Budget lightweight wheelsets?

toasty

Although not intending to buy any right now I've been having a look at wheelsets recently, the lightweight XC/trail side seems to go:

2100g-1900g = ~£100 (Crossrides and a lot of customs)
1900g-1800g = ~£200 (Halo Excite-Ds)
1800g-1600g = ~£300 (2008 XT XC, FSA XC-300, Hope Pro IIIs)
1600g-1400g = ~£400+ (Mavic Crossmax SLs, Bontrager Race X Light, Customs with Olympics)

Does anyone know of any bargains that break these rules? I noticed CRC are selling some "American Classic 350" wheels for £275 which come in at 1400g, obviously not being a common brand over here in fishandchipsland things like warranty is a bit concerning.

I'd probably be looking for some reliable 1600gish wheels, don't want to cut too many corners or they'll collapse. The 2008 XT XC wheelset looked interesting, might appear for cheaper in 6 months or so? All the customs I've calculated seem to come in a bit heavy bizarrely, any bargains to be found here?

Oh and I don't really dare use ebay for something like this, crash damage isn't instantly noticable.

nicklouse

not a fan of the American classic rear hubs seen soooooooo many bust.

there was a XC wheel test in MBUK a few issues back.

toasty

Yeah, they just sort of highlighted the above rules though, just curious if there were any OE bargains or something floating around. There's been a couple of wheelset grouptests recently, nothing exceptional really stands out from the crowd.

Seems a shame about the American Classics, I'd happily take 1600g wheels with sturdier hubs. Their rims come in at ~350g which is pretty good, 32 spokes (standard spokes so replacable) then they attach all this to a dodgy hub. Sods!

ddoogie

XT on 717 is a super cheap and relatively light combo. I like my set!

Splasher

I can highly recommend ProIIs laced to XC717 with Sapim CX-Ray bladed spokes

779g front http://i4.pinkbike.com/photo/880/pbpic880917.jpg
880g rear http://i3.pinkbike.com/photo/880/pbpic880916.jpg

1659g including rim tape, £330

If you're not as heavy as me (15 1/2 stone), you could build them with DT Revolution spokes for about £100 less but the same weight.

toasty

ddoogie wrote:

XT on 717 is a super cheap and relatively light combo. I like my set!

From browsing around they all seem to be about 1800g-2000g for some reason, maybe it's just the places I'm looking are cutting corners on spokes.

£237 for the Pro IIs with DT Revo spokes from Merlin, pretty nice. I'm about 13 stone 10 lbs at the mo, might be a bit hefty for them. Is the weight saving over the XT coming from using 24 spokes over the XT using 32/36 spokes?

20 more spokes in total, 20 x ~14g = ~280g more which would be inline with what I've seen roughly.

Splasher

You can get ProIIs and XC717s with 32 spokes for the weights I've quoted. The weight saving is that ProII hubs are much lighter than XT hubs

toasty

M765 XT Hub, front, quoted as 180g

Hope Pro II 32 spoke disc hub, also quoted as 180g

The new XT hub is quoted as 10g lighter this year as well, the one there is the 2007 jobby.

nicklouse

have a look here

http://www.wheelpro.co.uk/

toasty

Ah, that looks handy, cheers

Splasher

Toasty wrote:

M765 XT Hub, front, quoted as 180g

Hope Pro II 32 spoke disc hub, also quoted as 180g

The new XT hub is quoted as 10g lighter this year as well, the one there is the 2007 jobby.

Funny you didn't quote the rears though eh which are XT M760 370g and ProII 285g

toasty

Ah nice Sorry was just finding one level peg to compare them on. The DT Swiss wheel building tool is awesome on their website, allowing you to put in different setups and predicting a weight.

supersonic

Why not XTR hubs? Only a little more than Hope, and a far better hug IMHO.

supersonic

Oh, 14g spokes doesnt refer to the weight, its 14 guage!

toasty

Yeah, sorry, spotted that I think I'm just about on the ball now. 64 x DT Revo's are 283g which is what I'm using as the weight. Suddenly custom wheels are seeming much more sensible.

