Review: The Syntace C33i Carbon Enduro wheels

Syntace’s naming convention is simple and straight forward. What else would you expect from a German manufacturer of premium components? The C stands for Carbon and the 33 represents the inner rim width. 33 mm is a hell of a rim. These wheels are super wide! On the outside, we are even talking about 40mm. Syntace was using that outer measure before, but maybe they ran out of paper with their monster rims.

You might think that such a wide rim would be heavy. No, it just looks that way. The 27.5” wheelset weighs in at 1,580 grams. The wheels look and feel is of premium quality. The rim itself has smooth edges all around. The guys from Bavaria know their Carbon layering. The Syntace MX Straight Pull hubs are laced with straight spokes, as the name suggests. This translates into less strain on the spokes themselves and improves their longevity.

In addition, since the 28 spokes are basically „free floating“ without rubbing against each other, truing the wheels should, in theory, become a lot easier.

The rear wheel’s freehub body is provided by American Classic and contains 44 proprietary Syntace ratchets. This means 8 ratchets more than Syntace has used before, resulting in a smoother and more direct power transfer.  No worries though, the freehub is not extremely noisy.

The first time I put the wheels on the trail was at the Enduro season opener race in Esneux, Belgium. I had had a busy week and since I was still unsure of my final tyre choice, I quickly set the wheels up with 2.4” Continental Baron tyres and tubes. Due to the extra wide rims, the tyres offered a lot more usable surface area, providing extra grip. And yes, it looked awesome. The wheels were ready for their first race!

The Esneux Enduro stages are not the most demanding, but soft and muddy sections on the trail required reliable tyres with a lot of grip. Due to the wide rims, I was able to lower the tyre pressure to around 1.4 bars in the front without risking the tyre jumping off the rim. This would have been impossible with other rims.

It turned out to be the ideal recipe for great performance with ample grip and loads of extra security. The Syntace C33i wheels also provided a lot of stiffness whenever horizontal forces set in. There was no awkward flex, but here I need to wait for more rocky and gnarly terrain.

A couple of days later, I switched the wheels to tubeless. It went as smoothly as one can possibly imagine. One just has to make sure that the two parallel edges in the rim bed are completely covered by using a wide-enough tape.

The last months have been busy and the new wheels literally never stopped turning. From gnarly, rocky downhills at the Scott North Lake Enduro in Italy to the German Enduro Championships in Willingen with its root covered descents and technical turns and two bike-components TrailTrophy Enduro events in Latsch and Hahnenklee, the Syntace C33i did it all without complaining once. Be it speed, rocks, turns and jumps, they took many beatings without letting me down.

I did perform a closer inspection after the travelling between races slowed down. The wheels are still true vertically and horizontally. The bearings still run smoothly like the first day – I did expect that from Syntace as it’s their quality standard. The rims themselves have only suffered some minor scratches, hard to believe after so many hard landings and impacts from all sides.

So far, I love the Syntace Carbon C33i wheelset. I am convinced that Carbon wheels are more durable than their aluminium counterparts. Especially heavy impacts are less of a concern. Their stiffness felt a little awkward at the start, but soon made me adapt my riding style, making it even more aggressive, hence more fun.

Don’t hesitate to contact me should you have questions about these wheels. Call me on the customer service line, write to me or simply chat me up on the trail.

See you and keep rolling!

Hail the trail!

Rainer