Factory or Handmade wheels for £350/400.

copperthorpe

My question is this...will Handmade wheels cost more in long term if I have to send them back to builder if LBS cannot/will not fix them.My LBS is mavic dealer and will stand over anything I buy from them.I am 96kgs and want a comfortable & durable wheelset...please advise. :?

Monty Dog

For your weight, handbuilts as you want durability and reliability. IRD cadence rims on 36 spoke hubs would be ideal.

daviesee

cadseen wrote:

Any LBS will be able to service a handbuilt set of wheels if they have a wheelbuilder

They may be able to but some shops refuse to work on products not bought in shop.
They are cutting their own noses off but it is their choice.

balthazar

daviesee wrote:

They may be able to but some shops refuse to work on products not bought in shop.
They are cutting their own noses off but it is their choice.

Really? I've not spent much time in bike shops in the last few years, but that's still a very surprising report. Are ordinary assembled wheels so old hat (or recast as "exotic") that shops would refuse to replace a broken spoke, or whatever?! I thought that that kind of thing was the point of "LBS".

58585

balthazar wrote:

Really? I've not spent much time in bike shops in the last few years, but that's still a very surprising report. Are ordinary assembled wheels so old hat (or recast as "exotic") that shops would refuse to replace a broken spoke, or whatever?! I thought that that kind of thing was the point of "LBS".

If you buy a set of wheels that are badly built and a spoke goes, what do you do? Go to the LBS and ask for a new spoke, expect to pay a tenner and off you go.
If the spoke goes again what happens? Customer is back at the LBS and complaining that they did a poor repair. Suddenly a thread appears on here saying how bad X shop is...

Hand builts are only as good as the (original) builder! Factory wheels are built to a certain standard.

balthazar

58585 wrote:

If you buy a set of wheels that are badly built and a spoke goes, what do you do? Go to the LBS and ask for a new spoke, expect to pay a tenner and off you go.
If the spoke goes again what happens? Customer is back at the LBS and complaining that they did a poor repair. Suddenly a thread appears on here saying how bad X shop is...

I'm aware of how it works. I just hadn't heard that shops were refusing to fix wheels. I thought wheel work was stock-in-trade, central to the role of LBS.

mike ives

Yes hand-builts are only as good as the builder, that's why its important to go to a reputable one, as recommended on this forum.

Also, if the LBS refuses to service/repair your wheels because you didn't buy them there, don't go there. They must be arses anyway. Though I have to say that I have never heard of this kind of refusal before. Doesn't make commercial sense.

e999sam

58585 wrote:

balthazar wrote:

Really? I've not spent much time in bike shops in the last few years, but that's still a very surprising report. Are ordinary assembled wheels so old hat (or recast as "exotic") that shops would refuse to replace a broken spoke, or whatever?! I thought that that kind of thing was the point of "LBS".

If you buy a set of wheels that are badly built and a spoke goes, what do you do? Go to the LBS and ask for a new spoke, expect to pay a tenner and off you go.
If the spoke goes again what happens? Customer is back at the LBS and complaining that they did a poor repair. Suddenly a thread appears on here saying how bad X shop is...

Hand builts are only as good as the (original) builder! Factory wheels are built to a certain standard.

And that standard is sometimes not very good.