Race Face Announces New Era Carbon Wheel

PRESS RELEASE: Race Face

When designing a carbon mountain bike wheel, there are certain characteristics that riders are looking for. It should be light enough to give the rider a faster spin-up speed while offering a weight-saving advantage over alloy wheels. It should be stiff enough laterally for steering precision but sufficiently compliant (the opposite of stiff) enough to keep the wheels planted when bombing through rough terrain. Above all, it needs to be strong. No amount of weight savings, stiffness or compliance will benefit the rider if the wheel fails from a large impact or fatigues from repeated impacts.

The new Era wheel from Race Face balances all those competing carbon interests to make the best all-around carbon mountain bike wheel your hard-earned money can buy.


When you drop into your favourite trail, do you think about the intricate design details of your carbon wheels and how they affect your ride? Maybe. Or maybe you simply think about how much fun you’re having on your bike and what’s coming at you next.

What if your mind could flip a switch between these two states of mind while you’re in full-gas descent mode? We thought that might be an interesting concept to explore, so we made a video about it.

There are quite a lot of technical details that go into each of Era’s main attributes. Let’s take a closer look.


Strength and durability to send.

The overall strength of a wheel is influenced by a multitude of design choices, but the rim profile is the biggest factor. Rear wheels experience larger impact forces than the front, which is why we chose a deeper, more triangular profile for Era’s rear wheel. The other consideration is spoke angle and spoke tension. Era’s asymmetric rim profile shifts the nipple bed resulting in more balanced spoke tension, improving the overall strength, durability and longevity of the wheel.

Era’s front wheel was designed to prioritize comfort and ride feel using a shallower, lighter rim to achieve additional compliance, without sacrificing the overall strength. Riders can point and shoot through a rock garden with absolute peace of mind knowing their wheel can stand up to the abuse and without the harshness that carbon wheels have been known for in the past.


Era rivals the stoutest of alloy wheels, meaning you can give ‘er with the confidence that your carbon will survive the biggest impacts. To back that up, Era is covered by our Lifetime Warranty, crashes included. Break the wheel while riding and we will replace it at no charge.


Compliance for enhanced ride feel.

Compliance is how much your wheel deflects and returns to its natural state when subjected to an external force. In theory, more compliance means a superior ride feel. Excessive compliance can mean compromising the strength of the wheel or making it feel ‘noodly’ when cornering at higher loads. Too little compliance (aka too stiff) can mean a harsher ride feel when the going gets rough. Era balanced this equation to offer just enough lateral rim deflection to keep you glued to your intended line in rough sections. This results in a predictable ride feel that lets you focus less on what your wheels are doing and more on what’s coming up next on the trail.


Lateral stiffness for precise lines. And slapping berms.

Era’s lateral stiffness gives you all the steering precision and responsiveness for pointing your front wheel exactly where it needs to be, no matter how steep, rough or fast you’re riding. When it comes to laying it over, Era gives a firm and unmistakable carbon snap-back when exiting corners for the ultimate in berm slapability.


When it all comes together.

The beauty of the Era wheel is that maximizes strength, compliance and weight efficiency while minimizing the trade-offs. Remember that balance we talked about earlier? Through iterative design and enough lab testing to write a thesis, our engineers nailed the precise balance to ensure nothing in this carbon wheel was compromised. The result is a lively, bomb-proof, corner-railing wheel that eats up small bumps, and the competition. Oh yeah, it's all coming together.


Race Face has never made a more durable and compliant carbon wheel than Era. We kept (and in some cases, increased) the most desirable characteristics of carbon while minimizing the trade-offs.

The Era wheelset is:

Strong – so you can focus on the ride, and let your wheel land sideways.
Compliant – so you can point and shoot, sticking to your intended line
Light – for easy spin up on climbs, and more maneuverability
and Snappy – giving you a responsive feel so you have all the fun out of corners

Learn more at www.raceface.com

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