Prime is a UK-based brand which produces a range of components, ranging from wheels to handlebars, in alloy and carbon, across road, time trial, gravel and MTB disciplines.
Much of the brand’s R&D is conducted at the Silverstone Sports Engineering Hub, where their products are tested for both aerodynamics and rolling resistance – as are many of the best road wheels. This is in addition to heavy use of Computer Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in Prime’s development cycle.
Prime Primavera 44 road wheels: The construction
(Image credit: Future)
The Prime Primavera 44 road wheels are a ground up redesign of the previous Prime Black Inc wheels, which represented the top flite of Prime’s wheel range line-up.
The new rim profile employed many hours of CFD modelling in its design phase, with a particular focus on the effect the spokes have on the air flow. Interestingly, there are brands which chose to ignore the effect of the spokes in their computer modelling – but Prime has sweated the details on these.
The rims themselves are tubeless-ready and have a hooked profile for greater compatibility with various tyres. Rim width is 23mm internal and 30mm external, which is wide, but not boundary pushing, and has been chosen for the balance between aerodynamics, rolling resistance and tyre compatibility.
(Image credit: Future)
Claimed weight is 1,378g but they came up as 1,571g total on my scales – that was with rim tape fitted and tubeless valves, but even so, it doesn’t fully explain all of the extra 150g.
24 straight-pull spokes are used front and rear, and are a mixture of DT Swiss Aerolite (drive side) and Aerocomp (disc side), to better optimise stiffness and replaceability. A large part of Prime’s vision for these wheels was not solei the performance aspects, but also their serviceability and service life. DT Swiss Pro Lock Squorx nipples are used as they are supposedly easier to get the ideal tension balance across the rim.
The hubs are one of the largest areas of development for the wheels, with the rim being designed around them – hence why Prime will be offering the hubs separately for custom builds. They go by the name SR1D and are made of CNC machined 7075 aluminium. The bearings are fairly standard – again to make the wheels more easily serviceable and easier to live with
(Image credit: Future)
The front hub uses two 6803 bearings whilst the rear uses one 6902, one 17287 and the freehub using two 6802 bearings. In the standard…