Wolf Tooth Hubs

Wolf Tooth has been on a bit of a tear lately. In the last few years, they’ve rolled out a clipless pedal line, Ripsaw flat pedals, Resolve Dropper REV 2 and Remote Pro Lever, a line of awesome mini pumps, bottom brackets, and bar ends for DH racing.

Today, they’re lifting the lid on a new line of hubs and corresponding wheelsets. There are six colours and two hub types, distinguishable by spoke choice: the first is a straight pull design, which are intended for road, gravel, XC and trail; the other hub uses a traditional J-bend spoke design, targeted at more aggressive trail, enduro, and DH. The straight pull hubs are slightly lighter, the J-bend style prioritizes a bit more stiffness and durability, and come in 15 or 20mm front axle desigs.

As with just about everything they make, the new hubs are engineered and machined in-house at Wolf Tooth’s HQ in Minnesota. They feature 7075-T6 aluminum—the good stuff, “aerospace grade”, says Wolf Tooth—and are designed around ENVE’s InnerDrive system. Combined with ENVE guts and rims from ENVE or Canadian-made We Are Ones, you’ve got either 100% made in the USA or Hands Across the Border build options.

Wolf Tooth lists the goals they had in mind when designing their hubs:

• Rolling Efficiency
• Bearing and Hub Shell Durability
• Optimized Weight
• Ease of Service
• Options and Compatibility

They use the word ‘balance’ to indicate what they were after when designing their ideal hub. They did investigate their own proprietary drive system but eventually discarded it in favour of ENVE’s InnerDrive.

Here are the top-line specs of the three hub families they are launching:

• Straight Pull Road / Gravel – 24h – 326g F/R Set
• Straight Pull XC/Trail MTB Boost – 28h – 371g F/R Set
• J-Bend MTB Boost – 28h / 32h – 442g F/R Set (this is the set we were sent)

ENVE INNERDRIVE

A ratchet ring system that ENVE first introduced a few years ago, INNERDRIVE features 42mm diameter rings that give tooth count options at higher durability levels than other, smaller, ratchet options. The inner teeth are machined into the freehub body, while the easily swappable outer teeth drop into the hub shell. Wolf Tooth is offering 40, 60, 80, and 100T drive ratchets so you can tune hub engagement and decide between higher engagement or lower drag (and for dual suspension bikes, less interference/pedal kickback).

Also included is a neat feature ENVE introduced back in 2019 called Perfect Preload, which is a wave-shaped washer that is tuned to set bearing preload properly by simply torquing the hub to correct spec (10-12Nm). It’ll adjust dynamically as long as that hub stays torqued. And no special tools are required to service the hubs – I used a few pairs of lockring pliers to disassemble mine, and you’ll just need a vise and one 16mm socket or two 16mm sockets to torque the drive side hub back in place.

Easy Service

As you’d expect from Wolf Tooth, everything is easy to work on and maintain. No special tools, spoke lengths are consistent in each wheelset, and bearing sizes are standard. Ratchet swaps should take about a minute, as long as you can easily remove the circlip that holds the steep ratchets in place—this is a nice feature because it holds your ratchets and free hub in place in case you have to monkey around with it trailside (or in the shop). And again, no manial preload, just torque that end cap to spec and the wavy washer will handle preload.

On the Bike

I was sent a set of the J-bend hubs with We Are One Triad rims. I weighed the front wheel at 949g and the rear at 998g for a total of 1,947 grams, which includes tape and valves. I haven’t had my test set long, so riding impressions of the hubs and the wheels are limited. So far, though, this is a very nice set of wheels, and the hubs look, feel, perform, and sound like the premium-priced units they are.

The freehub’s noise is fairly aggressive, which I’m a big fan of this time of year, as bears are verrrry active right now on the coast, and I don’t just mean the black ones—my neighbour just told me about a friend of his who has a property about 25kms up the coast (not far away at all in ursine terms), and she sees TWO different grizzly sows with three cubs each, every day on her property. And a large lone male just rolled in—not great news. Plus a black bear for good measure (not for long if it knows what’s good). Anyway, this freehub is loud, which should announce my arrival around all of our blind corners full of overgrowth thanks to a summer full of ideal growing conditions for brush. The hubs, like most hubs, came stock with no visible grease (sealed cartridge bearings, but still), so I’m going to play around with some light-duty hub grease to help stave off winter’s bite, which will impact noise. I do expect them to do quite well in the cold and wet, since the Minnesotans at Wolf Tooth have pretty rugged conditions for R&D, but we all know a dab’ll do ya.

And the We Are One Triad rims? Well. So far, very nice indeed, but I need more time so I don’t have to write ‘stiff yet compliant’ and pretend that’s a wheel review. Stay tuned on ride impressions, different ratchet combinations, winter durability, and more, as I’ll check back in after putting some real mileage on these wheels.

Wolf Tooth Hub and Wheelset Pricing

Wolf Tooth Hubs are available in six anodized finishes: Black, Red, Blue, Gold, Orange, and Ultraviolet Purple.

Front Hub (all versions) – $239.95 USD
Rear Hub (all versions) – $489.95 USD
Set (all versions) – $729.90 USD

Wolf Tooth is launching with seven in-house-built wheelset options featuring their new hubs (prices in USD):

• Enve SES 4.5 – $2,950
• Enve G SES 4.5 – $2,950
• We Are One Whisp – $1,975
• Enve M6 – $2,400
• We Are One Triad 29″ and Mullet – $1,975
• Enve M8 – $2,400

More info or order at your local dealer or at wolftoothcomponents.com.

Alongside the big hub announcement, Wolf Tooth is also launching a spoke calculator app. Great resource to calculate the spoke lengths needed when building a new wheelset with their hubs as well as for other hub and rim combinations.