Fulcrum Racing 3 Two Way Fit wheelset

Fulcrum wheels are available for all types of road cycling, with the Racing 3s about mid-way along the range, aimed at training, sportive or entry-level racing duties. The '2-Way Fit' version is designed for tubeless tyres; they're called '2-Way Fit' because you can also run them with normal clinchers and inner tubes.

Tubeless wheels and tyres are still relatively new for road bikes, although they've have been around for a few years in the mountain bike world, where their main advantage is puncture resistance. With no inner tube, impact punctures or 'snakebites' are impossible – especially handy when running tyres at lower pressure to get across mud and gravel.

Before we go any further, a clarification might be needed. These are tubeless tyres, which means they're tyres that fit straight onto the rim, with no inner tube. This is totally different from tubular tyres (aka tubs), which are sometimes erroneously called 'tubeless' because the inner tube is not visible inside the cylindrical tyre casing. But you knew that, didn't you?

To test these Fulcrum 3s, the first thing we needed was a set of tyres. Fortunately, we'd just been sent a pair of Hutchinson Intensives (which we'll review in more detail separately). Unfortunately, fitting them was not straightforward. Firstly because they're a tight fit to get the airtight seal between tyre bead and inner rim, and secondly because the internal section of the Fulcrum 2-Way Fit rim is a different shape from a normal clincher rim, with a narrow and shallow well, which means there's less room for the beads of the tyre to sink into.

The first bead went on the wheel okay, but the last few inches of the second bead was difficult to get over the rim, even with a dash of washing up liquid (as per instruction leaflet) to help lube it over.

In addition, the Fulcrum tubeless-specific valve added an extra layer of trickiness to the fitting process. As there's no inner tube involved, the valve is fitted to the rim with an airtight seal involving a cube of rubber that sits inside the well of the rim. The beads of the tyre have to slot between this cube and the inside of the edge of the rim, and there's not a lot of space.

But all the effort of tyre-fitting was forgotten once we'd got the wheels fitted to a bike and were out on the first test ride. The wheels felt great. They were absolutely true out of the box. And with taut spokes, they immediately felt responsive. There was no sign of sluggishness on acceleration, and no sound of rims touching brake blocks even when pushing hard out of the saddle on uphill sections.

But one short ride wasn't enough. So the next jaunt was a 60-mile bash round the post-industrial landscape of the East Midlands. Not the most scenic of areas (sorry, North Notts), but damaged roads gave the wheels a thorough strength-test. We even hammered them down some sections of rough unsurfaced byway.

Two days later, and we were out again. This time clocking almost 100 miles around the Peak District, with more potholes, cattle grids and exposed drain-covers to contend with, not to mention some steep hills. On both rides, the wheels didn't miss a beat, feeling positive and responsive on all the climbs and descents. And despite all the knocks they were still perfectly true when we got back home.

The responsive feel seems party due to the unconventional spoke arrangement on the rear wheel, with 14 spokes on the cassette side, and seven spokes on the other side. According to Fulcrum, twice as many spokes on the driveside means the wheel holds its shape when under power. That makes engineering sense, and works in practice too.

Despite having just 16 spokes, the front wheel felt rigid too. Appearance means nothing if performance is bad, of course, but it has to be said these spoke patterns make the wheels look pretty stylish too.

The downside to the wheels' rigidity is a stiff ride, bordering on the harsh when roads are bad, but wheel-building is always a compromise between comfort and responsiveness, and for training, sportive or basic racing the Fulcrum 3s seem to have the balance just about right.

It's an open secret that that Fulcrum wheels are made by Campagnolo - but with Shimano/SRAM-compatible freehubs. The parent brand's long-standing reputation for quality seems to be shared by the more recent offshoot (although the C-word is never mentioned in Fulcrum's advertising material).

The spokes are straight-pull with no bend at the hub, and bladed for aerodynamic advantage, so with the wheels you get a gadget to hold the spokes in place (narrow edge to the wind) if you need to true them up. The spoke nipples are conventional type, and there's another gadget to help you replace them in the rim, should the need arise. It's basically a magnet to chase the nipple round the inside of the rim. Thanks to the tubeless fit, the inside section of the rim is a solid strip, meaning you can't fit nipples through the rim in the usual way. The rims are of slightly different depths: 26mm in the front wheel, 30mm in the rear.

Overall, these wheels are strong, stylish and well-made, and give a great ride. The tubeless version is certainly as good as the standard Fulcrum Racing 3s – although they are slightly heavier (by about 75g the pair), but this is offset by the lack of the weight of two inner tubes.

If you've made the switch to tubeless (or are about to) then these wheels are a good choice. The recommended retail price is around £540 the pair, and you can easily find them under £500 with a bit of web trawling.

The Fulcrum 3s might also be something to consider if you want to wait a while before deciding whether to go tubeless or not: the 2-Way Fit means you can run normal clincher tyres with inner tubes on them at first, then switch to tubeless a bit later. Conversely, if you buy these wheels to run tubeless tyres but don't get on with the new technology, you can fit standard tyres and tubes and still have a very decent pair of wheels to play with.

Verdict

A good wheel choice if you're taking the tubeless plunge – responsive, strong and well-made. Stylish too.