ENVE Composites

The wheels under Brandon McNulty on September 27, when he rode the last 33 kilometers in Montreal alone and became the first American man to win the elite road world title since 1993, were ENVE SES 4.5 PRO wheels. ENVE molds its rims in Ogden, in an 80,000 square foot building where engineering and production share a roof. The company got its start in the corner of a dune buggy shop.

Jason Schiers took the long way into bikes. A 2012 Bikerumor factory tour traced his path from a surf wear company to a Las Vegas machine shop that built safety harnesses for Cirque du Soleil, where he made his name turning around replacement parts overnight. He picked up carbon fiber on aerospace and NASCAR jobs, then worked on wheels at Lew and Reynolds.

Edge Composites, which Schiers started in Ogden in 2007, was meant to make structural carbon parts for cars. Then Brett and Taylor Satterthwaite, cousins who owned a dune buggy company called Dune's Edge, led him to a closet full of mountain bikes worth $5,000 and up and told him to make parts for those. The cousins put up the money. Rims came first, molded in a corner of the Satterthwaites' 5,000 square foot building, and the carbon business grew until it pushed the dune buggies out.

The Edge name lasted until 2010, when it ran into a trademark already held in Europe. The founder's explanation was more candid than most announcements manage.

"When we started the company three years ago, we were focused mainly on gaining a foothold in the domestic market... frankly, we didn't consider checking for trademark registrations outside of the U.S."

Jason Schiers, founder, announcing the ENVE name in 2010

Utah bet on the company early. In 2012 the state approved a tax credit tied to 324 new jobs over seven years, and then CEO Sarah Lehman said the support would make "on-shoring jobs from Asia and our expansion possible." ENVE moved into its current Ogden building in 2016, the same year Amer Sports bought it for $50 million. Amer agreed in April 2024 to sell it to PV3, a Utah investment firm whose principal Mark Hancock described himself as "a Utah native and cyclist." The rims never left town. Jonny Hintze of ENVE told Cycling West in 2013, "100% of ENVE's rims have always been made in Ogden."

Much of the price is inside the rim. On that 2012 tour, each rim was laid up around a bladder of a proprietary material that can't be reused, so every rim got a new one. The spoke holes are molded instead of drilled, a process ENVE patented, and Bikerumor reported that it keeps the carbon fibers continuous around each hole. It also means a separate mold for every spoke count. Lead engineer Kevin Nelson said the rims "come out of the mold perfectly smooth and require almost no finishing. We don't even clearcoat them." The finish on the rim is whatever the mold left.

The SES 4.5 PRO that McNulty rode weighs 1,295 grams a pair and costs $3,750. ENVE says it was developed with input from Tadej Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates XRG over two seasons. The warranty covers rims for the original owner's lifetime at no charge, and frames get the same terms. ENVE's warranty page lists "driving your roof mounted bike into the garage" among the ways a rider might exceed the limits of the product. Anyone who has owned a roof rack understands how that phrase got into a legal document.

The fine print has a limit. Free crash replacement on rims runs for three years, then drops to 30 percent off list, and a rear SES 4.5 PRO lists at $2,050 by itself.

By 2012 the company was also rolling carbon tubes for other people's bikes. Bikerumor reported that, Serotta and Seven aside, a custom builder using carbon tubes was probably using ENVE's, and that the same roll wrapping machine turned out tubes for archery and military customers. ENVE even wrapped wood veneer into tubes for Independent Fabrication, a carbon company putting the wood back in.

The newest thing on the shelf is gravel. In May ENVE launched the G SES line, three gravel wheelsets it calls "the fastest gravel wheels ever built," manufactured in Ogden. ENVE's spec pages list internal widths of 30 and 35 millimeters, and the lightest set, the G SES 4.5 PRO, weighs 1,480 grams a pair. The two PRO sets cost $3,100 each. The G SES 4.5 is $2,800.

ENVE sells direct at enve.com, and its dealer locator sorts shops into Ride Centers, which keep ENVE bikes on the floor, and retail partners. The Ogden factory holds an annual open house, free, with tours of the manufacturing floor. The next one is June 25, 2027, the day before the Grodeo, a 92 mile gravel ride with 8,300 feet of climbing in the northern Wasatch. About 300 riders did it this June.

This year ENVE put its name on Mick Schumacher's No. 47 IndyCar, and Schumacher rides a custom painted ENVE Melee styled after his helmet. The wheels are the part that never moved. Nearly two decades after that corner of the dune buggy shop, ENVE still molds its rims in Ogden, next to the engineers who design them.