Review: Over 1 Year Riding The Forge And Bond Shift AM | All Mountain Fusion Fiber Wheels

I've Had The Forge And Bond Shift AM | All Mountain Fusion Fiber Wheels For Over 1 Year Now And This Is What I Think.

I've had the Forge And Bond Shift AM | All Mountain Fusion Fiber Wheels for a bit over a year now on my Commencal T.E.M.P.O. and the results are good. As soon I I swapped the heavy stock wheels with some generic Formula hubs with these F+B Shift wheels the T.E.M.P.O. felt so much easy to pedal and get up to speed! The bike felt so much snappier and alive. With the stock wheels It's like the bike had taken a 4 hour Sunday afternoon nap and upon waking up rode like a hungover 50 year that tried to party with some younger friends the night before and then putting on the new Fusion Fiber wheels from Forge and Bond the bike acted like it shook off 30 years and popped an adderall chased with a Monster. Besides the added energy and liveliness the bike gained it also rode with a much smoother damped feel. I've talked about that vibration muting dampness before when I reviewed the more expensive Forge and Bond 30 EM wheels. It's not a trail deading mute feeling by any means. You can still feel the trail and feel like you have direct control over everything the bike is doing, but it mutes out the vibrations, the numb hands and pain in wrists and arms. The main difference in the Shift wheels vs those more pricey ones is about $650 and an in house hub from Forge and Bond vs. I9 Hydra hubs.  The stock Formula hubs have around 18 POE vs the 162 POE of the F+B hub. Ratcheting up and over things or needing to pedal back to avoid an obstacle and then get back on the pedals again is a lot more responsive with less free movement. Having that engagement come faster come in handy in technical sections of trail. These hubs have more POE than the I9 1/1 and less than the I9 Hydras. I honestly think it's a sweet spot of not being to slow or too fast to engage. I notice I actually get a lot of pedal kickback with my Hydras where I don't with the in house hubs from Forge and Bond.

After a year of charging all types of trails on these Shift AM's they are still as true as the day I got them mounted up! Pretty cool considering I weight like 250 lbs and have smashed into some stuff I shouldn't have more than a couple times. There are no cracks, or wounds that would cause one to worry nor have they had to be sent off for warranty or repair from F+B. Which, by the way that warranty is lifetime hassle free so you can ride like you wanna ride without being a nervous ninny.

They still feel just a good as the day I put them on as well. They still feel like they give the bike an energy boost on the trails and help the T.E.M.P.O create and keep speed all over the mountain. I would consider these wheels a really good value too priced at only $1000 right now.

Sustainability

Forge And Bond Wheels not only have an amazing ride feel. You can feel good about buying them knowing they are better for the environment too. That is something I know not all mountain bikers care about but it probably should be. If you care about mountain biking you should also care about the mountains where we ride our bikes. Knowing that Forge and Bond builds their wheels in a sustainable manner, are 100% recyclable, produce zero carbon dust, haven't thrown away any composite material in over three years and proactively reclaim material through their warranty program and are made 100% in the U.S.A. make me feel pretty good about owning a pair.

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