Industry Nine Solix M TR300/290 Review

There aren't many high-quality mountain bike wheels on the market anymore that don't use Industry Nine hubs; they're ubiquitous for some good reasons. Founded back in 2005, the Asheville, NC, company machines, builds, and anodizes everything they make in-house. Their Hydra hubs are known for the best engagement on the market, and their unique 7075 Aluminum signature spokes, available in 12 different colors, play the supporting role. Their newest Solix system wheelset looks to up the ante on what a lightweight trail wheelset is capable of.

Performance Comparison

Product Specifications

At the heart of the new Solix TR wheelset is the continuously-phased five-pawl freehub that integrates with a 121-tooth drive ring, offering 605 points of engagement. This gives the hub an ultra-fine .59° engagement! The pawls and drive rings are crafted from A2 steel, making them not only strong but incredibly precise. This is housed in I9's ultralight, direct thread hub shells that integrate with their one-piece, straight-pull aluminum spokes. By integrating the hubs and spokes, this wheel system is not only incredibly lightweight but exceptionally durable. This “wheel system” creates a perfect balance of responsiveness and comfort.

The DUO carbon rims use a front and rear-specific design tailored to the unique conditions that each rim will encounter. The TR300 front rim has an internal width of 30mm, a hookless bead, and is laid up to give it compliance and low weight. The TR290 rear rim, on the other hand, has an internal width of 29mm, a much thicker, hookless bead wall, and is laid up to handle big impacts, reduce pinch flats, and give the rider confidence in nasty terrain. I9 uses 24 of its own spokes on each wheel in a very interesting lacing pattern that provides a responsive yet compliant ride quality. Industry Nine isn't using anyone else's parts here; there are zero compromises in this wheelset.

The machining and anodizing of the hubs and spokes are top-notch; these are precision-made parts. Since I9 mills and rolls their own spokes, they build the threaded end of the spoke wider than the rest of the spoke. This is important because threads are usually cut into a spoke, creating a narrower (and weaker) section on a typical steel spoke. The one-piece spoke eschews nipples and threads directly into the hub shell; the rim end of the spoke gets a machined ball end that perfectly matches the socket in the carbon rims. They machine a 3.2mm square pillar-style head on the back of the spoke but also put a square interface on the spoke itself so your wheel can be trued without having to pull your tire and rim tape.

The Solix TR wheelset has 110/148 spacing, is available with Xd, Micro-spline, or HG freehubs, and is only available for center-lock compatible rotors. The hubs and spokes can be had in 12 different custom anodized colors. Users can mix and match to make an astounding number of wheel color combinations. This wheelset is only available in 29", but Industry Nine offers several other combinations if you're riding mixed wheels.

Ride Quality

GearLab generally purchases everything we test, but this wheelset was sent to us as a demo. We agreed to review them as long as we paid a fee for their use and had an understanding that we're not exactly kind to the products we test. I was honestly nervous about mounting the wheels; they were clean, gorgeous, and weighed in at 1475 grams, over a pound lighter than the high-end carbon wheelset I was currently riding. I mounted a set of Maxxis Minion tires with a couple of ounces of Orange Seal in each, a Transmission cassette, and a pair of rotors. Whoa, these wheels have a presence; the brightly anodized spokes and distinctive freehub buzz let everyone know that you're out on a set of I9s. I pedaled up the trail behind our office; it's a loose, chunky 1400' climb with ledges, good technical moves, and some punchy sections. It felt like a joke; these wheels are insanely fast up the mountain, and I was laughing to myself. They're ultra-responsive, and I guess you would expect that given their weight and engagement; I was checking off technical problems I've ridden hundreds of times with utter finesse.

I stopped at the summit and took a couple of photos; after all, I was about to absolutely destroy these featherweight wheels and needed some pretty pictures for this review. “These are cross-country wheels that have no business being beneath me on the descent; I can't believe they call them Trail or Down-country wheels,” I said to a friend. I had visions of shipping them back to Industry Nine completely destroyed. “Oh well, let's see how that lifetime warranty works.” After a few clean lines, nice landings, and some heavy corners, I opted for some chunky lines. All gas into the ugly spots, launch to the baby heads, I was pushing hard, and the ride was insanely rewarding. My bursts of acceleration were snappier than usual; these wheels were wildly responsive. Unlike other “responsive wheels,” I was also getting above-average compliance, and the control I felt was reassuring. I pushed into the steep slab rock drop at a higher-than-normal speed; this section has some very steep, high-load corners, and these “featherweight wheels” were impressively precise. The next thousand feet of vert ripped past, and I still had that incredulous grin. This wheelset is positively awe-inducing.

No strangers to I9 hubs, we found these to have the same limited drag and precise feel of previous Hydra and Torch hubs we've ridden. The distinctive freehub sound from the A2 steel drive ring resonating through the hub isn't always a welcome noise, but if it's the price of engagement, we're sold. Pressing down on your pedal is a bit more rewarding than on other wheels, even other I9 wheels that we currently ride. The no-lag engagement, coupled with low rotational weight, gives them an incredibly spry, almost wound-up feeling.

