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Hi Ollie
Thanks for your thorough response. To take your points one by one:
A) Not personal experience from ownership, but I've held Hunt wheels in my hand where the rim has cracked when trying to loosen spokes. Be that rim quality or build issue, not for me to say, but it's rather put me off.
B) Kinlin make excellent rims and no-one is claiming otherwise. I've owned sets of XR22s myself and have nothing but positive things to say. My point was rather that you could build a pair of wheels to your exact spec for cheaper than a set of Hunts.
C) Yes, all of those things are excellent and add value. I can still get a wheelset built of comparable quality for cheaper, and hopefully without cracking rims. There absolutely is value in Hunt wheelsets for people who want to buy a complete wheelset, have it ready and shipped immediately and don't know a local wheelbuilder. I don't think many on this forum are in that position.
D) Thanks for the insight and taking the time to back up your brand. I haven't heard of a single incident where you've refused to warranty or take return of a wheelset and I can only assume your customer service is as passionate and considered as you've been here. In my opinion, which is just an opinion, from one, cynical, non-customer, is that jumping on throw-away negative comments about your brand with a huge response makes you seem touchy and over sensitive, rather than trusting in the quality of your products.
Morgan (Just Some Asshole)
MechaMorgan-
To be fair, lots of my response was copy & pasted, from times where I've had to clear these things up with people slightly less "throw away" and more "intent that running a wheel company is as simple as buying components wholesale and flogging them all together". I doubt it took as much time as you may suspect.
I, and thousands of others, think our wheels are the nuts. We offer 60-day ride & return to back this up. It's such a long period because so few use it. If you ever wanna try it yourself, drop me a DM and we can figure something out.
Ollie (Just Some Touchy Brand Manager)
OllieTheWizard
Hey Morgan, have you had any personal experience using Hunt wheels or was this from people you know? If you've had a bad experience personally, I'd hope we solved it fairly and quickly. Please drop me a DM if there's any recurring issue you'd like me to help out with.
You're completely right, we do work with Kinlin for many of our rim-brake alloy offerings. The XR-31 is actually a pretty high-end rim, actually using their niobium (T10) aluminium alloy. Kinlin have made rims for many large name wheels brands, and this alloy has been chosen for it's high-strength to weight ratio. It actually costs up to twice as much as regular 6061 stuff. However, since Kinlin rims are available through places like eBay, or elsewhere with very few layers of distribution, the perceived value is not as high, even though the cost to make it is.
Regards the price; It may be possible but I'm not sure you could get that wheel package as a wheelset for a better price than we sell it for. A couple of things to note:
We upgraded the already high-spec straight pull (not standard j-bend) hubs considerably with better bearings and the steel spline insert.
We include high end lightweight brass cam actuation QRs, full tubeless tape and valves are included, and spare spokes.
The triple butted bladed PSR spokes from Pillar are a very high end spoke and made to a very similar spec to those used on Campag Bora Ultra/Fulcrum Racing Speed Carbon wheels, these are not a budget spoke.
Obviously it may be possible to arrange a custom build of these rims in the UK but hopefully we make it fast and easy for customers who value their time as well, which hopefully means they can ride more.
Something that is not always obvious is that many wheel brands, large and small, work with rim suppliers and use their standard rims where they are suitable. Some of our rims are open mold and some are specific to our design where rims were not available. Uniqueness does not improve performance. The most important thing is that the rims are the best spec for the intended use.
I hope this might offer some clarity or insight, but obviously would always welcome your feedback or insight, as it'll only help us make better wheels.
Sorry for the infernal babble! But I (naturally) care quite a lot for our perception in the public, and I think (for the most part) you'll only find people with good things to say about us, our wheels, and the way we approach customer service.
Ollie (Hunt Brand Manager)