When it comes to gravel wheels most of the options seem to be weighted towards the higher end of the market. However, with lots of us looking to buy a gravel bike as a second bike or commuting workhorse, high-end, lightweight carbon wheels aren’t really what we’re looking for.
Thankfully, DT Swiss has a wide range of wheels to suit the adventurous rider and the GR1600 sits firmly mid-range, so this is an upgrade that won’t break the bank.
With an aluminium rim of 25mm x 28mm the wheel is wider than it is deep. The inner width is 24mm so it’s suitable for tyres over 50mm wide!
The wheels are hand-assembled using DT’s hard-wearing and ever-reliable 350 hub internals, which sit inside a fetching silver/grey CNC’d hub shell using DT’s straight-pull Spline design. The hubs look every inch a premium unit.
These wheels are built to be tough and the spoke pattern is the proven two-cross and rated to a max system weight of 130kg, enough for bike, rider and luggage, too.
DT includes plenty of extras in the package with tubeless tape, valves, IS six-bolt adaptors for the rotors, Shimano + SRAM XDR freehubs, 5mm (QR) endcaps and 15mm endcaps (they come as 12mm as standard).
Weight-wise the 790g front and 960g rear (including valves, tape, disc-lock rings and Shimano freehub) make them firmly middleweight. Out on the road and trail, though, they feel both light and responsive without being overly stiff.
With a large volume tyre in place, the wheels worked well in tandem absorbing rough washboard surfaces without bouncing or pinging you off-line, yet not flexing so much as to be detrimental to handling and control. They are a beautifully balanced wheel that’s been put together to a very high standard.
What’s not quite as up to scratch, however, is the tubeless-ready rim tape. It’s on the thin side and, between switching tyres from dry conditions to a more aggressive mud tyre for the winter, I noticed that some of the tape had begun to peel with sealant creeping under the adhesive and a couple of small tears, too, which meant cleaning and replacing the tape with something more substantial. I’d rather add a few grams for reliable sealing than chance it.
- Spline hub: DT Swiss spline hubs use straight pull spokes
- Spokes: The spokes on the GR1600s are DT’s wide aero design
- Rim: The cross-section design is optimised for tubeless tyres
Product
| Brand | dt_swiss |
| Price | 559.00 EUR,495.00 GBP,707.00 USD |
| Weight | 1750.0000, GRAM () - including valves, tape, disc-lock rings and Shimano freehub |
Features
| br_rimMaterial | aluminium |
| br_tubelessCompatibility | tubeless_compatible |
| br_tyreType | clincher |
| br_wheelSize | 27_5in_650b |
| br_brakeTypeSimple | disc |
| br_spokes | Straight pull spokes |
| br_freehub | Shimano |
| br_rimDepth | 25mm |
| br_rimInternalWidth | 24mm |
| br_spokeCountRear | 24 |
| br_spokeCountFront | 24 |
