When the 2020/2021 beach racing season was cancelled, Belgian cycling magazine Grinta! didn’t let an empty calendar stop the testing. They spent a winter riding a 9th Wave 4-Shore wheelset up and down the Belgian coast and published their findings as a hands-on review.
What the 4-Shore beach racing test found
Grinta! measured a 42.5mm rim depth with a wide internal profile, and reported that the width let their tires, a Vittoria Tattoo and a Schwalbe G-One, mount properly and stay seated even at low pressure, with a broad contact patch for riding through loose sand. They also highlighted the rim’s anti-burp bead design, which keeps a tubeless tire seated below one bar of pressure, exactly the range beach racing calls for.
On aerodynamics, the review was direct: the tall rim never became a handling problem, and instead made it easier to hold speed on the long, straight stretches beach courses are built on.
Ridden by racers, not just reviewers
The bike in these photos belongs to Timothy Dupont, Belgian beach racing champion with Tarteletto–Isorex. Grinta! noted the 4-Shore came out of a collaboration with sand specialists, and that it’s the wheel serious beach racers were already riding. Dupont and Ivar Slik have gone wheel to wheel for the European title, with Slik taking the win — a rivalry between two riders who both race on the 4-Shore.
Built for this from the start
None of that is an accident. The 4-Shore was 9th Wave’s first dedicated beach racing wheel, developed to solve a specific problem: road rims were fast but far too narrow for beach tires, and standard MTB rims weren’t built for the discipline either. Grinta!’s numbers, measured back in 2021, are close to what the current 4-Shore still delivers: a 42mm depth and a wide internal profile, built specifically around wide, low-pressure beach tires.
Read it yourself
Read the full test at Grinta!, or view the 4-Shore in our webshop.
