Hunt x Mason: A collaboration
Hunt wheels and Mason cycles share many similarities. Both are young companies, both are Sussex based and both strive to produce performance products with the focus of our efforts on you the rider. Dom Mason and Tom Marchment, co-founder here at Hunt, also previously worked with each other several years ago. With this close relationship we had a good feeling that our shared dedication, progressive thinking and passion for all things bike would ignite some nice creative sparks that could deliver some unique bikes and wheels.
Dom Mason, owner of Mason Cycles, had set out on his own to design progressive, performance, hand-crafted four season disc brake bikes. During the Hunt Bike Wheels start-up phase, Tom was also working with Dom on planning and bike speccing for the Mason Cycles project. Dom delivers an incredible attention to detail on his bikes, a couple of examples include the versatile multi-port cabling system which allows seamless internal routing of electronic or cable gear set-ups, and the lengths Dom went to having his own mold created for the Aperture fork so the geometry, disk mounting and ride feel were perfect for fast four season riding. As the bike speccing progressed it quickly became obvious that the wheels also needed this similar focus as the disc wheels available from other brands either carried a significant weight penalty, at around 2kg a pair, or did not deliver the durability and compatibility required for 4 Season riding, spec choices such as high-quality dual-sealed bearings and brass nipples are essential for four season longevity. It was obvious; The Hunt X Mason 4 Season Disc Wheel concept was born as a direct result of the collaboration between our companies. We’ll let Dom take up the story:
“The mason hunt wheels once again have been designed to work with this bike. I went to Hunt wheels and told them my list of criteria and we worked together to make the perfect wheel for this bike, that doesn’t normally happen”
At Hunt Bike Wheels we pride ourselves on creating purpose focused bicycle wheels for devoted real-world riders, so when Dom asked us to create wheels for his bikes we were honoured. Now the real hard work started.
Scoping the requirements was relatively easy as both ourselves and Mason knew what was needed, strong, light, durable, fast. Then throw in the current technical compatibility needs for both centre-lock/6-bolt disc rotors and the myriad of hub axle conventions for road disc brakes, plus the variations in spokes tensions from disc hub spacing...we realised the wheels required some pretty specialist components to achieve all of this. At Hunt we relished a challenge and worked closely with our suppliers to develop, prototype, cobbled rolling-road test, real-world ride and bring to market a unique wheelset that answered all of these needs and complemented the ride and feel of the Mason bikes.
The result has been the amazing Mason Resolution and Definition bikes and the HUNT x MASON Four Season Disc wheelset. Not to mention almost a year of working with one of our closest friends and most respected piers. We are massively grateful that the first reviews, and your customer feedback, of both the bikes and wheels have been hugely positive. It all goes to show the power of collaboration.
This short film captures the design philosophy behind Mason Cycles and gives a short insight into how we worked together to create out 4 season Disc Wheels: