I have to second jn92’s suggestion. I installed SQLabs’ for my breezy 11 mile gravel/tarmac commute to the trails and I sense there are cheap watts gained that’s in-line with the company’s claims (“up to 14 watts”). Your chest and arms act less like a sail. Nothing scientific in my experience, but a secondary benefit is comfort. They’re a helpful change in hand/arm/body position.
I’ve got grips and remote blip AXS shifters installed on my bars near the stem for an alternate hand position. Hands center and elbows tucked in is noticeably more aero than hands out wide. Narrow = aero. I think it was specialized who did some wind tunnel testing of different hand positions on the MTB and I believe hands near stem tested better than hands on fork crown. And it feels pretty stable for me, I do most of my MTB road training in that position.
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I grew up racing a set of HED Cross Country wheels, and have seen photos of a HED tri spoke fat bike wheel… Deep MTB wheels aren’t new, just died out for a while.
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I remember seeing HED deep wheels on a Yeti dh6 or dh9 (the old Lawwill frame) back in the 90s in a mbuk article.
Doubt it was for aero stuff, just for looking cool.
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@firemunki Man, that’s cool.
I was talking with Andy T at HED about the old MTB wheels and he told me a story about a set he laced and sent to MTB Action magazine. On the rim bed he wrote “Ride me hard baby,” and much to his chagrin, that was the main photo of the wheels they printed in the article.
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Do you remember what year? I may or may not have some back issues of MBA…
what about a bolt on disk? my understanding is they do improve aero and would allow you to keep your current wheel so a lot easier to test.
They would probably need to figure out a better mounting approach, the cover I’ve used for TT’s would probably shake loose on rough terrain. And I’m not sure anyone wants to run full disk (at least not on front).
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I already get some looks doing test laps at my local trails, this is going to make me legendary lol! 
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I have some 55mm deep gravel wheels that are 12x100 and 12x142. I wonder if I could reliably adapt those for some test runs…
Why not, though? I mean, it’s a mountain bike. Not like cross winds are a big problem when you have a 2.1-inch tire planted on the ground. I think this is where wide tires can make up for arrow. Simply run a deeper rim. It will not blow you around as much because you have more contact with the ground.
Somewhere around ‘95 +/- a year. At the time my BMX team was also sponsored by them, but they did not make mini size wheels for a kid like me.
It’s going to depend on the nature of the course, but MTB tires aren’t a blank check for stability in heavy winds. I’ve done marathon MTB races with wide open fire road descents in heavy winds there were scary as hell even with shallow rims. And I’ve run 2.2 and 2.4 tires on my gravel bike with zipp 303’s and 303 xplr rims and they are certainly not immune to heavy winds. In my experience, heavy winds have more effect in these off road situations compared to road riding. A mtb tire catches a lot more wind than a tiny road tire. All that said, I wouldn’t shy away from deeper rims (road or off road) due to wind unless wind conditions were really extreme. But I’m also pushing 75kg’s, so not getting thrown around as much as a smaller rider.
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