ENVE Foundation AM30 Clincher 27.5-Inch MTB Wheelset

The AM30 is your one-wheelset quiver for lunch laps, park laps, and backcountry epics.

With its durable-yet-comfortable ride tune, the Foundation Collection’s AM30 is the perfect fit for your 29 or 27.5 all-mountain ride.

Over a decade ago, ENVE (then EDGE) released the AM, a first-of-its-kind hand-built carbon mountain bike rim, strong enough to be ridden every day, on any trail. The AM30 pays tribute to the past, while ushering in a new era of carbon rim performance developed on the back of 13 years crafting carbon for the demands of the modern all-mountain rider. With a modern rim shape, compliant-yet-snappy carbon laminate, tubeless optimization, anti-pinch flat technology, a 30mm internal width, lifetime guarantee, and a balanced all-mountain ride-tune, the AM30 is ready for anything you can throw at it.

Toughness and Durability

With more World Cup Downhill podiums than any other carbon wheel manufacturer, and as regular competitors at Red Bull Rampage, ENVE knows how to build a strong and reliable wheel. (Check out Brendog’s 2019 canyon gap to see what we mean.) But ENVE have more than just anecdotes to prove it, ENVE have over a decades worth of test data and efforts directed at continuous improvement to make the world’s strongest, most reliable carbon mountain bike wheel.

Testing

ENVE wheels are designed to thrive in conditions where wheel failures typically occur. All ENVE wheels are rigorously tested in ENVE's lab and on-location in some of the harshest environments known to mountain bikers. The AM30 was created no differently, passing all of ENVE’s testing criteria for strength and impact resistance, while still being one of the lighter wheels in its class. One particular weekend of testing the AM30 included more than 120 combined laps of the notoriously unforgiving trails at Bootleg Canyon in Las Vegas, Nevada. The testing went off without a hitch – no broken, cracked, chipped or otherwise damaged rims. Competitors at any price point, and some wheels priced well upmarket didn’t fare so well.

Inner Rim Width Optimised for Modern Tires

ENVE created the AM30 with a 30mm inner width to pair nicely with modern all-mountain tires ranging from 2.3 – 2.6 inches in width. The 30mm inner width assures tires put their entire width to the ground and don’t fold over as easily in corners. In summary, 30mm is the “just-right” inner rim width for the modern mountain biker and the tires ENVE like to ride.

Wide Hookless Bead Pinch Flat Protection System

As a dull knife makes it hard to slice a tomato, so also ENVE's patent pending Wide Hookless Bead technology makes it hard to slice a tire. Destroying an expensive tire on a weekly basis is not only unaffordable, it’s a complete interruption of flow, and utter buzzkill. Hard impacts to rims with ENVE's Wide Hookless Bead are far less likely (over 50% less likely to be specific) to cut and destroy tires and ruin rides.

This technology is the result of more than 2 years worth of carbon mountain bike rim development, which netted out at a rim shape that features a wider leading edge of the hookless bead. This broad surface spreads the energy from an impact across a greater surface area and creates a more forgiving platform on which the tire can bottom out, proving extremely effective in reducing the likelihood of “pinch” or “snake-bite” style flat tires. Additionally, this means heavy and difficult-to-install inserts aren’t necessary to keep your wheels and tires protected and you can pick the tires, casings, and pressures you want to run, instead of letting the fear of flats dictate these important decisions for you.

ENVE Wide Hookless Bead (Patent Pending) delivers:

• 50% improvement in pinch flat resistance over other hookless rims
• Protection without the need for inserts
• Ability to run lower tire pressure and improve traction and rolling resistance
• The option to run lighter weight tires if desired
• Greater impact resistance

Molded Spoke Holes and External Nipples

ENVE products are built first and foremost to necessitate the least amount of maintenance possible, as ENVE see ride time as more important than wrench time. ENVE has long used a patented process for molding spoke holes into ENVE's rims to create the strongest and lightest rim possible. By using molded spoke holes ENVE play to carbon’s unprecedented tensile strength and run uninterrupted fibers throughout the entire rim and eliminate the need to drill holes in our rims for spoke holes. This means a stronger wheel and better strength-to-weight ratio than a drilled rim, because we aren’t required to reinforce the spoke holes where drilling can compromise the spoke hole’s strength.

Additionally, a dedicated pocket or conical seat houses each spoke nipple allowing the spoke/nipple to exit the rim in a straight line while also ensuring even pressure distribution around the molded spoke hole – further enhancing the wheels reliability.

With the AM30, we’ve opted to stick it to censorship and free the nipple. External spoke nipples give peace of mind to many home mechanics and privateers looking to do last-minute trues before a race. Although using external nipples does not allow for the same strength-to-weight ratio as ENVE's internal nipple designs, the AM30 still passes ENVE’s stringent strength and reliability testing.

