XC-Lite Carbon

Why XC Lite?

XC Lite is a specialist XC racing wheelset - a purpose‑built tool designed to help you get the most speed and efficiency out of you and your bike. It’s not a multi‑purpose trail wheelset and it’s not intended for general riding. XC Lite exists for one job: to go fast under race conditions.

Every aspect of the rim, spoke options, and overall construction is tuned for the demands of modern cross‑country racing. Sharp, responsive handling, rapid acceleration, and efficient power transfer. If you want the lightest, cleanest, most direct feeling from your bike during an XC race effort, this is the wheelset tuned for it.

XC Lite suits riders who know exactly what they want from their race wheels: maximum efficiency on climbs, crisp handling through tight sections, energy-saving comfort on descents and confident precision at speed.

XC Lite wheels can be as light as 988 grams per pair, including tubeless tape and wheel decals.

World Championship Proven

An early prototype of the XC Lite was ridden by Sammie Maxwell to win the U23 XC World Championship and kickstart her professional career.  While Sammie's perseverance and undeniable talent would have seen her win on basically any combination of bike and wheels, her choosing to use the XC Lites still proved their performance potential at the highest level of international competition.

Hub options

All the hubs we sell can be ridden hard and maintained easily. 

We'll ensure they fit your current bike but they're also versatile and adaptable enough to move to your next one. Want to go deeper? Check out the hub deep-dives on our hub portal for the full rundown on each option or get in touch with your hub related questions.

Spoke options

We offer a range of spokes from Alpina and Berd.

The spoke choice comes down to how the wheel feels: weight, stiffness, liveliness and comfort. Want the full picture? Check out the spoke deep-dives on our spoke portal for a closer look at each option, or get in touch and we'll help you choose.

Lifetime guarantee

We back our work. XC Lite wheels are covered by our lifetime warranty against defects in materials and workmanship, plus our lifetime guarantee against impact damage and broken spokes under normal riding conditions.

We build XC Lite wheels to be ridden. A well‑looked‑after wheelset shouldn’t regularly break spokes, lose tension, or fall badly out of true.

Our lifetime warranty is there to cover anything that slips through the cracks with components or wheelbuilding. If there’s an issue that comes back to us, we’ll fix it.

If something we can control goes wrong, we’ll put it right.  For full details of coverage and what counts as crash or impact damage, please refer to our main Wheelworks Lifetime Guarantee.

Rims: light, wide, XC‑focused

Modern XC race courses are technical, punchy, and rough. The XC Lite is designed for this abuse and optimised to enable your best performance in such challenging terrain.

30mm internal-width is wide enough for modern XC tyres so the casing is properly supported and doesn’t squirm in corners.

Differential front and rear rims . Front rims are lighter (257 grams) and use a carbon layup designed for increased vertical compliance. Rear rims (288 grams) have extra material and a different fibre orientation to deal with hard accelerations

• Low profile depth to keep sidewinds in check and compliance on rough ground.
• Reinforced at the bead and spoke bed to handle rock strikes and hard compressions.
• We’ll recommend the best rim option for your bike, weight, and terrain when you get in touch.

Weights

Hookless bead and tubeless‑ready

XC Lite rims use a hookless bead and are fully tubeless‑ready.

• 30mm internal width keeps the tyre locked in place and work with a broad range of tyre casings.
• Rims are shipped with tubeless tape installed and high flow valves so you can go tubeless straight away.
• If you prefer tubes, that’s fine too - the rims work perfectly with standard tube setups.
• Max tyre pressure of 30 psi

If you’re new to tubeless or unsure about sealant, tyre choice, or pressures, we’re happy to walk you through the options.

3‑axis spoke nipple drilling

A big contributor to broken spokes is forcing them to bend awkwardly between hub and rim. To avoid that, we drill spoke holes in the XC Lite rims at carefully calculated angles in three dimensions.

This lets the nipple sit in line with the spoke in both side‑to‑side and front‑to‑back directions. Combined with spoke lengths measured to tight tolerances, this reduces stress at the nipple and helps prevent fatigue‑related spoke failures over time.

Our choice of hubs complements this by using angled flanges that point towards the rim, further smoothing the spoke path and increasing long‑term reliability.

Tyre size matching

We’ve designed XC Lite around the tyre sizes that real riders actually use: Fast 2.2–2.4" tyres for racing.  Running these tyres on a properly matched rim keeps the casing round, which:

• Improves small‑bump comfort and grip.
• Makes the front wheel feel more predictable when you lean into corners.
• Reduces the need to over‑inflate tyres just to stop them feeling vague.

If you’re unsure on tyre choice or pressures, we’re happy to talk it through.

Max rider weight

XC Lite is optimised for riders up to 85kg using XC race style full suspension or hardtail frames.

For riders over 85kg, or for riders with longer travel Trail oriented bikes where higher lateral and vertical loads can be generated, we recommend our TrailLite wheelset. The TrailLite uses a stiffer, stronger rim profile designed to handle these forces for better performance and durability.

e‑MTB and downcountry use

The XC Lite is aimed at short‑ to mid‑travel XC bikes and is not designed for ebike use.

We’ll help you decide whether XC Lite or one of our other wheelsets such at the TrailLite is the right choice for you.

What's in the box

• Ready to ride: Your new Wheelworks arrive pre-taped and fitted with high-flow tubeless valves - straight out of the box.
• Free tracked delivery: Courier delivery is free of charge throughout New Zealand and Australia.
• Packaging we're proud of: Your wheels ship in a custom-made cardboard box, produced in-house on our CNC. Made from 68–71% recycled material, sourced from sustainably managed forests in Kawerau and Tokoroa. No single-use plastic, no styrofoam. Designed for multiple uses and fully recyclable.

Production, COO, and EOL

We’re transparent about where XC Lite components come from:  rims are manufactured to our specifications by a specialist carbon partner in mainland China.

At the moment there’s no practical large‑scale recycling stream for carbon rims, but our experience is that a well‑designed carbon rim will outlast multiple aluminium rims used in the same way.

Aluminium hub shells, stainless steel spokes, and brass nipples can be recycled at most metal recyclers once they’ve finally done their duty.

If you ever retire your Wheelworks wheelset and aren’t sure what to do with it, get in touch and we’ll help with the best options at the time.

Image Gallery

#newwheelworksday for Bradley

Spoke nipples: Black Brass