Freehub Engagement

Industry Nine basically set the standard for freehub engagement with the Hydra hub at .52 degrees. We've ridden countless wheels with the Hydra hub and always held them in high regard. The new Solix M rear hub moves from a 6-pawl system to a 5-pawl and sheds almost 40 grams, yielding a .59-degree engagement. A similarly high-end American-made hub from Chris King achieves 5-degree engagement, and the newest system from DT Swiss yields 4 degrees, almost 7x slower than I9. This is important due to a concept called backlash, which is the distance your crank turns before the freehub engages, converting your force into acceleration. That dead space in your pedal stroke robs you of precise acceleration; this couple of degrees can be the difference between wheelying over an obstacle and taking the brunt of it with your front wheel.

Industry Nine achieved this rapid engagement with the Solix hubs in much the same way they did with the Hydra's, but instead of using a 115-tooth drive ring with six pawls, they opted for a 121-tooth drive ring and five continuously-phased pawls that seamlessly integrate. This resulted in fewer points of contact than the Hydra hub had (605 vs. 690), but we weren't able to tell. The difference that we did feel was slightly less drag and less noise in the new hub; this is a result of a reduction in the driving diameter, pawl rotation, and pawl spring pressure, as well as a change to the freehub seal layout.

Each spring and pawl operates independently or in five continuous phases, and I9 describes the mechanism eloquently. “As one pawl engages, it is always backed up by additional pawls that are phased slightly behind it so that as torque is applied, even the smallest amount of flex allows a 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th tooth to start taking the load. This leaves you with the best possible combination - essentially an instant engagement hub that guarantees torque distribution over multiple points without the soft feel or wind-up associated with clutch-style hubs.” If some of this has felt too technical, the takeaway is that this system feels more refined and responsive than any other wheel system we've ridden; it absolutely changes the dynamics of the bike you're riding.

Weight

The Solix M TR 300/290 wheelset is insanely lightweight, even for carbon wheels. The combination of engagement, weight, and spoke tension spin up quickly, giving you noticeably faster acceleration. Over the few hundred miles I spent on these, I racked my brain to come up with the downside to their lack of mass. Typically, durability is sacrificed when you get too light, but we didn't find that to be the case.

Our 29" boost-spaced carbon wheelset tipped the scales at 1,475 grams with valves and tape. This is the lightest wheelset we've tested and those missing grams were definitely not missed. 238 grams less than our next lightest test wheel, there's no comparison in the way they feel; climbing, jumping, and dicing through technical shoots were all significantly enhanced on the Solix wheels.

Durability

Assessing durability after riding a wheelset for only a few months isn't comprehensive but we do everything but go easy on them. We collectively put almost 400 miles on the Solix M TR 300/290 wheels, and they're as true as when we took them out of the box. It's not practical for us to ride each wheelset for a couple of years before publishing a review, so we strive to glean all of the data we can to give the wheelset a durability score. When we test a new wheelset, we first put them in the truing stand and assess their shape. Are they round, true, dished, and tensioned? We measure and record each spoke's tension prior to mounting tires and create a spreadsheet that tracks each wheel. At the end of testing, we remove the tires and measure all of the aspects again. Of particular note is the spoke tension; a wheel that loses tension or develops an imbalance will be prone to issues as time goes on.

We check end caps, inspect bearings for ingress, and examine the freehub body, pawls, and drive ring. We pay careful attention to the condition of the rims themselves, inspecting the bead from the inside and outside. Every one of the wheels we test will experience multiple rim impacts as we push the envelope on low tire pressure. We attempt to give the wheels significantly more wear than the miles we put on them would indicate. If we break them, it's an opportunity to review and write about the warranty process.

These wheels came into our testing process with fairly uniform spoke tension at 128KGF and the non-drive side of the front wheel at 120KGF. At the end of our testing, 47 of the 48 spokes had the same tension. One of the spokes on the non-drive side of the front wheels measured 115KGF; pulling it back into tension took about 1/3 of a turn of the spoke wrench. No damage was noted to the end caps, freehub body, or the rims themselves. This feels particularly remarkable, given the weight of these wheels. If you happen to be harder on these wheels than we are, rest assured, all I9 carbon wheels have a lifetime warranty to the original owner.

Value

Well, this review can't all be roses, right? These wheels aren't cheap; heck, they're not even moderately priced. At a starting price of $2395, they're downright expensive, but it makes sense, given their precision, quality, American manufacturing, and class-leading performance. If you get carried away with the 12 custom colors they offer, the price can climb to $2675. These are the most expensive carbon wheels in our review, and they're certainly not for everyone. The Solix wheel system provides a lighter, more integrated wheel system than any other wheel manufacturer can offer. Most other high-end wheelsets use I9 hubs or something with significantly slower engagement, someone else's spokes, and a rim that may have been made for them. There are many less expensive wheels, but these wheels have no peers.

Conclusion

The Solix M TR 300/290 is, hands down, the best wheelset we've ever tested. If you're looking for a new set of carbon hoops, there are options galore, but none quite as compelling as Industry Nine's Solix wheel system. Whether you're focused on engagement, precision, durability, ride feel, weight, warranty, or unique color options, these wheels excel in every single metric. Maybe they're a bit noisier than we'd prefer, but there's absolutely no question that these are our Editor's Choice wheels.

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