Teravail’s rim and wheel design philosophy

The launch of our Circos and Circos Wide, and Fluent carbon rims and wheels was a milestone for us here at Teravail. It allowed us to give riders another way to tune and customize their ride experience beyond tires.

But before the launch came many months of design work and testing — these wheels needed to be built for the rides we knew you’d take them on, to offer responsive performance yet be durable and reliable enough for far-out adventures. Teravail Design Engineer Max Ellingson shared what that design process looks like as well as the people and problems that we focus on as we develop wheel systems for the gravel and singletrack riders out there.

Why add rims and wheels to the Teravail product offering?
Max: Rims and wheels are a recent and important addition to the Teravail line. The big “why” came from asking ourselves how we can better control the user experience of our tires. Designing a wheel system to pair with our tires allows for consistent tire install, tubeless setup and ride performance characteristics.

What’s your starting point or mindset for a rim/wheel design? 
Max: I always start any project by really digging deep on the user experience and what problem(s) we are trying to solve. With the initial Circos gravel wheels, the big insight was that there isn't much in the carbon gravel wheel space that's designed to be versatile. Nearly everything in market is tuned for racing. Now that's not to say that a lightweight stiff carbon aero wheel doesn't look cool or won't ease your ride experience, but all of this comes at the cost of lower rider weight limits and limited adventure potential. The Teravail ethos is “Your Ride. Your Way,” so our product needs to be able to line up at Unbound, the Tour Divide, or a local group ride. It needs to be approachable and ambitious at the same time. This was the starting point of the Circos gravel line.

How does Teravail balance durability, ride quality, and weight when building wheels?
Max: It all comes down to selecting the right structural standards. These are the goals the design must achieve — things like impact strength, fatigue resistance and tire blowoff safety are some of the ways we rank performance. These standards are based off of real-world ride experiences. You then design the rim around these standards and select the appropriate hubs/spokes/washers/nipples/lacing pattern to complement the intended ride experience(s).

How do components like rim profile, spoke count, and hub choice work together as a system?

Max: The rim profile is the base of the system; it sets the general direction for what the wheel is going to be. With our Circos gravel line, we had ambitious testing standards but did not want weight to get out of control. To achieve this, we created a shallow rim profile with thick hookless rim flanges. This kept weight down and allowed the rim to better absorb and deflect around impacts.

We designed the rim layup for consistency in manufacturing and reliable, predictable deformation. We reinforced the rim by increasing the number of spokes from a traditional gravel race wheel and the spoke bracing (lacing cross count). This improves rim strength and feels snappy on acceleration, all at a minimal weight penalty. We also set front- and rear- specific drilling patterns so the spokes could transfer load as smoothly as possible through the nipples to the spokes to the hub to the bike.

Finally, we chose reliable, easy-to-service hubs, spokes and nipples from DT Swiss to complement the wheel's design goals.

Who are Teravail wheels built for, and how does that influence design decisions?
Max: Teravail wheels are truly built to be as versatile as possible. We wanted to design the wheels to be easy to handle and palatable for beginners yet capable enough for ambitious goal seekers. All the nitty gritty design decisions described above are about serving the Teravail rider experiences and solving the problem the product is designed around.

How does Teravail keep rider and terrain top of mind when designing rims/wheels?
Max: At the end of the day, Teravail is made up of a group of passionate cyclists that all have differing perspectives on what cycling means to them. We all also love to ride our product, and we get out on it a lot throughout the ideation and design process. We also live all across the United States, so our ideas are really put to the test from a wide variety of user perspectives and terrain types.

Has anything surprised you in the rim design process?
Max: Carbon fiber is truly a remarkable material. It’s amazing how little of it you need to make a wheel work. Even with ambitious test standards, there are certain sections of our Circos carbon gravel rim that are less than half a millimeter thick!

What three words would you use to describe Teravail’s design goals with rims and wheels?
Max: Approachable, high-performing, ambitious