Santa Cruz has Reserve, Specialized's wheel brand is called Roval, Scott owns the Syncros component brand and Giant builds wheels for its road, gravel and mountain bikes under the Cadex label. Orbea will also be jumping on this bandwagon from 2023 and launching its own brand for wheels. The Basque company will develop, produce and sell its own wheels under the label Oquo (pronounced oko). And of course in their Orbea complete bikes like the OizRallon or Rise. We were in the Basque Country ourselves a few weeks ago and were able to take a look at Orbea's new wheel production facility. The new production hall is only a 20-minute drive from the headquarters in Mallabia. However, the new Oquo wheels have not just been manufactured there for a few weeks. Orbea has been planning the launch of its new wheel brand for a long time and has been working on the production of the round wheels on site for 1.5 years. The 1.5 years have been used to acquire expertise in wheel construction, train staff and set up series production. In the first stage, there will be five Oquo wheel models for 2023, all in the mountain bike sector:
Orbea Oquo MTB wheels - the facts
- only DT Swiss hubs (350 & 240) and Sapim spokes
- 3 Mountain Performance models for Cross & Down Country
- 2 Mountain Control models for Trail, Enduro, E-MTB
- Carbon and aluminium rims
- 3-year guarantee
- Crash replacement
- Decals can be customised
- Prices:
Oquo impeller construction: A mix of man and machine
All Oquo wheels use rims with asymmetrical profiles, spoke holes with angled offsets and reinforced rim flanges around the spoke holes. These ingredients are intended to make the MTB wheels easier to cope with tough off-road use and make them as durable as possible. In addition, the rims of the front and rear wheels are not identical. In some cases, two millimetre wider rims are used at the front of the wheelsets than at the rear. For better protection against punctures in the tubeless setup, the developers have worked on the rim shape. How well all this detailed work works and how durable the Oquo wheels really are in rough trail use will only become apparent in the first tests and over time. However, it will also become clear that Orbea does not simply combine individual components from the Far East to create a wheel, but is seriously involved with its own development department and test laboratory. For hubs and spokes, Orbea relies exclusively on proven technology for all Oquo wheels. The Sapim spokes are always centred around high-quality DT Swiss hubs (350 and 240).
The Oquo wheels are all built in the factory in the Basque Country. Partly by hand, partly with robotic assistance. For example, the fine-tuning of spoke tension, lateral and radial run-out is always carried out by trained employees with precision tools. The preparatory work, such as evenly increasing the spoke tension, is carried out by ultra-modern robots.
Two Oquo wheels for trail to E-MTB
The two Mountain Control (MC) models are designed for trail, enduro and e-mountainbike use. They are designed to offer the best ride feel and handling on the most technically demanding terrain. Robustness is more important than weight with these MTB wheels, because a defect can mean the end of a race or a long journey home. The Oquo MC 32 LTD come with hookless carbon rims in 32/30 millimetre width, DT Swiss 350 hubs and 28/34 spokes. The carbon wheels are only available in 29 inches and cost 1599 euros. They can also be selected as an upgrade option in the Orbea MyO configurator when putting together new Orbea bikes. The aluminium version - the Oquo MC 32 Team - is also available for 27.5-inch bikes. The price is 699 euros for the set.
Three new Oquo models for cross country and trail bikes
Orbea has geared the Mountain Performance segment towards lighter, faster bikes. The three Oquo wheels with narrower rims should also be as light as possible despite their good stiffness and durability so that they can be used on bikes with less suspension travel. Two wheels have 30 millimetre wide carbon rims, one comes with 28 millimetre aluminium rims:
MP30 LTD: 1999 Euro / DT Swiss 240S hub / 24-28 spokes / 1300 grams
MP30 Team: 1299 euros / DT Swiss 350 hub / 28-28 spokes / 1480 grams
MP28 PRO: 599 Euro / DT Swiss 350 hub / 28-28 spokes
