With the Discus Plus C30W Team Wheelset, 3T is marrying wide to carbon to the increasingly-popular 650b wheel size. It’s light, it’s strong, it’s versatile. They see it as complementary to their Exploro frameset, but really, it works great for mountain, cross, and adventure bikes.
Let’s start with width. The exterior width is 34mm. The interior width is 28mm wide (they round to 30 to get the 30 in the name). The depth is 28mm. It’s hard to give you an exact minimum tire width, as there is no tire-sizing standard. That written, probably 40mm, maybe some 35mm tires, is the minimum. You can go as wide as you can find with 650b, though the real limiter is the frame with wide tires. is the max if you’re putting these wheels on an Exploro.
The material is carbon. As this isn’t a rim-brake wheel, the sidewalls of the rim are designed to work for resisting the outward force of the tire only and the vertical force of hitting the ground. Because they don’t have to withstand braking forces or heat, the rims could be made lighter. The depth is shallow, less about aero than it is about minimizing rotating weight.
Because they were starting from zero, drilling for spokes was examined, and revised. First, they decided to go with asymmetric drilling, moving the holes off the center line to better balance out spoke tension between the left and right sides. Then they drilled the holes with something they call “double angle drilling” which means that each hole has been aligned with the hub flange the spoke will be coming from. And the nipple sits in a washer to better align the nipple. Straighter spokes are stronger and less likely to fatigue.
The hub flanges are designed to work with straight-pull spokes. Stronger and lighter. The spokes are round and in a two-cross pattern. 24 spokes in front, 24 in the rear.
The axles are designed with endcaps that one can install and remove by hand. This allows the rider to quickly and easily switch the hubs from quick release to 12mm or 15mm thru- axles in front and to 12x135 or 12x142mm thru-axles in back.
The standard cassette body is splined and designed to work with SRAM and Shimano 9/10/11-speed cassettes. They sell SRAM XD and Campagnolo 9/10/11-speed compatible bodies if you have a need for those.
The 3T Discus Plus C30W Team Wheelset opens up tire selection and performance on disc-brake equipped road, cross, and adventure bikes.
