Hey everybody, welcome or welcome back!
When is the last time you've seen Shimano wheels?
For me it's been quite a while since I got my hands on any Shimano wheels
but this week I have this set of the new XT Trail wheels let's check them out!
With their 12-speed drivetrains Shimano introduced new hubs but also new wheels. And if you look on
the label you're gonna see that this is an M8120 so that makes it an XT level wheel,
27.5 which is manufactured in Malaysia.
Inside the box you're going to get this user manual that is common for a few sets of wheels,
and this is just the tools to remove the inner core.
Wheels are individually wrapped let's just take them out.
In a classic Deore XT way these look very good, not too flashy but you know what?
What I like about it is that they're built according to what we consider modern for trail riding:
the rim height is only 20 mm which gives it more vertical compliance.
Believe it or not but these are asymmetrical rims, this is a 30 millimeter internal rim.
Decals, you see them here, light gray with the Shimano over there where the weld is for the rim.
Wheels are already taped with 30 millimeter tape and they do come with the valves installed already.
And also here they have a little spacer just for the valve to sit tight on that asymmetrical rim as well.
These wheels are built with double butted spokes, you can see it here.
If you count them they're gonna be 28 spokes for these wheels, both for 27.5 and 29er,
and if you pay attention here to the nipples... if you ever need to adjust these wheels,
these are 4mm square nipples, normally in your house
you would have spoke wrenches for sizes like this so just keep that in mind.
As I've seen in the past, Shimano rims have drainage holes in them,
you have one here and there is another one on this side so don't freak out when you see these, it's normal!
And that brings us to the hubs: this Deore XT only comes in thru axle versions,
Boost or non-Boost, this is the J-bend type of spokes variant,
they do have a straight pull variant as well only for Boost.
You can see the branding in there
and on the opposite side you're gonna have the part number for this - WH-M8120.
Because of the flange diameter and also the offset rims his wheel comes with equal spoke lengths on both sides.
And I hope nobody is surprised to see these come in as a Center Lock option only.
That means the beautiful new XT MT800 discs that I reviewed not too long ago,
they work natively with this hub.
Obviously with the help of an adapter you can install 6-bolt rotors on these hubs as well.
The two types of Lock Rings needed to tighten these up are not coming with the wheelset
but if you check the video on my discs you're gonna find all the information about that.
And speaking about tightening, that's something you're gonna have to do with these hubs
because Shimano kept their cup-and-cone design.
If you look carefully here you're gonna see the flat surface on that axle,
you're gonna need spanners like this to service the hub.
For this specific wheel you're gonna need one 18-millimeter spanner, and two 22s
or one 22 and one adjustable wrench on this drive side.
These hubs are not known for being the lightest either,
if you look here at the front wheel, 910 grams, that's with the rim strip and valve,
so probably just under 900 grams for this front wheel.
The rear wheel comes at 1058g with the rim strip and valve, so we're talking 1950 grams for this 27.5 XT Boost wheelset.
This comes only with Micro Spline which only takes the Shimano 12 speed drivetrain,
so even if you want to install their cheaper Deore 11s, that won't work on these XT wheels.
You have to go down to the MT400 hubs to find the good old splined Shimano HG freehub body.
And once you go down to that level of hubs, you're gonna find a QR axle here for 135 millimeter bikes or older bikes out there.
This rear hub still needs your 17 and 18 millimeter spanners or open wrenches to be serviced but you know what?
The magic is here in the mechanism.
So this is the new mechanism that Shimano introduced first with XTR,
they called it Scylence, spelled differently.
It wasn't really silent so they had to change it slightly, now you can hear or barely hear something
there's almost nothing when you're freewheeling, and that was the whole idea:
their hubs are supposed to be quiet when spinning because there's pretty much no engagement between the ratchets.
Yes, I said ratchets because this is very similar to what DT Swiss or Chris King have today,
however the mechanism inside it's quite a bit different or over engineered?
But the idea of zero drag when spinning, it should matter if you're counting seconds or amount of friction in these hubs.
Shimano calculated about 7 degrees of engagement here, they do have a lot more teeth
than that however this is not a simple calculation like you would do with a DT Swiss hub for instance.
The XTR hubs are supposed to be even better than these, with fancier materials,
but if you don't mind the extra weight of these XTs, I think they are quite innovative
and I love the idea of zero drag.
These wheels have been used the whole spring, nice and stiff, asymmetrical rim,
30mm ID, everything you would want for a burly set of wheels these days.
My only problems or the only problems that we've noticed are with the rear hub:
under power, the freehub body here tends to creak.
Now that's pretty annoying and if you open it up,
people say to put a little bit more grease in there.
As soon as you do that, you're not gonna have it silent anymore,
but you're gonna hear this buzzing noise as you're coasting.
So good or bad, that is the only issue that we've noticed with these wheels.
Otherwise really solid, they look good and they should last forever.
Again if you don't mind the noise is coming from the rear hub
which I hope has to do with maintenance or the way they were assembled.
So what do you guys think about these new wheels from Shimano?
Do you have any experience with the new hub design?
What about getting rid of that creaking noise? I would love to hear your comments in the section below.
Hope you found this useful as well and if you did don't forget to like, subscribe, comment,
and until next time, hope to see you on the trails on a beautiful day like this.
Cheers guys, cheers!