Neuvation R28 aero review

Sogood'll be happy to hear this, so here we go....

The first thing I noticed upon taking them out of the box was 'wow, the stickers look even worse in person', so they were halved before anything else happened.
The overall looks are very nice. They are very shiny, nice bladed spokes and nice decals (after halving them in number). Upon closer inspection, you begin to realise why they only costed $330AUD.
The hubs are the most simple mechanism (albeit extremely effective) you could use. The hub shell, a straight alloy axle (one groove on each side to hold an o-ring, maybe a stopper for each bearing but I didn't go that far), two cartridge bearings and two dustcaps. The dustcaps are just that, nothing more. They do use sealed cartridge bearings though, but I would reserve this for nice days. The dustcaps are very simple conical-ish pieces of aluminium. They have an o-ring on the inner face to hold it in place and a grub-screw to secure them to the axle. They primarily serve as a safeguard for the bearings and to space out the axle enough to fit in the forks. The rear is a little more complex, though, using cones to preload the bearings.

The spokes are very nice wide blades, but none of this fatness like ksyriums, they are nice and thin. The J-bends are very thick, so hopefully they should be a little more durable.
The nipples are just regular nipples. I think its brass all round.
The rim is something else. The joint is painfully obvious, but could be hidden a little better with some filler and paint, or just filler. The special part of this rim is the braking surface. While the sleeve is quite obvious, this braking surface sits about 1mm off the rim. You'll never wear this out. It has also been very VERY well machined. The regular micro-grooves are present, but it is dead smooth. The rim joint is impossible to distinguish. The front wheel also spins forever and is laced 1 cross.

The rear is nice too. The flanges are quite narrowly spaced and its only laced 1 cross too . We'll see what the stiffness is like tomorrow. The freehub body is very well machined, clever, but not very nicely finished. This doesn't matter cause its under a cassette. It has extra material where the theoretically most used cogs are (around the 16-21 depending on what cassette you are using) I presume this is to stop the cogs 'biting' in that area. The rest is fairly straightforward there, still needs the 1mm spacer for 10 speed. It does have a clever little grease port (I assume) which was used pretty quickly with some fine fishing-reel grease which is good for freehubs. It needed it. It seems the bearings on the rear will take a little while to break in. It is more complex with better seals than the front hub. As I said, its only laced 1cross with 20 spokes, despite the fact that the flanges are not low by any means.

I will post pics of the bare wheels, mounted wheels and details tomorrow, along with a ride report.

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BMC SL01
SRAM Force


thank you crank n' cycles...If you are ever in SW WA, take a trip to Crank N' Cycles.

After just under 100km, I can say they are a 'solid' wheelset. I was pleasantly surprised with the ride quality. They were very comfortable. The stiffness isn't anything to get excited about, but it is still better than you'd expect from the cost of the wheels and the design. They were responsive enough uphill, and roll beautifully downhill. I will not say they are any 'faster' than Shimano R500, but they wear you out slower and make you feel like you have the 'edge'. They are still true, which is good, since many wheels (that I've tried) initially come out of true as the spokes settle, but then are fine. The bearings still sound smmmooooootth, and feel smooth too. The braking isn't all that great, Shimano's rims stop a little quicker, but once its worn in I hope it will be better. Oh yeah, and the freehub makes a nice clicking noise.

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BMC SL01
SRAM Force


thank you crank n' cycles...If you are ever in SW WA, take a trip to Crank N' Cycles.

The rear

The front

The dead obvious rim joint. they could have done that a little better. No brake grabbing though.

The front hub. Note the grub screw on the dust cap. Laser etched logo on a highly polished machined hubshell.

The rear freehub. Note the grease port.

The rear flanges and shiny hubshell.


The wheels mounted to the BMC. (that massive spacer stack will 'disappear' in less than a week. New deda newton stuff)

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BMC SL01
SRAM Force


thank you crank n' cycles...If you are ever in SW WA, take a trip to Crank N' Cycles.

