Swiss Side Wheels

effillo

I started a thread a while back in the general section re wheels and got some good advice but was told to post in here. Rather than resurrect that thread and get the same thing said I thought I'd post in here.

I'm looking to upgrade my stock wheels on a CAAD8, maddux r3.0's and looking around £200.

I get a 20% discount at work through Swiss Side and was looking at their Heidi's. Can't seem to find much abou lt them anywhere and just wondered if anyone had any views?

ugo.santalucia

BenderRodriguez

'Swiss Side'? A clever combination of Swiss marketing and Chinese manufacturing. (Rather like much of the 'Swiss' watch industry.)

Note. 'Engineered' does not mean 'made'.

plodder73

Hi, I have bought some Swiss side Gothards several months ago. They are fantastic as was customer service. I managed to get a serious discount by looking how much a set had sold for on ebay in an auction and asking or a price match. Think I paid about £240.

minley1

Hi Effilo,

I have a set of the Swiss Side Heidi's, so far I am very impressed with them, they arrived in perfect true, and the hubs spin up very nicely, very nicely finished, the graphics on the rims may not be to everyone's taste, but they are just stickers that can be easily removed.
I picked them up from the ebay store for £196, so compared to other wheels out there for that price these are great value.
They may well be built in China, but so what they do their job and look good, early days though but I'm very pleased so far.

ugo.santalucia

Plodder73 wrote:

Hi, I have bought some Swiss side Gothards several months ago.

twgh

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Plodder73 wrote:

Hi, I have bought some Swiss side Gothards several months ago.

Very good....!

I looked at Swiss Side and weirdly they store all the wheels in the UK which I think bodes questions about whether anything, other than design, is done in Switzerland.

effillo

Thanks for your input all. I'm not really bothered about where they are made or how swiss they are tbh. That wasn't what attracted me to them, it was the discount we get that peaked my interest.

twgh

http://www.synergyaction.eu/swiss-side- ... -303-p.asp

positive reviews there. They look fairly decent for the money and will certainly be an upgrade over you stock wheels. Ugo should be able to comment on rebuildabilty.

ugo.santalucia

effillo wrote:

Thanks for your input all. I'm not really bothered about where they are made or how swiss they are tbh. That wasn't what attracted me to them, it was the discount we get that peaked my interest.

Do they mention a rider weight limit?

For a wheel with 20 CX Ray spokes at the back I would conservatively put it at 70-75 Kg... with an 80 Kg absolute limit.

robbo2011

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Plodder73 wrote:

Hi, I have bought some Swiss side Gothards several months ago.

Rode that a couple of weeks ago, it was bloody horrible. Pass number 3 out of 4 that day.

ugo.santalucia

robbo2011 wrote:

Rode that a couple of weeks ago, it was bloody horrible. Pass number 3 out of 4 that day.

That's because you are a soft plastic rodie... my complaint would be they laid the cobbles too smooth... wish was more like this

rolf_f

ugo.santalucia wrote:

robbo2011 wrote:

Rode that a couple of weeks ago, it was bloody horrible. Pass number 3 out of 4 that day.

That's because you are a soft plastic rodie... my complaint would be they laid the cobbles too smooth... wish was more like this

Where's that? It looks exactly like the smoothest of the cobbled climbs I rode today! One had a nice touch - a band of tarmac either side of the cobbles. Only thing is, clearly the cobbles at the edge of the road had deteriorated to the point of being unrideable - so they just slopped tarmac on top. The untarmac'd cobbles were smoother......

Guanajuato

Had a set of St Bernhards for 3 years now. The freehub went funny (sounded like loose gravel in it), but they replaced the wheel free of charge even though it was out of warranty - they changed the hub design, and the St Bernhards are their cheapest wheels.
In terms of staying true, I've not had any issues despite awful road surfaces round the lake district. I think their website suggests a weight limit of 105kg, so even most fat lads should be OK. I'm about 85kg and as I said, I've had a fair few heavy whacks and the wheels are still perfectly true. When I got mine, one of the things that caught my eye was the blog post from a rider doing the 3 peaks cyclocross on a set of Heidis.

The company is run by Jean-Paul Ballard, once aerodynamics head of Sauber F1. Go to their website and see how open they have been about the development of their new Hadron wheels.

