Which Wheelset?

peanut1978

Currently starting a bike build and looking for a wheelset around £200.

Which wheelset would be best all round purchase?

kfinlay

Pro-Lite Bracianno - £186 from Ribble! light stiff(ish) and comfortable

Headhuunter

Yeah from what I've heard they're very good for that price.... The list price is a lot higher and they got excellent reviews

lfcquin

I just got a pair of wheels from Harry Rowland for bang on £200 including delivery.

They are Ambrosio (Nova tec) hubs on Kinlin XR 240 rims with Sapim race spokes and weigh in at about 1730g. They are £185.00 and delivery was £15.00.

Only used them a few times so far, but they are much better than any other wheel I have tried at that price point. I went to Harry because I was fed up of unreliable cheap factory wheels.

ridley2010

It depends what you need as the Bracciano are going to be stiffer, handbuilts have a slightly softer feel to them. I've had Ksyrium Elites and Campag Eurus and then switched to handbuilts on my commuter and they felt weird to start with.

Headhuunter

ridley2010 wrote:

It depends what you need as the Bracciano are going to be stiffer, handbuilts have a slightly softer feel to them. I've had Ksyrium Elites and Campag Eurus and then switched to handbuilts on my commuter and they felt weird to start with.

I think all Pro Lite wheels are hand built aren't they? My Pro Lite Comos (cheaper than the Braccianos) have a sticker which says "hand built" and an authenticity number stamped on it... The Pro Lite wheels are low spoke count, high tension wheels though which may mean they are stiffer and feel different.

markos1963

Headhuunter wrote:

ridley2010 wrote:

It depends what you need as the Bracciano are going to be stiffer, handbuilts have a slightly softer feel to them. I've had Ksyrium Elites and Campag Eurus and then switched to handbuilts on my commuter and they felt weird to start with.

I think all Pro Lite wheels are hand built aren't they? My Pro Lite Comos (cheaper than the Braccianos) have a sticker which says "hand built" and an authenticity number stamped on it... The Pro Lite wheels are low spoke count, high tension wheels though which may mean they are stiffer and feel different.

Nearly all wheels are 'handbuilt' the difference with factory wheels is that they are tensioned and trued on machines. The adding of 'handbuilt' stickers to factory wheels is designed to make unsuspecting buyers think they are getting something extra for their money.

ride_whenever

this is fairly interesting reading...

Headhuunter

markos1963 wrote:

Headhuunter wrote:

ridley2010 wrote:

It depends what you need as the Bracciano are going to be stiffer, handbuilts have a slightly softer feel to them. I've had Ksyrium Elites and Campag Eurus and then switched to handbuilts on my commuter and they felt weird to start with.

I think all Pro Lite wheels are hand built aren't they? My Pro Lite Comos (cheaper than the Braccianos) have a sticker which says "hand built" and an authenticity number stamped on it... The Pro Lite wheels are low spoke count, high tension wheels though which may mean they are stiffer and feel different.

Nearly all wheels are 'handbuilt' the difference with factory wheels is that they are tensioned and trued on machines. The adding of 'handbuilt' stickers to factory wheels is designed to make unsuspecting buyers think they are getting something extra for their money.

I'm sure they can't claim they're hand built when they aren't! Trading standards would be down on them.... The following is from the Pro Lite website:

"All our wheels are hand built at every stage. We do things the hard way at Pro-Lite right down to soaking the nipples in oil for 2 weeks before we build the wheels. Each spoke is checked 6 times for tension during the building process and so strict is our QC control that we reject around 40% of our wheels after final truing for being more than 0.05mm out of true.


All our gauges used for tension checking and truing are re-calibrated twice a day with a computer controlled checking system. Each batch of spokes is QC checked for strength prior to building using our own testing machine. It is this machine that led us to discover that our spokes are 30% stronger than any others on the market.


Don’t be fooled by dubious words describing the virtues of some brands' products and especially the rubbish they talk about wind tunnel testing. If a wheel is not built correctly in the first place it does not matter how aerodynamic it is, if it breaks due to poor workmanship, then your race is lost.


See wheels built the Pro-Lite way: the hard way, by hand. "

ride_whenever

TBH i've just watched the pro-lite video and they look fairly machine built to me. I see lots of machines doing stuff and not a lot of tooth sucking and spoke keys...

markos1963

Well that probably explains why Pro-lite wheels seem to come out with good reviews from most buyers.
My point is that with no definition of what 'handbuilt' is a lot of other manufacturers can take advantage of the term.

45rpm

What sort of riding are you going to be doing? I was using some lightweight (not lightweight the brand) wheels for commuting, soon popped a rear spoke. So now i've got a pair of handbuilts for the commute. A much better option

sonny73

I have a pair of Pro-Lite Treviso's, been very happy with them and would recommend them as an affordable decent quality wheelset. With the Bracianno's you would be happy with them I'm sure.

desweller

Headhuunter wrote:

Each spoke is checked 6 times for tension during the building process and so strict is our QC control that we reject around 40% of our wheels after final truing for being more than 0.05mm out of true.

If bicycle rims are manufactured to sub-50 micron parallelism tolerance between braking surfaces then I'm a monkey's uncle. That's not strict QC control - that's sh1t manufacturing process engineering.

giant_man

I wouldn't say my Quest (Pro Lite essentially) Comos were a hand built wheelset.

prb007

Where did I get the idea that ProLite were the non-gruppo arm of Shimano?
I'm sure I read that somewhere, sometime? :?

According to the 'About' section of the PL website...

Pro-Lite was created by Steve Fenton, a former racer from Great Britain, mostly as a project to supply dealers and shops that he already knew. As he kept making them, the demand kept growing, expanding across borders throughout the EU and beyond.
To deal with this increased demand and the logistics problems that came with it, Pro-Lite opened a Taiwan office in 2002 and in 2003, merged with our local manufacturer here in Taiwan. "Too many orders" became a thriving business and, as of last year, we have grown to a little more than 60 staff.

Went for a pair of Mavic Cosmic Carbones earlier this year, when I was looking for £200 wheels - go figure! When they arrived I assured my missus they were 'two-hundred and something, in the sale!'

giant_man

Nearly right. 'Pro' is the sister company of Shimano and deals with the contact points ie handlebars, stems etc plus loads more stuff I suspect. Good quality stuff too.