GIANT SLR1 WHEELS
Climbing-friendly hoops
Giant’s components arm will be rebranded Cadex for 2020 and the SLR-1 wheelsystem will continue otherwise unchanged. It’s Giant’s lightweight climbing wheelset for rim brakes and it looks like good value.
For two pennies below a grand, you get a pair of 30mm tall carbon rims that are 17mm wide internally and 23mm externally. Its DT Swiss 360 hubs are laced with 16 radial Sapim CX spokes up front and 21 at the rear in a 2:1 pattern with internal locking alloy nipples. In the box is a roll of tubeless tape and a valve for each wheel, quick-release skewers, brake pads, clincher rim tapes and tyre levers.
We weighed our set at 1463g, including the clincher rim tape and the tubeless valves. The relatively heavy quick release skewers added another 156g. Fitting the tubeless tape needs some patience but with the valve installed our IRC 25mm tyres seated first time with a track pump and sealed almost immediately once sealant was added, measuring 27mm wide.
The generous braking track is easy to align with the proprietary Carbon SLR pads, and the rims aren’t so wide as to cause pad contact angle issues.
There’s no doubt that these are light wheels, as the acceleration response from our initial pedal strokes felt sharp. Spinning feels easy and we regularly found ourselves reaching for higher gears and cruising at elevated average speeds. On hills, there’s always a transition point where your flat speed falls away and the climbing effort begins. On familiar hills and bike, you’ll know where that is. On the SLR-1s we found ourselves spinning comfortably past it and could still pick up the pace at will.
They’re stiff enough laterally, not girderlike, but effective, with a pleasantly whippy feel when sprinting and no brake rub. Braking in dry conditions is good but not outstanding. In the wet, it needed a hefty pull of the levers to generate some braking effect from the compressible pads. The rims were barely bothered by gusty crosswinds and were stable at descending speeds.
The SLR-1 wheelsystem feels quick everywhere, but there are cheaper aluminium rimmed wheelsets with very similar weight and more predictable braking.