DT Swiss revealed its all-new Tricon wheelset at the annual Eurobike show in Germany late last year, but at a not-so-sunny hotel resort near Girona in Spain last week the Swiss company officially pulled the covers of its new wheels and gave us the lowdown.
Tricon stands for Triple Connection and the beginning of this story dates back nearly 10 years, when DT first started work on the project. Despite several prototypes and a few hub designs, the company found itself too busy to devote enough time to developing the wheels so it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that it found itself in a position to push them through to production.
The wheels boast several interesting and unique design solutions. Most interesting is the spoke lacing, for which DT Swiss have coined with the phrase ‘crow foot’. It’s a version of a lacing pattern popular in the UK the late ’70s and in the DT Swiss version there’s one radial spoke and two crossed spokes grouped together on the hub flange which work in unison to provide high levels of stiffness and torque transmission, with 18 spokes front and 24 rear. This gives the wheels their unique look with a hub shape unlike any other.
The other notable difference to the hub design is the three-piece shell. DT wanted to separate spoke tension from the bearings so the central shell is machined separately and the flanges are then bonded in place along with three retaining bolts to keep the flanges in situ. This, says DT, allows for a more precise bearing seat and improves durability of the bearings, as well as lowering rolling resistance.
New straight double-threaded spokes have been developed, which do away with the traditional spoke elbow, along with new Torx nipples which hold the spokes into the flanges. At the rim end a neat rim insert offers several advantages over a more typical design. Firstly the insert allows for a more precise fitment into the rim and increases the surface area of contact to spread the load of the spoke tension.
Secondly, the design allows the rim to be completely airtight (and thus tubeless compatible without rim strips) because the spoke holes only go through the inner layer. It also makes for a lighter and stiffer rim, which benefits from a concave shape which DT says counters the forces generated by both the spokes and the tyre.
Currently there’s just one road specific wheelset available, the RR 1450 Tricon in white finsih only. Weight is, as the name gives away, 1450g split 650g/800g front/rear (810g rear for Campagnolo-compatible freehub version). We’d expect more wheels using the Tricon design philosophy to be launched in due course.
RR 1450 Tricons are priced as follows: front wheel: £424.99; rear wheel: £524.99
