You can break wheel makers down––heck, you can break life
down––into different categories, but the two categories that
we'll choose, for wheel purposes, are those who create, and
those who imitate.  In the case of Hed you've got a company that
spans the spectrum. Certainly Hed has been an innovator. The
concept of deep-dish wheels was barely considered when Hed came
out with its CX. It is still the only company to take rims to
the depth of its Hed Deep––a wheel which is still considered by
some to be the best non-disc wheel made. (Is Hed really the only
company to ever make a rim this deep? An exception to the above
statement might be a now-defunct, so far as we know, company
that used to put a permanent plastic cover on an already-built
wheel sent to them by the customer. That does not qualify as a
rim, though, so we're comfortable with our statement).  A
further testament to Hed's innovative bent is its intellectual
property––a patent with only two legal users, Hed and
Zipp––which allows for a rim to be an