Initial Review: Hope 20Five-Pro 4

The 20five is Hope’s latest Road Disc/Cyclocross wheel built on their legendary Pro 4 hub. They retail at £380 but you can find them for around the £350 mark online.

They are alloy wheels built with 32 spokes. The rim is 24mm wide externally with a 20mm internal width. This gives a nice plump tyre when inflated.

In the box you get a set of QR adapters, as well as a 15mm thru-axle adapter for the front wheel and a 142x12mm adapter for the rear wheel. This gives you a lot of compatibility with frames, however the lack of a 12mm front adapter (sold separately) in the box does seem a bit silly given Road Disc frames seem to be converging on 12mm front and rear axles as standard.

They are tubeless compatible however I’m currently using tubes as my tyres are not tubeless ready. I’ll do a follow up review later when I get my hands on some. I’ve used tubeless for a few years on my Foxy so I’ll be interested to see how easy these are to set up.

I’ve been using these for over a week now and I’ve done around 140km on them and I must say I’m impressed so far. They are lightweight, stiff and due to the 4 pawl, 44 tooth engagement in the rear hub they pick up like no other wheelset I’ve used before. There’s a muted energy to them that feels like every once of effort you put in is used with nothing wasted.

Due to their stiffness the road buzz was a bit harsher than my previous wheelset but dropping my tyres by 5psi made it go away entirely.

In typical Hope fashion the hubs are loud but it’s not an ugly sound in my opinion. It does however render the use of a bell moot when using shared cycle paths, freewheel for a few seconds and everybody will hear you coming.

So far, I love these wheels. They have changed my bike significantly and given it a sense of urgency that didn’t exist before. However I’ll be interested to know what their reliability is like, one thing I am known for as a heavier rider is breaking spokes often but I’m hoping these will stand up to the test of time.