DT Swiss CR 1600 Spline 23 review

With the expanding popularity of adventure and gravel racing, DT Swiss has launched a new line of wheels for 2017. The Cross Road series is designed around the idea of exploration and pushing your boundaries, whether on the road, the cyclocross course or somewhere in between. For the last three months, we’ve had the chance to race, explore and commute on the DT Swiss CR 1600 Spline 23 wheelset. After putting them through their paces we’ve come out the other side very impressed.

The DT Swiss CR 1600 Spline 23 is an aluminium tubeless compatible wheelset with a combined weight of 1728 g. Despite their lightweight, these wheels are designed to take a beating, meaning you can confidently take them anywhere your bike handling skills will let you go. The internal 22 mm rim width will also help you accommodate tires wider than the UCI cyclocross legal 33 mm width.

Upgrading to these from a set of rather heavy stock wheels, I felt a massive difference in how the bike accelerated and how they maintained speed once they got going. The ability to accelerate during cyclocross races is obviously crucial and it was a great to feel the ease with which I was able to accelerate after re-mounting or making it up an excruciating off-camber uphill turn.

Beyond being just a set of lightweight rims, the DT Swiss CR 1600 Spline 23 uses the Ratchet System Hubs. It’s their quick engagement that helps produce those accelerations and lets you maintain that hard-earned speed. Compared to a traditional hub that uses pawls, the Ratchet System hubs have many more points of engagement. This translates into a greatly decreased angle of engagement. So what does that mean in terms of real-world results? The effect of this is that there is less time between you pushing on the pedals and the hub turning. That means less time between pushing on the pedals and you moving forward. And who doesn’t want to go faster for less effort?

The DT Swiss CR 1600 Spline 23 retails for $1,070.