Wheel options

sagefly

Some thoughts about what wheels to upgrade to once I get the wrist out of plaster.

Beside the 25 mile daily commute through London I ride or try to 80 - 100 miles on a Saturday and a 20 -40 mile ride Sundays there is a lost of fitness work to be done! Reading the various posts on saving weight/upgrade etc it seems wheels are the least costly way of improving performance.

My bike has Giant SR2 wheels and I was thinking to upgrade these to Dura Ace 7850. Is this a reasonable idea or are there other options to consider.

I'm also hope to do a sport or similar most most month and although I ride for fun the competitive streak prevails and you want to get faster................

Any advice would be really appreciated

Duffer65

I've replaced my stock wheels with Fulcrum Racing 5s and I'm very happy with them. They're not the very lightest wheels but they are solid, run smoothly and are lighter than my stock ones.

keef66

The stock answers I anticipate you'll get are:

RS80's / Ksyrium Elites / some kind of handbuilts.

I can offer no advice; I'm still trying to wear out the RS10's I specced on my bike 4 years ago!

Pross

I would continue to use your existing ones for the commute. As a slightly different option I have recently purchased some Pro-lite Bracciannos for about £300 and have found them excellent. With some Pro Race 3 tyres they knocked over 500g off the weight of my previous Aksium Race rear / R500 front. The only downside is that they put the cassette in a slightly different position so if I change to my old rear wheel as a training wheel / commuting wheel I have to faff about with the barrel adjuster to get the indexing right so as a result I have been ignoring my own advice above and leaving the new wheels on for the commute. I keep meaning to sort this out as it will be easy to work out how many turns of the adjuster I need to switch between wheels.

daxplusplus

Pross wrote:

I would continue to use your existing ones for the commute.

Why? I mean if he spends so much of his time commuting then why not spend them on the best/fastest wheels you can afford rather than splitting the money between two sets of wheels and not being happy with either? Serious question as I'm in the same boat as the poster (more or less).

Pross

DaxPlusPlus wrote:

Pross wrote:

I would continue to use your existing ones for the commute.

Why? I mean if he spends so much of his time commuting then why not spend them on the best/fastest wheels you can afford rather than splitting the money between two sets of wheels and not being happy with either? Serious question as I'm in the same boat as the poster (more or less).

How is continuing to use your existing ones splitting the money between two sets? He already has the one set so will still have the same amount of money to spend on a new set. Urban commuting tends to take its toll on equipment and there is little benefit to a set of light / fast wheels riding through central London when you are constantly having to stop. Lighter wheels are also often more fragile (lower spoke count, thinner rims) so are more likely to be damaged. I prefer to keep my best wheels in good condition for long hilly rides and racing, you also feel the benefit of them more if you change from heavy wheels back to them and I suspect that many others feel the same. I've still got a set of 20 year old 36 spoke wheels on my winter / commuting bike but unfortunately that is off the road at the moment.

daxplusplus

Oh OK .. I guess I'm having a hard time getting my head around having multiple sets of any kind of cycling kit. I'd planned on upgrading my wheels and then just mothballing them for when I come to sell the bike.

Also I'm beginning to see how when you've spent £500+ on a set of wheels you will get a bit sensitive to when you might use them :-)

DavidJB

DaxPlusPlus wrote:

Oh OK .. I guess I'm having a hard time getting my head around having multiple sets of any kind of cycling kit. I'd planned on upgrading my wheels and then just mothballing them for when I come to sell the bike.

Also I'm beginning to see how when you've spent £500+ on a set of wheels you will get a bit sensitive to when you might use them :-)

Cycling numbs your sense of the value of money. When I started £250 on some wheels seemed outrageous now I have 4 sets of wheels 2 of them are worth over £700 ... £2500 for a frame? Yeah thats not so bad...etc. Literally the worst money sapping hobby in the world!

sagefly

Thanks for the replies, like most of us I want it all, light weight, strong, durable and inexpensive!!

Does anyone know the weight of the Giant wheels. their website is not forthcoming?

AS for cycling being money sapping its great value compared to fly fishing for salmon in the prime months. A decent bike wouldn't get you day on some best beats.............. truly scary!

keef66

Is sagefly perchance a salmon lure??