Testing the wild polymer spokes that won Tom Pidcock and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot the Olympic Games

When Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Tom Pidcock left the Paris Olympics, they left as champions. Both won their cross country Olympic mountain bike races. For Pidcock, it was back-to-back golds. For Ferrand-Prévot, an emotional victory at home after a decade-long road to the title.

Beyond gold medals, they two INEOS riders had one other special piece of hardware no other rider in the race had. This one wasn’t metal, though. Both were riding wheels laced with the radical PolyLight polymer spokes innovated by U.S. brand Berd. The flexible spokes look like nothing more than string connecting the hub to rim, but they’re actually Dyneema, a high-tech “ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE)” material.

What’s the secret to these winning wheels? We connected with Vancouver Island’s Nobl Wheels, one of the largest Berd builders in North America beyond the brand itself, for the chance to ride these wild-looking spokes and find out for ourselves.

Pidcock and Ferrand-Prevot’s gold medal wheels

With the two Olympic champions racing on the same team, they were bothon near-identical sets of hoops. With INEOS near-limitless budget and, for mountain bikes, freedom from some sponsor requirements, both riders were on some very exclusive builds, as you might expect. Berd spokes stand out, but they’re not the only interesting part of these hoops.

Rims are from P1 Race Technologies, the off-road off-shoot of Princeton Carbonworks. The Singularis M30 are a 30-mm internal, 28-spoke carbon fibre rim. They use hookless sidewalls and a distinctive seamless/holeless rim bed similar to what Mavic pioneered. P1 claims a 419g rim weight for this high-end hoop. The rims have a distinctive shape that appears to follow Princeton’s design of “Radially Staggered Lacing.” There are numerous rim designs with variable rim depth out there now. For P1, the rim depth changes in a wave pattern that is intended to give drive and non-drive side spokes even tensions and spoke angles.

Hubs for both are from Germany’s NonPlus. They’re ultralight weight, NonPlus claims 254g for a set. They use a tried-and-true ratched freehub system and, despite the low weight, NonPlus is confident enough in the hub’s strength that they OK them for ebike use.

Then there’s the spokes. Berd is a small U.S. brand that is pioneering non-metal spoke technology with its polymer PolyLight…