I've also just realised the vast majority of the factory wheels are infact just custom parts rebranded.

supersonic

XTR, on 717 with DT revs. Superb wheelset.

toasty

Wow, I see what you mean, they are quite an impressive (quoted) weight:

Hub + 32xSpoke + Rim = Total
145 + 141.5 + 395 = 681.5g (front)
270 + 141.5 + 395 = 806.5g (rear)

Total - 1488g

(Compared to Crossmax SL for example, 685g/835g total:1520g)

Excluding rim tape, skewers etc (which don't come with the hub, shame). The ZTR rims scare me for some reason, they'd knock off another 100g (using 355s) but I'd fear them flying off as seems to be mentioned on the MTBR reviews. Besides, I'm not that scared of the weight, just curious how customs compared. Cheers for your help everyone

nicklouse

Toasty get them from wheel pro and they do.

toasty

nicklouse wrote:

Toasty get them from wheel pro and they do.

True, he doesn't seem to do XC717s tho, admittedly DT 4.2Ds are only 5g heavier tho and get similar reviews.

So £280 for black DT Revo spokes, XTR hubs and DT 4.2D rims from Wheelpro. £40 more than Merlin (which would easily be worth it for a decent build + skewers obviously). Has anyone used Wheel Pro before?

supersonic

Wheel Pro is home of Roger Musson, one of the most respected wheel builders in the country.

nicklouse

re the rims give him a call.

He has built for most of the top riders in his time. he wrote the hope manual. and books on wheel building.

have a look on his home page there is a link to the strong wheels topic in tech on here.

i know people who have bought from him and have been very happy.

The Big Cheese

Toasty, I Paid £244 from Merlin

XTR M975 (XTR hubs some with skewers) on 4.2d with skewers and rimtape

Turned up today - very sweet!

Just got to buy cassette then will fit them (don't want to put my old one on new wheels - Im funny like that :? )

Splasher

XTR Hubs are great - I don't agree they're better than ProII but they are just as good. However, something to consider with XTR hubs - do you already have centrelock discs. If so fine, otherwise you have to factor in both the cost and the additional weight.

The additional cost will be about £20 a rotor and the weight will be about another 50g per end (based on 160mm XT centrelock rotors at 148g and 160mm mono minis at 98g).

toasty

Ooh, good comeback, I'd factored the cost of rotors, mine are far too hefty. Hadn't really taken into account the weight difference tho, even XTR rotors are quoted as 118g (the one I could actually find a weight on).

Taking the 2x Hub + 2x Rotor weight to:

XTR - 651g
Hope - 661g

There are a few 6 bolt rotors you can get at that weight so it seems a fair figure to use.

Sorry, I'm not normally this anal about weights, hehe.

Splasher

You need to add another 20g to the Centre lock weight - 10g per lock ring x 2 - since 118g excludes lock-rings.

Andy

Splasher wrote:

You need to add another 20g to the Centre lock weight - 10g per lock ring x 2 - since 118g excludes lock-rings.

If you chose to use a centrelock hub but keep a 6 bolt rotor, the centrelock hub with adaptor is less than a 6 bolt hub with 6 ti bolts

clubsport911

I have XC 717's on Hopes on my bikes but (strange as this may sound) never really thought about upgrading them.

AFAIK, the spokes are "cooking" so if I wandered into my local shop and said:- "pimp my spokes", what should I be looking for ?

I'm interested in low weight, black and bladed if possible.

Also, sorry for silly Q, but is the 717 Mavic's best rim ?

supersonic

717 is mavics top after market rim for XC. The ones on CrossMaxes are somewhat different.

With spokes, DT Revolution or Sapim CXray are the racers choice.

clubsport911

Thanks for advice... will investigate.

Not sure I fit into the category "racer" though :P