Planet X Carbon wheel sets - Opinions and thoughts

nomadicbry

Hi all,

Looking for some information.
I've been looking at carbon wheels for sometime now. There seems to be a huge price discrepancy between the brands such as Zipp, American Classic, Vision etc and Planet X Carbon wheel sets, especially now they are on sale.

Are you simply paying for a brand or are there real improvements in quality from 50mm carbon tubs and £1000 AC tubs?

The wheels will be used for racing and nothing else…mostly crit racing though some stage racing.

Money is tight so are the PX wheels great value or simply cheap imitations of the more expensive wheels
What are the differences if any. Are they equivalent to the more expensive wheels?

Cheers
B

ugo.santalucia

I think you mostly pay for the brand... Px buy their rims from Taiwan and build them up on hubs bought direct from Taiwan. For them is promotional, rather than money making... They probably mark them up very little.
I can buy carbon rims from Taiwan for less than 100 dollars each and hub sets for 50 dollars each, if buying in quantity.
I would give them a go, but do get the tubolars, Leave the clinchers to the cafe crowd... And do yourself a favour, vittoria pro Evo cx

nomadicbry

cheers for that. pretty much how i saw it also and others have recommend the Evos

meesterbond

I've got the PX 50/82 pair on my TT bike and they're perfectly fine. Not the lightest, but for £400 or whatever I paid you can't really argue.

BTW - I went for Conti Comp tubs. Never again - these things were the toughest tyres (either tubs or clinchers) I've ever had the displeasure of fitting!

Cornish-J

ugo.santalucia wrote:

I think you mostly pay for the brand... Px buy their rims from Taiwan and build them up on hubs bought direct from Taiwan. For them is promotional, rather than money making... They probably mark them up very little.
I can buy carbon rims from Taiwan for less than 100 dollars each and hub sets for 50 dollars each, if buying in quantity.
I would give them a go, but do get the tubolars, Leave the clinchers to the cafe crowd... And do yourself a favour, vittoria pro Evo cx

slightly contradicting yourself?
px arent making much profit but yet you can buy the rims and hubs for less than $250 ... huge mark up!

FunBus

Cornish-J wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

I think you mostly pay for the brand... Px buy their rims from Taiwan and build them up on hubs bought direct from Taiwan. For them is promotional, rather than money making... They probably mark them up very little.
I can buy carbon rims from Taiwan for less than 100 dollars each and hub sets for 50 dollars each, if buying in quantity.
I would give them a go, but do get the tubolars, Leave the clinchers to the cafe crowd... And do yourself a favour, vittoria pro Evo cx

slightly contradicting yourself?
px arent making much profit but yet you can buy the rims and hubs for less than $250 ... huge mark up!

Not really - on top of the 250$ there'll be freight and the fact that you have to buy in quantity to get the price.....plus then spokes, nipples and labour to build. Margins aren't massive.

These are a pretty good buy as well, slightly lighter than the PX's too:
http://www.kovertracing.com/?page_id=176

In all cases you're paying for the brand and, the warranty/after service and, removing the b4ll ache of ordering from overseas and chasing suppliers etc.