ENVE SES 3.4 Disc Wheel - Rear

The ENVE SES 3.4 Disc Wheel - Rear is the deeper half of ENVE's most versatile road wheel pairing, built with a 42mm rim profile designed to work alongside the shallower 38mm front wheel rather than as a matched, symmetrical set. That asymmetry is deliberate: the front wheel stays shallow enough to hold its line in a crosswind, while the deeper rear wheel sits in cleaner, less turbulent air behind it and recaptures aerodynamic efficiency the front wheel can't use on its own. It's the kind of detail that separates a wheel designed around how air actually moves around a bike from one that just looks fast on a spec sheet.

Sitting between the shallower SES 2.3 and the deeper SES 4.5 in ENVE's lineup, the SES 3.4 is built to be the one wheel that does almost everything — raced at the WorldTour level on tarmac and just as often lined up at gravel races like Unbound. The full carbon rim carries a 25mm internal width and ENVE's patent-pending Wide Hookless Bead design, which shapes the leading edge of the rim to reduce the chance of pinch-flatting a tubeless tire on a hard hit. That bead geometry also gives the rim more precise, consistent dimensions than a standard hookless design, which matters for getting a clean tubeless seal and holding air reliably ride after ride. Combined with the higher-volume tire fit that a 25mm internal width allows, it's a rim built to hold pressure and shape consistently, whether you're descending on smooth pavement or picking a line through washboard gravel.

The rear wheel builds around ENVE's Innerdrive Premium Road Hub, a straight-pull design that saves roughly 60 grams over the brand's previous-generation hub while adding features aimed squarely at long-term ownership rather than just launch-day weight numbers. The hubshell accepts four interchangeable ratchet options — 40, 60, 80, or 100 tooth — so a rider can tune engagement speed to their own preference, trading a little extra drag for near-instant power delivery out of a hard pedal stroke, or the reverse. The straight-pull spoke pattern also means a single spoke length works for a given rim diameter, which simplifies wheel builds and future rebuilds alike, and an anti-twist spoke hole keeps spokes from twisting during initial lacing or under load out on the road. Wider spacing between spoke crossings eliminates the spoke-on-spoke creak that shows up on some straight-pull wheels after a season of hard riding, which is a small detail until it's the thing you notice on every ride.

As part of a complete SES 3.4 wheelset, the pairing comes in at 1390 grams — light enough to feel quick out of a climbing switchback, but the 42mm rear depth means it doesn't give up speed on flatter, faster terrain the way a true climbing wheel would. On the road, that translates to a wheel that holds speed on rolling terrain and fast group rides without adding the handling penalty a full-depth aero wheel brings in gusty conditions, since the front wheel is doing the work of staying settled while the rear captures the aero gain. That division of labor is the whole idea behind the mismatched depths, and it's a large part of why the SES 3.4 has become a common sight at both road races and mixed-surface gravel events where conditions and terrain change from one mile to the next.

The versatility extends to tire choice as well. The high-volume rim shape and Wide Hookless Bead were engineered around the wider tubeless tires that have become standard on both road and gravel setups, rather than being retrofitted to fit them, so riders running anything from a fast 28mm road tire to a wider gravel tire get a rim built for that tire's actual shape and pressure range. That's a meaningful difference from older, narrower carbon rims that were designed around tires nobody runs anymore.

This is a wheel for riders who don't want to choose between an aero wheel and a durable, do-anything wheel — someone building a road bike for century rides and the occasional race, or a gravel bike that also sees plenty of pavement. The tubeless-specific rim design and serviceable hub make it a wheel built to be ridden hard across surfaces rather than reserved for perfect-pavement race days, and buying the rear separately makes sense for anyone replacing a damaged wheel or building a mixed setup without needing a full new set.