ENVE has announced its latest flagship road wheelset, the SES 4.5 Pro, which bucks the current trend for wider, hookless rims.
With a narrower, overhauled rim design – including the re-introduction of ‘mini-hooks’ – the ENVE SES 4.5 Pro wheels are set to be used by Tadej Pogačar at the 2025 Tour de France, which gets under way on Saturday.
The wheels are set to be available in very limited numbers initially, before production ramps up, according to the American brand – and will cost £4,100 / $3,750 / €4,499 (UK pricing is TBC).
Given ENVE has been one of the key proponents behind the wider-is-better and hookless trends for road rims, this sudden about-turn seems strange at face value.
The brand, though, says the mini hook is a result of the desire to remove weight from the SES 4.5 Pro, although it concedes that the mini hook mitigates any potential risk of rule changes around hookless rims – so let’s dig into why ENVE has suddenly U-turned on this philosophy.
Contrary to the norm and ENVE’s track record
Where many wheel brands have steadily increased rim widths in recent years to support the use of wider tyres, ENVE has chosen to narrow the rims compared to the standard SES 4.5s.
The new rims have a 23.5mm internal width – 1.5mm narrower than the standard SES 4.5 rims – which ENVE says enables it to meet the latest European Tyre and Rim Technical Organisation (ETRTO) recommendations for running 28mm-wide tyres.
It’s worth remembering that the previous 25mm-wide rims were developed before the ETRTO decided such rims should be run with at least a 29mm-wide tyre – rather than a 28, as was originally the case when the recommendations were first formulated.
ENVE subsequently launched its SES Road tyres, which are available in that exact nominal size.
Following Thomas De Gendt’s controversial crash at the 2024 UAE Tour, the sport’s governing body – the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) – issued a directive reminding pro teams to adhere to the latest international standards for tyre and rim compatibility.
With that in mind, ENVE has narrowed the internal and external rim widths to “meet [the current] ETRTO recommendation for 28mm tyres”.
This means Pogačar and his UAE Team Emirates XRG teammates won’t need to run wider, marginally heavier, 30mm-wide tyres at all times, and can choose narrower, lighter, 28mm tyres as desired (most likely on days featuring lots of climbing).
This change will also enable the team to keep running Continental's GP5000 TT TR time trial tyre for road stages – a key trend at the Tour in recent years – which is only available in 25 and 28mm widths.
Continental recently launched its 30mm-wide Archetype tyre – combined with the wider ‘standard’ SES 4.5 wheels, this will remain a go-to option for race days when weight is less of a concern.
Here come the mini-hooks
Just as significant, though, is the new SES 4.5 Pro rims feature a mini-hook design, representing, at face value, a significant row-back on ENVE’s pro-hookless position for road and gravel rims.
ENVE says the design came as a result of a new higher-modulus carbon layup, which enabled it to shave rim thickness from the inner and outer rim walls, the rim bed and the internal face of the rim.
On site at the Tour de France Grand Départ, ENVE’s Jake Pantone (VP of product & brand) told BikeRadar that the resulting mini-hook was primarily a byproduct of the weight-saving exercise.
According to him, it’s beneficial to have tyre bead hooks on this wheelset because it enables the use of lighter 28mm tyres (compared to the 30mm tyres required for the standard SES 4.5s).
That said, Pantone also claimed the design protected both ENVE and its sponsored pro teams (UAE Emirates - XRG and DirectEnergies) from any UCI-imposed regulation changes regarding hookless rims.
The maximum inner width below the new hook measures 24.5mm, which ENVE claims enables the wheels to retain the low rolling resistance benefits of running tubeless tyres, with a smoother rim-bed profile compared to the SES 4.5 also aiding tyre installation.
Further tweaks
Thanks to carbon saving, the SES 4.5 Pro wheels are also a millimetre shallower than the standard SES 4.5s.
At 49/55mm deep, the rims remain shallower at the front and deeper at the rear, though – unlike Roval’s recently launched Rapide CLX III wheelset, which uses a deeper front rim paired with a shallower rear.
ENVE claims the original Smart ENVE System (SES) rim shape, developed in partnership with aerodynamics expert Simon Smart, has been retained despite the tweaks.
The new wheels also feature an upgraded ENVE Innerdrive Pro hubset, which uses the brand’s latest Innerdrive hub system design, with a 40-tooth ratchet. ENVE also makes 60, 80 and 100t ratchets, should the likes of Pogačar prefer an even faster freehub pickup.
The straight-pull hub shells are pared back to save weight with a stainless steel construction, while they also feature upgraded ceramic bearings with a low-contact seal design claimed to reduce friction.
This is a notable development, given ENVE’s SES wheels haven’t featured ceramic bearings in the past – because the brand has previously cited minimal performance benefits for the cost of having them. In all, the hubs weigh a claimed 281g (87 and 194g front and rear), compared to 326g for the standard hubs.
But, of course, the SES 4.5 Pro wheelset is focused on delivering maximum performance, cost be damned, at £4,100 / $3,750 / €4,499.
Designed for mountains
The sum of all these changes means the SES 4.5 Pro has a light overall claimed weight of 1,295g – 137g less than the standard SES 4.5s, and even 85g less than the shallower SES 3.4 wheels.
ENVE says the SES 4.5 Pro wheelset is most likely to be used on “hilly and mountainous” terrain, compared to the standard SES 4.5, which is better suited to “flat, rolling and hilly” terrain.
This implies the new wheelset is likely less aerodynamic than the wider SES 4.5 wheelset, although Pantone claims there’s less than one watt’s difference between the two at 48kph.
The shallower-still SES 2.3 wheelset weighs a claimed 1,222g – although it’s unlikely that a 73g total weight difference would outweigh the aerodynamic benefit of the 4.5 Pro’s deeper rims outside of a pure hill climb.
It will be interesting to see what Pogačar and his teammates opt for on the mountain time trial to Peyragudes on stage 13 of this year’s Tour.
