Nine out of ten, and his favorite wheel package of the year.
Mick Kirkman tested the Sylvan Sidekick Race Carbon wheels for MBR, scored them 9 out of 10, and called them his favorite wheel package of 2024. His test bike was a Santa Cruz Tallboy, picked because its short travel shows pedal kickback at its worst.
e*thirteen's Sylvan Sidekick wheels are my favourite wheel package of 2024, giving a true chainless feel to your bike.
Mick Kirkman, MBR
What he found
He tested the Sylvan Sidekick carbon wheels, which pair our hubs with Flux rims. His pros list: extra comfort and better braking control, less noise in most situations, freer-feeling suspension, float that's easy to adjust, and rolling speed that's noticeably fast even coasting on the flat.
The rolling speed stood out. He swapped the Sylvans with Reserve SL carbon wheels he rates among the fastest trail wheels around, found little difference pedaling, and reckons that on flat, slightly downhill bumpy trail, the Sylvan rolls even faster. As a complete pair they weighed 1,895g, and he notes the extra hub weight matters less there than rim weight would.
One big root on his test loop had always been impossible to go light over. On the Sylvans, "the rear wheel just seemed to ride straight through it and over it." No bottomed-out tire, no clanging, no jab at the feet.
The braking discovery
A finding one wouldn't expect from a wheel review is about brakes.
He found the rear tire skipping much less over small holes and steps, and got the most out of it on steep rutted tracks where you're continually modulating the brake and stopping the wheel from locking. His words for how it left him on the Tallboy: really planted and stable.
The lag
The review has one con, and it's the lag. He found the drivetrain pick-up could be annoying, worst higher up the cassette, and thinks it would matter most to an XC racer or a technical-climbing enthusiast. For himself, it's barely a problem: climbing is his least favorite part of riding anyway.
The lag is the deadband doing its job, and it isn't one fixed number: the float you set at the hub changes with the gear you're in, broader climbing in the low gears than descending. A hub can't know what gear you're in. What we can control is how small the shortest setting is, and the 2.0 hubs that replaced his test set open at 9 degrees instead of 12. That's as close to a traditional fast-engagement hub as this design gets, snappy off the pedal with the kickback absorption still working. The lag he reviewed is the one complaint 2.0 was built to answer.
His verdict holds both halves: he totally gets why downhill racers are winning big races on it, and loves the feeling himself. He's telling you which rider he is.
Our take
Kirkman tells you who might notice the lag, an XC racer or a technical-climb enthusiast, and then scores the wheels 9 out of 10 anyway and names them his favorite wheel package of 2024. With the current hubs opening at 9 degrees, the lag he flagged is about as close to moot as this design allows, and everything he praised for it, the chainless feel, the braking grip, the rolling speed, is still there.
His closing word on the wheels: a damped ride, no issues, and a more cost-efficient way to try the design than the hub alone. His one suggestion for us: a demo fleet, so riders can try it before committing. Fair.
The whole Sidekick Flux wheel range, in three tiers, is on the Flux wheels page.
