Allister talks about his Curvey Tallboy

A huge thanks to Allister P, who below talks about his experience with Curve and our wheels.
Mid way through 2013 I purchased an alloy Santa Cruz Tallboy as part of a great deal. Knowing it was a little heavy I proceeded to put it on a diet where I could, and a big chunk of this was the wheelset. The stock WTB items were good, but pretty hefty.
 
It seems everyone goes directly to Enve these days, and with good cause they are great wheels... but there's no denying they are mighty pricey and I was interested at what else existed in the market, as I really didn't want to stretch that far for something that cops so much abuse when riding. A quick Google search turned up an article from Enduro magazine taking a look at Curve Cycling back when they were just starting out. Eager to find out more I got in touch with them.
 
Hopefully by now you are aware of how Curve came to be, and that Steve and Jesse have put an immense amount of time into testing wheels from various manufacturers in the far east to weed out the rubbish and get them up to their desired level of quality and specification. After a brief call to Steve to find out more he suggested there's no better way of knowing than to try a pair out. The following week I went into their warehouse and checked out the rims and was really impressed with the quality of finish. No burrs or loose threads around the spoke holes, the layup of the carbon looked really good, and I really liked the fact that they used traditional nipples rather than proprietary, so that if they ever should require a bit of attention I wouldn't have to pull the wheel apart to maintain them. That weekend I lined up at the start of the Yowie with some fresh Curve test wheels bolted on for 66k's of punishment.
 
The first thing I noticed was how quick they felt with acceleration. I think this wasn't only just the weight saving but how stiff these wheels are. On the climbs and out of turns they just spun up really easily and efficiently. The bike felt completely renewed and more lively. On the descents that stiffness came into play again. Through the rocks it was a simple matter of point and shoot to wherever you needed to go. There was a tiny bit of flex but not enough to concern me especially given it was only a 28 spoke build on this test set. No burping of the tubeless through some heavy hits at 25psi, it was faultless and just allowed me to concentrate on how rad the riding was. Essentially, I was well impressed with these wheels and the effect and confidence they had on my riding.
 
Skip forward a month and I have received my own set of custom built wheels with a matt finish and Hope hubs for a third of the cost of Enves and couldn't be happier. Was a piece of cake to setup with Rubena tubeless tyres, and first ride out I took a pretty huge impact on a DH course and they were strong and true on inspection. The process of dealing with someone local and with the level of service Steve has provided has been great.
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