New wheels on my Allez
Hi, as there are usually lots of discussions about wheel upgrades on a budget I thought I would share my recent purchase with you. Having returned to cycling about 9 months ago after a long break I bought a s\h allez off ebay to get me started.
This is used for daily commuting and has been great apart from one problem, spokes snapping on the rear wheel. This has been getting increasingly worse (7 in total and 3 in the space of 5 days !) and I have being looking at some alternatives for a while.
Like most things in life these days, there is so much choice I had no idea where to start. I looked at fulcrums 5's, shimano 105's, low end Mavic's and handbuilts. In the end I decided that as my allez is used for commuting, for me the main concern had to be reliability. Whilst the aero bladed factory wheels looked really good, the cost and local availabilty of replacement spokes put me off.
So in the end I decided to go for some handbuilts. The next question was were from. Luckily I have a really good LBS (Schmoos in Swansea) who the built me up a set of Mavic CX22 rims with 105 hubs and DT Swiss spokes. I fitted them last weekend along with a set of 105 brakes I picked up cheap.
This has transformed the bike, the 105 hubs seem really smooth compared to the old richey ones and seem to freewheel for much longer. The brakes are also much much better than the old specialized ones. So I am really pleased with th new wheels and would definatley recommend handbuilts.
This is used for daily commuting and has been great apart from one problem, spokes snapping on the rear wheel. This has been getting increasingly worse (7 in total and 3 in the space of 5 days !) and I have being looking at some alternatives for a while.
Like most things in life these days, there is so much choice I had no idea where to start. I looked at fulcrums 5's, shimano 105's, low end Mavic's and handbuilts. In the end I decided that as my allez is used for commuting, for me the main concern had to be reliability. Whilst the aero bladed factory wheels looked really good, the cost and local availabilty of replacement spokes put me off.
So in the end I decided to go for some handbuilts. The next question was were from. Luckily I have a really good LBS (Schmoos in Swansea) who the built me up a set of Mavic CX22 rims with 105 hubs and DT Swiss spokes. I fitted them last weekend along with a set of 105 brakes I picked up cheap.
This has transformed the bike, the 105 hubs seem really smooth compared to the old richey ones and seem to freewheel for much longer. The brakes are also much much better than the old specialized ones. So I am really pleased with th new wheels and would definatley recommend handbuilts.
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