Wheels for a heavy rider

mrgringo

Hi,

I'm looking to purchase some new wheels for my Cannondale CAAD 8 to replace the stock, flexy Maddux RS 3.0's. I have an absolute maximum budget of £350 and would prefer hand built wheels but would consider factory built. They will be used for general riding and a few sportives. I want something that doesn't flex, has black spokes and nipples and can put up with my 98kg (falling slowly) weight. The bike is currently running 10 speed but to have the option of 11 speed would be good. I'm easy either way with regards to tubeless.

Any suggestions please?

ugo.santalucia

Archetype rims on Ultegra hubs is roughly in your budget, around 300 give or take... just find a respected builder reasonably local to you

aberdeenal

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Archetype rims on Ultegra hubs is roughly in your budget, around 300 give or take... just find a respected builder reasonably local to you

I'd second that - a colleague of mine who is a a sturdy rugby lad has a set after replacing nearly all the spokes on his last wheel set.

marpick

mrgringo wrote:

Hi,

I'm looking to purchase some new wheels for my Cannondale CAAD 8 to replace the stock, flexy Maddux RS 3.0's. I have an absolute maximum budget of £350 and would prefer hand built wheels but would consider factory built. They will be used for general riding and a few sportives. I want something that doesn't flex, has black spokes and nipples and can put up with my 98kg (falling slowly) weight. The bike is currently running 10 speed but to have the option of 11 speed would be good. I'm easy either way with regards to tubeless.

Any suggestions please?

I'm of similar proportion to you and I've just built Archetype rims on Ultegra hubs shod with Michelin Pro4 Endurance 25's, first ride yesterday with them on my Roubaix and the difference is significant, recommended!

mrgringo

Thanks for the response so far. What kind of spokes and how many would you suggest for the Archetypes/Ultegra combo?

ugo.santalucia

mrgringo wrote:

Thanks for the response so far. What kind of spokes and how many would you suggest for the Archetypes/Ultegra combo?

If you don't build yourself, trust your builder... if you build yourself put some Dt Comp or Sapim race rear and some DT revs or Sapim Laser front. 32 should suffice

eddiefiola

I'm around the same weight and have done about 10,000 kms in the last 10 months on my Archetypes with Novatec hubs 28F/32R, no issues whatsoever with them. Definitely get some 25mm tires at a minimum.

letap73

ugo.santalucia wrote:

mrgringo wrote:

Thanks for the response so far. What kind of spokes and how many would you suggest for the Archetypes/Ultegra combo?

If you don't build yourself, trust your builder... if you build yourself put some Dt Comp or Sapim race rear and some DT revs or Sapim Laser front. 32 should suffice

Pretty much what I would recommend - would also consider Miche Hubs:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Handbuilt-H-P ... 23375505e4

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Handbuilt-H-p ... 233775f8b1

macleod113

I recently purchased some archetype with 105 hubs for a 32/36 spoek count. they have been bombproof so far with 25mm tyres and came in at under £300.

wishitwasallflat

If you want as close to 100% guarantee of reliability and durability as is possible and dont mind being off-trend then phone Harry Rowland and buy whatever he tells you to buy. He will easily build you something on budget.

cycleclinic

Regardless of whoever build your wheels at your weight sapim race or DT comps are needed for the rear to ensure long life. Archetype rims on ultegra or Miche hubs is also the way I would do it. Harry rowland does not use the archetype rim. He will no doubt suggest a narrower rim like the ambrosio excellence or similar. Same weight but none of the advantages of a wider rim. That is the only downside with harry wheels I can see.

ugo.santalucia

wishitwasallflat wrote:

If you want as close to 100% guarantee of reliability and durability as is possible and dont mind being off-trend then phone Harry Rowland and buy whatever he tells you to buy. He will easily build you something on budget.

Harry is a great builder and a good man, but I have reasons to believe his bias against wider rims like Velocity and H plus Son is due to personal disagreements with the distributor rather than the rims themselves having any issue. TBH I think Open PRO had its days, it's still a good rim but it has been superseeded.
I have been building wide rims for 3 years now and I have yet to find a drawback

mrgringo

Thanks for all of the advice so far. Whilst i'd love to be able to build my own wheels, it's a bit beyond me at the moment so can anyone recommend a wheel builder in or near South London?

ugo.santalucia

mrgringo wrote:

Thanks for all of the advice so far. Whilst i'd love to be able to build my own wheels, it's a bit beyond me at the moment so can anyone recommend a wheel builder in or near South London?

I am based in SW London, Arup Sen works in SE London and there is a guy called Jonathan Bell in Wandsworth... There are also shops that do that... Pearson in Sheen I think and a few others

wishitwasallflat

ugo.santalucia wrote:

wishitwasallflat wrote:

If you want as close to 100% guarantee of reliability and durability as is possible and dont mind being off-trend then phone Harry Rowland and buy whatever he tells you to buy. He will easily build you something on budget.

