When developing the 29er Gnar Trail II, Elitewheels left no detail overlooked in pursuit of rim performance. The asymmetric profile optimizes stress balance, lateral stiffness, and spoke-hole strength for precise handling and long-term durability.

Each spoke hole is reinforced with 38 layers of carbon fiber for exceptional strength and stiffness, while the rim bead is 17% thicker for enhanced impact resistance.

Beyond these structural enhancements, every Gnar Trail II rim is constructed from genuine Toray T700 and T800 carbon fiber—delivering exceptional weight-to-impact performance over generic alternatives. During molding progress, specialized inflatable bladders eliminate wrinkles and voids, producing smooth internal walls that reduce over-engineering and result in a rim that is both lighter and stronger. The rims are designed to make fitting tubeless hookless wheels simple, requiring just a floor pump.

The 29er Gnar Trail II is equipped with our in-house Kinetic hubs, a 50T star-ratchet mechanism with 7.2°engagement for instant power delivery. The Kinetic’s ratchets are machined in a conical shape, increasing the engagement surface area for enhanced durability. The hub also incorporates a new waterproof seal to minimize the risk of ingress of water and debris. Together with the upgraded spring, this design significantly reduces ratchet slippage and skipping during hard pedaling, ensuring consistent pedaling performance.

The Kinetic hub is precision-machined from high-grade 7075 aluminum alloy for an optimal strength-to-weight ratio. High-performance TPI steel bearings ensure smooth rolling performance even under the toughest conditions. Equally critical to bearing performance is the bearing seat fit – our CNC machines hold tolerances to ±0.02mm, guaranteeing exceptionally low rolling resistance and maximizing long-term reliability.

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Sapim CX-Ray spokes come standard. We take precautions to ensure that spoke windup is minimized, so wheels don’t go out of true. After the initial truing, the wheel is stress relieved. This process is repeated again. The wheels are stress relieved a total of 16 times. We see this as an essential quality control standard. As a result, our wheels are guaranteed to stay within 0.2mm of true.

The 3.5mm spoke offset minimizes the right and left spoke tension difference. This makes for a stronger and more laterally stiff wheel, giving you more control.