Very nice and thanks for the report!

That last photo, took me a while to realise the bike was hanging on the wall. I thought your use of that BBB wall hanger on the floor was an interesting idea until...

So what's your latest bike weight? Did the Neuvation take that 8.4kg down a notch again?

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Morphed Bianchi Camaleonte IV 2006, Ridley Damocles 2006, Garmin, Mac

The 8.4kg is with the nuevations. If I were to change groupset to record it would drop a kilo from 105. It is dropping because a KCNC TI lite straight seatpost is on order (bike fit issues, short femurs) which will drop at least 150g. Under 8 here I come.

And its not BBB. Probably sourced from the same factory though. Its a bikeforce in house brand.

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BMC SL01
SRAM Force


thank you crank n' cycles...If you are ever in SW WA, take a trip to Crank N' Cycles.

What chainset is that? It looks like a compact shimano...?

take a nice long look at that nicely machined freehub body and remember it, as in less than a few thousand k's it'll be chewed.

i'm not really sure how many k's i have in mine, maybe 2000 give or take. took the cassette off to clean and service the freehub (and yes it was still on very tightly). the body was chewed enough (standard ultegra cassette) that i needed multigrips to unseat some of the individual sprockets. i've filed it down but am not holding my breath for any longevity.

which poses the question why do wheel manufacturers feel the need to save 50g on an alloy body as opposed to steel? grr.

--brett

I will take careful note of that. I though there was going to be some kind of issue like that. Oh well, maybe I'll be lucky.

It isn't a compact Shimano. Its a 42/39. U17rules.

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BMC SL01
SRAM Force


thank you crank n' cycles...If you are ever in SW WA, take a trip to Crank N' Cycles.

I understand that's a problem not specific to this Neuvation wheel. And I further understand that the problem is worse with cassettes that has individual cogs while units that combine cogs on a carrier fare better. One thing I wonder though, whether the the tightness of the locking nut makes a difference.

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Morphed Bianchi Camaleonte IV 2006, Ridley Damocles 2006, Garmin, Mac

Don't these wheels have high friction hubs?

How much did the bike cost total and frame and fork set?

As a poor college student looking for some possible post-christmas gifts to self, how would you rate these to other wheels in this price range such as the Fulcrum Racing5 or Easton Vista?

That's correct all wheels with alloy carriers will have this issue. Pretty much most Shimano and Campag cassettes have individual cogs except the top 3-4 which are often pinned. So it's not an issue limited to Neuvations, however for the sake of 50g it's simply a silly piece of engineering. I'd understand it in an ultralight set of wheels that are catering for the weight weenie crowd, and more specifically wheels that aren't generally going to be used as everyday'ers. For a mid weight set of wheels? Why?

Having said that I knew the carrier was alloy when I bought them, so bitching about it now is a bit disingenuous.

I would think the tightness of the lockring would only be an issue if it was loose enough that there is play in the cassette. Mine had no play, and was tight enough that it took a few minutes to muscle it off.

--brett

Bobby, did you have trouble mounting your tires? This is a problem Neuvations are notorious for. I could not mount Conti GP4000s on my Neuvations. I barely got Hutchinson's on after an hour of using every trick in the book. I finally tried inflating the tube about five full pumps with about 12 inches of bead outside the rim and it worked miraculously.

1. No the hubs are beautifully simple low friction cartridge bearing jobs. No true seals except on the bearings though so thats a little problem (on the front)

2. Tyre mounting was dead easy with conti attack force.

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BMC SL01
SRAM Force


thank you crank n' cycles...If you are ever in SW WA, take a trip to Crank N' Cycles.

Thanks for the comment, I guess tightening it further won't help my wheels.

BTW, are there steel freehubs to be had to mate these wheels? I thought these are brand specific ie. Only Mavic sells freehubs for their wheels.

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Morphed Bianchi Camaleonte IV 2006, Ridley Damocles 2006, Garmin, Mac