Hey everyone welcome!
It's been almost a year since I first built a wheelset with the BERD Polylight spokes and let me tell you
those wheels, the NOBL TR32 with BERD spokes and @erasecomponents hubs are some of the best that we've ever run
especially on a hardtail they are a complete life changer.
But if you watch my build videos you know that those were not the easiest wheels to build.
You had to definitely put some work on to the hubs,
voiding the warranty in the process and putting in quite a bit of extra work.
Fast forward to 2023 and the innovators at BERD introduced their own hubs.
What you see here is their TALON hubs that are specifically designed to work with their spokes
and in this video I'm going to take a closer look at these, you're also going to see my NOBL TR35 wheels build
and I'm gonna need your help to answer a crucial question, so let's get to it!
Their first attempt at making the process easier was working with Onyx
and their Vesper Hook Flange hubs are specifically designed to work with BERD Polylight spokes.
The whole idea here is that instead of having the usual holes on the hub flange
these hubs have hooks that allow you to attach the BERD spokes right onto them
so you don't need that extra prep to make this work.
Spokes pretty much go through one another and that will be your first cross
then they hook onto the hub flange and then you attach them to the wheel like you would normally do.
BERD actually has a really good video explaining you how to build wheels with these specialty hubs.
From an installation standpoint the new BERD TALON hubs are no different than Onyx
but what are the details of these new TALON BERD hubs?
TALON hubs only come in Boost so 110 and 148mm,
Centerlock is the only rotor or disc interface that they offer
and if you look carefully at the design of the hubs you see the end caps that are easily removable
and you're gonna see a nice little seal right on the outside.
And inside you're gonna have very similar bearings to what DT uses for their front hubs - 6902.
That's pretty much what you're gonna find in here on both sides.
Rear hub is similar, you have this nice lip here you can pull out the end cap
you're gonna see a nice rubber or silicon seal on the inside.
Very similar here at the end of your freehub body and you can get them with an XD driver, Shimano Micro Spline or the good old Shimano HD freehub.
What about the ratchet mechanism inside?
If you guys remember last year I had a video talking about the best ratchet hubs up there
and this Talon hub from BERD comes very close to the DT Swiss ones
specifically the 350 that comes with that double sprung star ratchet mechanism.
The new DT350 comes with 36 toot ratchet so 10 degrees of engagement.
And that is exactly what you're gonna get with the Talon hubs by default.
And the same way that DT Swiss provides you with the 54 tooth upgrade, so 6.6 degrees of engagement
BERD can provide this upgrade kit for your hubs.
This is again 54 tooth similar to the DT Swiss
however you can order your hubs directly with 54 tooth if that's something that you're interested in.
BERD offers their own grease for the ratchet and they recommend cleaning it every 3000 kilometers
I assume you can use the DT Swiss grease as well,
and if you're wondering about compatibility between the DT Swiss ratchet and the TALON ratchet
they're not compatible only because it won't fit, the DT Swiss ratchet won't fit on the Talon hub,
you have that big spacer used on the BERD Talon hub,
the equivalent on the DT Swiss it's a lot shorter and narrower.
So these are indeed very similar to the current DT350 hubs,
however the weight is more similar to the old generation 350s in which they are a tiny bit heavier
with the front coming up to 156 grams which is pretty much their spec
and the rear hub coming up to 306g, together we're talking 461 grams
which is maybe 20 grams heavier than the old DT350s?
BERD provides 2 years warranty for these hubs they do come with a star ratchet mechanism that never gave me trouble in the past
and these hubs will allow me to finally finally build my NOBL TR35 wheels
you guys have seen these rims early in the year when I compared them to the TR32.
And here it is guys!
This is my third wheelset built with BERD spokes and I have to tell you is by far the easiest that I've ever built.
Those hook flanges help a lot and otherwise everything is pretty much the same.
The one thing you have to be careful with is the 3x over-over-over as stated in their installation video.
Yes I'm gonna have to take care of these over the next 3-4 days, let them stretch properly
And are you interested to see the weight of these wheels??
The front wheel comes up to 637 grams
and the rear with the XD driver comes up to 815 grams
so that's a total of 1450 grams for the wheelset
I don't mind the extra few grounds of the hubs because they are at the axle
which as you guys know doesn't matter as much.
And finally to the existential question that I mentioned earlier in the video:
What color spokes would you use for this wheelset?
I have the yellow, the purple, and the black colors available to me what would you guys do?
Would you color the spokes or keep them white the way you see them here?
Let me know in the comments below, I hope you like this video
and if you did don't forget to like, subscribe, and comment,
you have links in the description as well, some of them have discounts, they definitely help my channel,
And what can I say? Until next time hope to see you folks on the trails,
I know I'll be enjoying these BERD spoke wheels for the upcoming season.
Cheers guys, cheers!