it was also the dampening effect of these spokes.
Wheels felt nice and stiff, tracked the terrain really well,
but again what was impressive for me was the lack of vibrations transferred to the bike by this wheelset,
it's got to have something to do with the wheelset itself and not just the suspension of this bike.
So overall pretty cool tech, definitely for the spokes
wheels are solid, I would highly recommend them if you're looking for a premium set of wheels
but I'm very curious to hear your opinion.
What do you think about the BERD wheels?
What about the SERD spokes?
Are you interested in getting anything like this? Do you have any questions for me?
Let me know in the comments below.
As usual if you found this useful don't forget to like, subscribe, and comment,
and until next time hope to see you folks on the trails.
Cheers guys, cheers!