Nox Teocalli carbon wheels review
All Nox wheels are designed and laced in the US of A.
What is it
Nox Composites is a small brand out of Tennessee that was founded in 2012 by a pair of engineers. The company specializes in affordable carbon wheels and offers a full range of road, gravel, and mountain bike hoops.
The Teocalli rim has a hookless bead, asymmetric spoke drilling, and external nipples.
The Teocalli is their trail oriented rim. It has a 26mm internal width, 32mm external, and 22mm depth. The 29er rim weighs 380g, which is 40g heavier than their XC offering, and 50g lighter than their enduro option.
We tested a custom ordered Teocalli wheelset with 28 spokes, I9 hubs, and Sapim spokes for our Santa Cruz Tallboy 3 project bike.
Nox hand builds all their wheelsets in the U.S., which means they can offer a ton of customization. On their website, you can pick from a number of high end hubs, spoke counts, decal colors, preferred brake rotor interface, spoke type, and nipple color. A bare rim will set you back $479, which is half of what you’d spend on some name brands. Complete wheelsets start at $1358 with DT Swiss 350 hubs.
With rim strips and valve cores installed, this test wheelset weighed 1600g.
Mtbr procured a set of review wheels with Industry Nine hubs, 28 spoke hole drilling, and Sapim spokes. Retail for the custom wheelset is $1649. That includes valve cores and a rim strip, both of which came installed. The entire setup hit our scale at 1600g.
Pros
- Easily seated tubeless
- Wheels hand built in USA
- Reasonably priced
- Excellent ride quality
- Extensive customization
- External nipples
- Hookless bead
Cons
- Flex under hard cornering
Mtbr’s Take
The Teocalli rims feature every modern amenity you’d expect, including a hookless bead, asymmetric drilling, and external nipples. Some readers may argue the 26mm internal width is too narrow for a trail rim, but a number of manufacturers have settled in this neighborhood. Mtbr paired these test wheels with a variety of 2.3 and 2.4 tires without complaint. A 2.6 tire might sit a little squared off, but you could probably get away with it.
The wheelset pictured with a 2.3 Maxxis Minion DHF tire.
While we didn’t try every tire combo in existence, Mtbr had exceptionally good luck mounting WTB and Maxxis tires with our bare hands. Both brands seated easily with just a floor pump, no compressed air required. This is what tubeless should feel like, but often doesn’t.
Purple hubs add extra HP.
Now, at this point, you might be expecting the familiar “vertically complaint, laterally stiff” trope. We’re not going to feed you the bull. Instead, we’ll be entirely honest. We really liked this wheelset. It’s the kind of product we’d recommend to our friends. They’re well priced with great US support, and they’ve been reliable. On the trail, they got to speed quickly and never felt overly harsh. Our only complaint is that under hard cornering, some flex was noticeable. Considering their overall weight and intended purpose, that’s forgivable.
Aside from that, the Nox Teocalli wheels have been solid. We’ve run our air pressure in the low to mid 20s for nearly a year without issues. Our local trails are fast, smooth, and flowy, which is the perfect recipe for burping. Under realistic PSI, that hasn’t happened. And despite abuse in some of the rockiest trails we could find, the rims are still rolling true. If you’re considering a carbon wheelset but don’t want to spend a small fortune, Nox Composites is an excellent option.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 
Price: $1,350 and up
More info: www.noxcomposites.com
The post Nox Teocalli carbon wheels review appeared first on Mountain Bike Review.