Lifetime Incident Protection and 5 Year Factory Warranty

The first part of building an amazing warranty program is creating products that don’t need to be warrantied in the first place. But, incidents happen, so ENVE ensures customers are taken care of for life. Every ENVE rim ENVE create, including the AM30, is covered under ENVE's Lifetime Incident Protection program and 5 Year Factory Warranty. Did a dog run out in front of you in your race run and point you straight into a concrete barrier? Covered. Run over your shred sled with the truck? Covered. Come up short on that stretch-goal category gap? Covered.

Made in USA

It’s no secret that ENVE at ENVE are proud of ENVE's U.S. based manufacturing capabilities. Like all ENVE's rims, the Foundation Collection and its AM30 are handmade and assembled in ENVE's Ogden, Utah based, state-of-the-art carbon wheel manufacturing facility. And not just because we’re proud, but because manufacturing ENVE's products right where ENVE dream them up means ENVE can create, prototype, test, and iterate within days or hours, rather than weeks and months. Sending prototypes back and forth across the globe limits the creative process, leaves performance on the table, creates production delays, and presents more opportunities for mistakes. By keeping ENVE's rims local and housing all ENVE's manufacturing processes under one roof, ENVE enjoy the ability to respond dynamically to the issues and winds of change that inevitably arrive to the cycling aftermarket. When new shapes, laminates, iterations are pulled from ENVE's molds, ENVE can then test ENVE's new concepts on the world-class trails in ENVE's own backyard. Together, these elements equate to a design and manufacturing ecosystem that is second-to-none.

Technology

Balanced All-Mountain Ride Tune

For those of us, who when asked what kind of riding ENVE do, say, “I just like to ride my mountain bike” — the ride tune of the AM30 is for us. It’s designed to hold true (pun intended) to the quick and snappy feel inherent in ENVE’s DNA, while adding compliance and vibration absorption. This translates into a wheel that accelerates out of corners in the ENVE way, but subdues the chunk in the “faster” lines ENVE all “unintentionally” find ourselves blasting down. With lateral rigidity close to a full-out race wheel, the AM30 retains a playful and fun-loving personality that’s not just here for a fast-time – it’s here for a good-time.

As a one-wheelset quiver for park laps, lunch laps, and backcountry epics, the Foundation Collection’s AM30 makes it the perfect fit for your 110mm to 180mm travel 29” or 27.5” all-mountain ride.

Pinch-Flat Protected

The AM30 helps to prevent pinch flats and ruined rides with ENVE's patent-pending Wide Hookless Bead.

The Wide Hookless Bead dissipates impact energy preventing the rim from slicing the tire. This means you can pick the tires, casings, and pressures you want to run, instead of letting the fear of flats dictate these important decisions for you. The AM30 helps to prevent pinch-flats and ruined rides with ENVE's proven, patent-pending Wide Hookless Bead.

• Run the tires you want
• Run the pressures you want
• Save weight and go faster

External Molded Spoke Holes and External Nipples

Reliability first, serviceability also first:

• Molded Spoke Holes (Patent #US 8,313,155) for more reliable wheel builds
• Molded conical seats allow the nipples and spokes to articulate, preventing premature fatigue and failure
• Asymmetric spoke holes for more balanced spoke tensions
• External nipples for on-the-fly truing

We’ve expanded ENVE's patented process of molding spoke and valve stem holes to include external spoke holes and nipples. Because carbon fiber gets its strength from continuous fibers, ENVE route the fibers around the holes without cutting them which increases the strength of each spoke hole and reduces the likelihood of frequent truing. Additionally, by molding the spoke and valve stem holes, ENVE's rims achieve a greater strength to weight ratio. Strong, light, and maintenance free.

USA Made, Protected For Life

It’s no secret that ENVE at ENVE are proud of ENVE's U.S. based manufacturing capabilities. Like all ENVE's rims, the Foundation Collection and its AG25 are handmade and assembled in ENVE's Ogden, Utah based, state-of-the-art carbon wheel manufacturing facility. The AG25 is covered under ENVE’s Lifetime Incident Protection program and 5 Year Factory Warranty.

Features

• 20mm depth to aid energy absorption and damping
• Asymmetric External Molded Spoke Holes. 3mm offset for more balanced spoke tension
• Wide Hookless Bead Anti Pinch-Flat Technology to minimise pinch-flats
• Industry Nine 1/1 hubs
• Sapim Race (Round Double Butter) spokes
• External brass (black) nipples
• Lifetime Incident Protection and 5 Year warranty
• Handcrafted at ENVE's HQ in Ogden, Utah, USA

Specification

• Inner Rim Width: 30mm
• Rim Weight: 470g
• Wheelset Weights: 1745g
• Hole Count: 28/28