Harry is a great builder and a good man, but I have reasons to believe his bias against wider rims like Velocity and H plus Son is due to personal disagreements with the distributor rather than the rims themselves having any issue. TBH I think Open PRO had its days, it's still a good rim but it has been superseeded.
I have been building wide rims for 3 years now and I have yet to find a drawback

Indeed that's the only problem with buying from Harry, its what I meant when I said off-trend but I suppose with hindsight that suggests that I think wide rims are a trend (which I don't) and it was a bit of an obscure reference!

To clarify - if you don't mind getting a wheel with an OpenPro rim go to Harry!

kirkee

I weigh 10 kgs lighter than you. I used to ride Mavic Open pro CD/standard version Open Pro's on decent Campagnolo hubs for a number of years. Around 4 years back I went to riding budget Campag and Fulcrum factory built Wheels. I used to find the hand built wheels required constant spoke tuning and often went out of true, although they were nice wheels.

In my recent experience with the factory built wheels I have found them to be less prone to loose spokes (never) and they seem to remain truer for a lot longer. The only set that's gone out of true enough to slightly rub the brake pads are my Khamsin Asymetric, they have been on for 12 months now and did the Paris Roubaix club sportive 210km last year.

The caveat to my experience is that I have the lower range Scirocco, Racing 5 and Khamsin wheels and the cartridge bearings req replacing more often (cheap and easy to do) than the older type Chorus/Daytona hub bearings which were hi quality ball types. Other than that they are bomb proof. If you wanted better bearing reliability try Fulcrum racing 3 or higher/Zonda or higher. I dont see the benifit of hand built wheels any more

marpick

For what it's worth my Archetype rims on Ultegra (1st build) are 32/36 using DT Comp 3 cross, works for me, no doubt ugo & Malcolm are the experts here, I took a lot of benefits from their contributions. I'm a heavier, although declining rider.....

TheHound

Considering you can pick up Campag Zondas for £220-250 or so, can handbuilts compare for the same price/weight?

ugo.santalucia

TheHound wrote:

Considering you can pick up Campag Zondas for £220-250 or so, can handbuilts compare for the same price/weight?

No.
If you only use weight as a metric, handbuilts are not competitive per equal price tag. However, you can't just walk in a shop and get a Zonda spoke replaced. If that occurrence happened, you have to go through something like this:

1) Search for a spoke: includes google, forums, phone calls to various shops and distributors, until you locate a spare part, which might be a couple of weeks away from you, or not.

2) Search for "how to": as a large number of shops won't be able to help you even when you do have a spoke, you'll have to find videos and tutorials on how to use the magnet to drive the nipple through the rim, how to replace the spoke, how to tension the wheel, how to true the wheel. Alternatively you can locate a shop able to do it for you, which might or might not be 50 miles away from you.

Then of course if you have the misfortune of damaging a rim in a collision/tumble/tyre explosion or else, you will repeat the operations above, but with far fewer chances of success.

All of the above can happen while you are away for that special trip in the French Alps you had planned for 9 months!

That is where the 200 grams heavier unfashionable handbuilts with no G3 lacing pattern come in handy...

TheHound

One other question before I stop hijacking the thread.

What would it cost to get a set of handbuilt Zondas?

As in, same weight and quality components, just with the wider rim profile?

holiver

Probably use the Archetype 20/24H with Novatec A291 SB-SL and F482 SB-SL hubs?

I guess would be between £300 to £350.

ugo.santalucia

TheHound wrote:

One other question before I stop hijacking the thread.

What would it cost to get a set of handbuilt Zondas?

As in, same weight and quality components, just with the wider rim profile?

It's not an easy question to answer, as it is hard to compare the Campag. hubs with anything else, which is not a cup and cone system. But let's say you are probably looking at something in excess to the real RRP price of the Zonda.

However, the Zonda are excellent wheels... would I take them with me for the Raid Pyreneen? No... Did I ride a pair of Zonda during the Raid Pyreneen? Yes, but I hired a bike, I had no control over that...

TheHound

I see.

Thank you.

cycleclinic

The Campagnolo hubs will offer better wet weather elasticity on the upside the bearings in the notated hubs are easy and cheap to replace. A full service kit for one campagnolo hub is not cheap. In fact if you had to do a full service on the front and rear and replace the freehub it will cost over £120 in parts alone. Hense most people won't do it. To the earlier poster who finds the factory wheel less prone to spokes loosening off it is because the open pro rimmed wheel is quite flexible in comparison. A wheelset like the ones discussed is not flexible and spokes won't loosen off if it is built properly.