In terms of upgrade, when I got them they were for a Carrera TdF, and were a HUGE upgrade on the stock wheels - with tyres and tubes fitted they were about the same weight as just the stock rims. On my newer bike, the change is less obvious, but they are definitely lighter. And every little helps.

I've seen one other rider on Swiss sides, as we both struggled up Honister Pass in May on the Jennings Rivers ride.

robbo2011

ugo.santalucia wrote:

That's because you are a soft plastic rodie... my complaint would be they laid the cobbles too smooth... wish was more like this

Actually, more likely because it was about 5degC at the top with a howling gale of a headwind most of the way up...

Gwhit3uk

I've got 2 pairs of Gotthards and a set of Hadrons (although I've not used these yet - saving for a new bike build). The Gotthards are brilliant wheels, light, quick and responsive. They look great as well with the 2 white and 1 red spoke.

I'd recommend them without hesitation. They can be found on eBay but I messaged them and asked if they had a buy it now price - I picked up each set for £230. You'll have no regrets if you buy some.

ugo.santalucia

Gwhit3uk wrote:

I've got 2 pairs of Gotthards and a set of Hadrons (although I've not used these yet - saving for a new bike build). The Gotthards are brilliant wheels, light, quick and responsive. They look great as well with the 2 white and 1 red spoke.

I'd recommend them without hesitation. They can be found on eBay but I messaged them and asked if they had a buy it now price - I picked up each set for £230. You'll have no regrets if you buy some.

Th Gotthard seems a better put together set of wheels than the Heidi, I have to say

robbo2011

Whilst they may be great wheels, what I don't like about this company is the branding. As far as I can see, they have nothing to do with Switzerland, they ship from the UK and wheels are probably made in the far east.

with that and the colour schemes, it all looks a bit inauthentic and naff to me.

whosthedaddy

robbo2011 wrote:

Whilst they may be great wheels, what I don't like about this company is the branding. As far as I can see, they have nothing to do with Switzerland, they ship from the UK and wheels are probably made in the far east.

with that and the colour schemes, it all looks a bit inauthentic and naff to me.

Sticker on my Hadrons says "Made with love in Taiwan"
Look the biz, but only time will tell if they were worth the outlay

BenderRodriguez

robbo2011 wrote:

Whilst they may be great wheels, what I don't like about this company is the branding. As far as I can see, they have nothing to do with Switzerland, they ship from the UK and wheels are probably made in the far east.

Goods made in the far east can be of excellent quality, and Taiwan in particular has an excellent track record for making high quality bike bits. What annoys me about companies like 'Swiss Side' is when they try to con people into thinking that their products as 'Swiss made' when they are not. Saying 'Everything precision designed and engineered in Switzerland' is, quite frankly, a blatant attempt to 'pull the wool over the eyes' of potential customers, who they know are likely to believe that 'engineered' means 'made'.

The 'F1 technology' angle is also rather tacky, and as for the names! Why not a series of wheels named after all of Switzerland's dodgy banks, home to the money of the worlds despots and tax frauds!

P.s. For an insight into the power of Swiss marketing, take a look at this very honest presentation by Georges Kern of the IWC watch company. The Swiss watch industry that has used the power of marketing to turn an obsolete technology - clockwork watches - into objects of desire and the perfect example of a 'veblen good', being able to command prices in the thousands for products that cost a couple of hundred to make. (With much of the manufacturing for all but the more expensive 'Swiss' watches being done in places such as China.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOGlRNrdHQs

robbo2011

Yes, I agree to a point, but I don't think there is necessarily anything wrong with carrying out the R+D in Switzerland and manufacturing abroad. However, I don't think SwissSide are a Swiss company so I can't see any link at all to Switzerland. The branding just looks tacky to me.

ugo.santalucia

robbo2011 wrote:

However, I don't think SwissSide are a Swiss company so I can't see any link at all to Switzerland. The branding just looks tacky to me.

The company is registered in Switzerland, if not else for tax avoidance...

TheHound

If the company is owned by a former employee of Sauber, I assume he himself is Swiss, as Sauber are a Swiss team.

Gwhit3uk

Not the most in-depth reviews but +ve ones nonetheless...

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/reviews/ ... e-gotthard
http://bicycletimesmag.com/review-swiss ... -wheelset/
http://www.swissside.com/150

As I've said I own 2 sets of Gotthards and love them.