First Look: N + 1 Atomik Carbon Wheels

Wheels make your bike – we’ve said it before and will say it again. Last week, we had a new set to play with land in the office. They’re 27.5”, carbon rimmed, hand-built onto Hope hubs, and setup tubeless ready. What’s not to like? The wheels have been built by N Plus 1 Bikes, out of Perth in Western Australia. They’re the demo set built by owner Carl Fox, using Atomik carbon rims, Hope hubs and DT spokes. One of the first things that you notice is the colour – Carl was a bit sheepish, admitting that he’d built them to show all their graphic options, and what you can do with custom spoke and nipple selection too. But having seen a set stunningly colour matched to a Whyte G-150, I can’t argue with that.

“I set up the business of N Plus 1 Bikes to start importing Atomik Carbon products. N+1 will also run a small workshop of building the wheel sets and also any needed repairs/servicing for Atomik. By day I’m still employed as a draftsman so the dream of running a full bike shop is still a few years off!”

Custom graphics – what colour do you want?

The Atomik rims are made in Taiwan under the set instruction and design from their HQ in Florida. Carl has run the rims for 6 months, and built up many for for WA customers. “The rims are very strong, easy to build with, and are generally a nice all round (no pun) product. I have tried my best to smash them and haven’t had any undesirable happenings yet, so personally I’m stoked with them” said Carl of the rims and wheels.

Atomik Carbon are a young company, so there are some things in the pipeline. “A new Fat bike rim is coming, new XC weight rims are coming, and also a CX competition rim are in the works. So there’s going to be a good variety in the products once all have made it to production.” Our set came taped with 25mm ZTR yellow tape and valves. The rim weight is about 430g. Best of all, the rims inflated really easily with tubeless ready Maxxis tyres.

Always build wheels around quality hubs.

We had them on our Lapierre Zesty 827 AM long term bike and were out on them pretty quick! Obviously, changing from the XTR Trail wheels it wasn’t like it was a big upgrade – just something different but of similar quality. The build is fantastic, with even tension, and they feel a tiny bit stiffer than the XTR wheels. There was no burping, and like any good component, it was easy to not think about the wheels and just ride. Look for a full review on the wheels along with pricing details in our long term update in Issue 147.