Review: FusionFiber rims certainly look the biz, but one of most expensive gravel wheelsets out there cycling ChrisKingBuzz
The Chris King GRD23 R45D is one of the most expensive gravel wheelsets we've ever come across. They're dripping with premium Chris King components, and feature an innovative new type of rim material that helps to make gravel riding more comfortable without sacrificing performance. They're not the lightest, though, nor are they the widest kind of gravel wheel out there, and you can certainly find better performance for less.
The GRD23 rim is designed to offer more comfort than a conventional carbon one when you're off the beaten track, with 'a wider range of compliance profiles'. That's not to say it's designed to feel like a soggy sponge over the rough stuff – rather, it's been tuned to have a better balance between comfort and stiffness.
That said, I do wonder how regularly people break carbon fibre rims – I can't imagine it's that often. Other than having a massive prang on a bit of rough stuff... It's not like the old days where rim brakes would eventually wear them out, being that gravel bikes exclusively use disc brakes these days.Other than the material construction, the Chris King GRD23 rims measure 23mm wide internally, 29mm externally, and have a rim depth of 24mm.
Chris King says the hubs are easily serviceable and rebuildable, but you'll need the R45 Hub Service Tool to do so, which costs about £200 online, depending where you look. Chris King claims a wheelset weight of 1,468g, though they came in at 1,510g on the road.cc Scales of Truth, which is a little bit heavy for wheels with a shallow rim depth. By comparison, Roval's Terra CLX wheelset, for instance, has carbon fibre rims at a depth of 32mm, and weighs just 1,296g.Did Chris King's FusionFiber technology make a difference to the ride quality over other carbon gravel wheelsets I've tested? In all honesty, it's really hard to say.