Product News Reserve SL: The young wheel brand is building three new wheelsets for mountain stages, all-round use and high-speed tours using Tune hubs and weight-optimized rims.
Reserve, in cooperation with Tune, presents three limited-edition high-end wheelsets with minimal weight: The latest Pico hub set from the southern German component manufacturer and the Reserve SL rims result in a weight as low as 1.140 grams.
Flatter, wider rim at the front
Reserve's "Turbulent Aero" designation refers to the development of wheels intended to deliver optimal performance under real-world conditions. The result is wide rims with a U-shaped profile, as well as different profiles for the front and rear wheels: the front rim is shallower but wider than the rear; the internal width also differs, so the front tire tends to be slightly wider. Thanks to semi-hooked rims, tire compatibility isn't an issue, and a high maximum pressure of 6,9 bar further simplifies use.
Reserve SL – the highlights
- Price: 3.499 euros per set
- Super lightweight carbon rims from 305 grams
- Tune Pico hub set, 275 grams including lock rings
- Each wheel has 24 Vonoa carbon spokes.
- Reserve SL 34|37: 1.140 g, VR/HR 502/638 g
- Reserve SL 42|49: 1.290 g, VR/HR 564/726 g
- Reserve SL 57|64: 1.470 g, VR/HR 646/824 g
Rim weight from 305 grams
Reserve has shaved another 30 grams off its already lightweight rims, resulting in an extremely low 305 grams for the 34 mm shallow front rim of the climbing wheelset. The aero rear rim, almost twice as deep, remains just under 500 grams on the SL wheelset. Tube developed its Pico hubs specifically for the Reserve rims: spoke holes and hub flanges are precisely matched, allowing the Vonoa carbon spokes to be installed without bending or twisting. The 275-gram hubset (including super-light lockrings) is compatible with extremely finely indexed freehub bodies – 69 or 138 pitch is possible.
All three rim combinations – 34/37, 42/49 and 57/64 mm – have already proven themselves in top-level cycling with Team Visma | Lease a Bike: Jonas Vingegaard secured advantages on steep ramps with the mountain wheels on his way to victory at the 2025 Vuelta; Simon Yates rode the all-rounder with medium rim depths to a Tour stage win last year, and the aero wheelset was, tellingly, the choice of Wout von Aert on the last Tour stage over the Paris cobblestones.
Reserve is asking €3.499 per wheelset, making the limited-edition models almost twice as expensive as the standard wheels in the simplest version with DT 350 hubs. Included are the tube lockrings, the company's own Fillmore valves, and four Vonoa spare spokes, one of each length. The fact that four different spoke lengths are used would then be the only thing one could criticize.