Handbuilt carbon trail wheels with a lifetime rim warranty.

The Sector Carbon is Industry Nine's trail wheelset — a 29mm internal carbon rim built with WR1 Convergence layup, laced with Sapim Race spokes to I9's 1/1 hubs, and assembled by hand in Asheville, North Carolina.

Bikerumor, writing about the 1/1 hub platform, called it "near-Hydra performance but with a fraction of the price." That's the whole argument for this wheelset in nine words.

29", Boost spacing front and rear, 6-bolt rotors, black on black. Choose XD or HG freehub to match your drivetrain. Rims arrive pre-taped tubeless with valves included.

The rim

Industry Nine builds the Sector Carbon in collaboration with WR1 — We Are One — one of the most respected carbon rim makers in mountain biking. The Convergence layup is engineered to do two things at once that usually trade against each other: survive repeated hard impacts, and mute trail chatter instead of transmitting it into your hands.

That's the actual difference between good carbon and cheap carbon. Anything stiff enough to be efficient is easy to build. Building something stiff that still has compliance in it — that doesn't beat you up over four hours of rocky singletrack — is the hard part, and it's what you're paying for.

29mm internal width is the current sweet spot for trail riding. Wide enough to support a modern 2.4–2.5" tire with a square profile and predictable cornering, narrow enough that you're not adding rim weight you don't need. A 21mm depth keeps the rim laterally supportive without turning it into a stiff hoop.

Lifetime rim warranty

Industry Nine backs their carbon rims for life.

That's the number that makes carbon rational on a trail bike. The argument against carbon has always been the failure case — you crack a rim on a rock and you've written off several hundred dollars. A lifetime warranty converts that from a financial risk into an inconvenience.

The 1/1 hub

Industry Nine's 1/1 is their entry hub, and the word "entry" is misleading about what it actually is.

The 1/1 uses the same bearings and the same axle as I9's flagship Hydra platform. The difference is the freehub: 90 points of engagement at 4 degrees, versus Hydra's 690 points at 0.54 degrees.

What that means on the trail: 4 degrees of rotation before the hub picks up. For reference, a typical older hub sits around 10 degrees. So this is roughly twice as responsive as what most riders are coming off, and it's the difference between putting power down immediately out of a corner versus feeling a beat of nothing first.

What you give up versus Hydra: that last 3.5 degrees. Whether it's worth the price step is genuinely a matter of how sensitive you are to it — plenty of very fast riders can't tell in a blind test.

What you gain: fewer moving parts in the freehub, less drag, and a simpler mechanism to service. Simple, solid, reliable is the entire pitch, and it holds up.

J-bend spokes, and why that matters here

This build uses Sapim Race steel spokes in a standard J-bend, rather than I9's proprietary aluminum SYSTEM spokes.

That's a deliberate choice with a real advantage: you can get this wheel fixed anywhere. Sapim Race is one of the most common spokes on earth. Break one in the middle of a trip and any shop in any town has the part and knows how to lace it. A proprietary spoke system means waiting on a specific part from a specific supplier.

Steel J-bend also builds a slightly more forgiving wheel than aluminum straight-pull, which pairs well with a carbon rim — you get compliance from the spokes as well as the layup.

Freehub — XD or HG

This is the one choice on the page that can go wrong, so it's worth thirty seconds. The freehub is the splined body your cassette slides onto, and the two options fit different cassettes.

Choose XD if you're running SRAM 12-speed. XD covers SRAM Eagle cassettes with a 10-tooth small cog — GX, X01, and XX1 Eagle — plus most of SRAM's Eagle Transmission cassettes, including the GX, X0, and XX T-Type range. If your current cassette starts at a 10T and says SRAM on it, you almost certainly want XD.

Choose HG if you're running Shimano, anything from 7 through 11 speed. HG is the long-standing Shimano standard and by far the most common freehub in existence.

One case that surprises people: SRAM's XS-1270 Eagle Transmission 10-52T cassette is built to fit an HG driver, not XD. It's the only Transmission cassette that does. If that's what you're building around, choose HG — it lets you run a full hangerless Transmission drivetrain with 520% of range without needing an XD body at all.

Neither option fits Shimano Microspline 12-speed cassettes or road XDR cassettes. Those require different freehub bodies.

Not sure? Pull your rear wheel and look at the splined body your cassette sits on, or look up your bike's build spec by make, model, and year. And if you change drivetrains later, freehub bodies are replaceable — it's not a permanent decision, just an annoying one to redo.

Tubeless, out of the box

These arrive ready to go tubeless. Rims come pre-taped from the factory, and tubeless valves are included.

That's not a small thing. Taping a rim yourself is fussy work — get a wrinkle or a gap and you'll be chasing a slow leak for weeks without ever finding it. Factory tape is applied under controlled tension, bead to bead, and it's one of the quiet reasons a good wheelset seats up on the first try.

Add sealant and a tire and you're riding.

Handbuilt in Asheville

Industry Nine machines their hubs and builds their wheels in-house in Asheville, North Carolina. Not assembled from a parts bin — designed, machined, and laced under one roof by people who ride the trails outside the building.

Practically, that means tension is even, the build is consistent, and when something needs service there's an actual company behind it rather than a distributor.

Fitment

• Wheel size: 29"
• Front spacing: 15 x 110mm Boost
• Rear spacing: 12 x 148mm Boost
• Brake mount: 6-bolt
• Freehub: XD or HG — select your option
• Tire compatibility: Tubeless, suited to roughly 2.3–2.6" trail tires

Check your fork and frame for Boost spacing before ordering. If your bike uses 100mm front or 142mm rear, this wheelset won't fit.

Specifications

Rim

• Material: Carbon, WR1 Convergence layup
• Size: 29"
• Internal width: 29mm
• External width: 37mm
• Rim depth: 21mm
• ERD: 600mm
• Rim weight: 415g (28h) / 430g (32h)
• Tubeless: Pre-taped from the factory
• Intended use: Trail

Hub

• Model: Industry Nine 1/1, J-bend
• Points of engagement: 90
• Engagement angle: 4 degrees
• Freehub options: XD or HG
• Color: Black

Build

• Spokes: Sapim Race steel, J-bend, black
• Front wheel weight: 766g
• Rear wheel weight: 954g
• Wheelset weight: 1,720g
• Assembly: Handbuilt, Asheville NC
• Warranty: Lifetime carbon rim warranty

Weights measured with Boost hubs front and rear.

Included

• Front and rear wheel, handbuilt
• Tubeless rim tape, pre-installed
• Tubeless valves

Rotors, cassette, tires, and sealant are not included.

Setup

Because the rims come taped and the valves are in the box, setup is sealant and tires. An air compressor or a high-volume floor pump makes seating a carbon rim considerably less frustrating than a standard pump does.

Transfer your rotors and cassette from your old wheels, or order new. Torque rotor bolts to spec — 6-bolt rotors on carbon wheels are no different from alloy in that respect, but people get casual about it.

Run tire pressure lower than you think. A 29mm internal rim supports a tire at pressures that would feel squirmy on a narrower rim, and the compliance built into this layup only shows up if you're not overinflating.

Quotation from Bikerumor's coverage of Industry Nine's 1/1 hub platform, referenced for context and not an endorsement of State Bicycle Co. Industry Nine, Sector, Hydra, and 1/1 are trademarks of Industry Nine. Specifications subject to change without notice.