Best wheelset under £200
daddy0
Posts: 686
Due to buying a house, having second kid and wife not going back to work I'm on a very tight budget.
Have been riding Fulcrum 5s and they've been great for me. Been lusting after some Campag Zondas for a while but just don't have the spare cash to splash ATM. Suggestions gratefully recieved.
Thanks!
Have been riding Fulcrum 5s and they've been great for me. Been lusting after some Campag Zondas for a while but just don't have the spare cash to splash ATM. Suggestions gratefully recieved.
Thanks!
0
Posts
Scirocco 35 £170
Fulcrum Quattro's £203
All at wiggle.
http://thecycleclinic.co.uk/collections ... 9-wheelset
They are very well built, stiff wheels that have durable and trouble free hubs (Miche Primato); perfect for my needs. Very nice for racing on too as there's no flex in them at all.
I'd consider speaking to Malcolm and seeing what he can supply within your budget.
Hand builts < 200 is a bit of a no-go area to be honest. It's hard to build anything decent without compromises.
IMO 250-500 pounds is the range where alloy hand builts make sense as an upgrade. Below quality suffers and above is vanity.
Really? Well OP, spend the extra £50!
Tempted with a pair of these aswell, how strong are they considering their weight, choice of these or fulcrum racing 5lg for the same price.
Check 4thebike.de, a German website but Chrome of Firefox will translate.
I got a bargain just over a year ago with some Mavic Cosmic Elite for £180 instead of £350 and having had a quick look - Askium's for £100, Racing 5 for £140 and Quatro's for £170.
Top service too.
Seem good, no issues & stiff (which is what I wanted with these). However they are quite new and one my summer bike so only done a handful of rides. The reviews I saw suggested that they were pretty tough. For the money I don't think you can wrong. I'd get them unless you after the wider rims of the fulcrums you mentioned.
+1 for 4thebike.de . I got pair of Ksyrium Elites WTS just over a year ago for ~320 quid delivered.
Cheap Euro has got to help too at the minute!!
I bought a set of Giant PSL-1 wheels on ebay for £63. Decent wheels that have DT Swiss hubs and weigh just over 1kg for the rear and 700g for the front!
There's not too much around on the net about them as you can only buy direct from the supplier, however the reviews seem extremely positive indeed.
http://www.superstarcomponents.com/en/p ... t-2024.htm
(I shall point out I haven't yet ridden them, so do take what I say with a pinch of salt!)
I ordered in the lead up to Christmas so was expecting a bit of a delay but they arrived within 3-5 days and I'm almost certain it was free delivery.
Another German site to consider is Bike 24.
:roll:
My Krysiums cost 10Euros for delivery, but I had to wait an age for them - they were apparently out of stock, but it took them ages to tell me that. It wasn't a problem for me as I am still to receive the frame they're going on, but beware it MIGHT be a bit longer than UK based onlilne retailers.
PS - Their website translates to English at the click of a (Union Flag) button, and they've just updated it.
I think they are the in house brand of Sensa bikes. Never tried them but they are very keenly priced.
Apologies, I can see that must have looked like a rather daft first post. What do you mean about Superstar 'back to their old ways?'
My phrasing wasn't great, to the OP I merely meant to say that I've spent a lot of time myself researching with a similar budget and for me felt that the Superstars appeared worth looking into.
Here's to a better third post!
http://www.cycledivision.co.uk/product- ... id363.html
These look good.
This, simply because your budget won't quite accommodate handbuilts. RS-10s, Askiums, Racing 7s and 5s all crop up in this sort of range. Try asking in your LBS or watching outlet sellers from the big online retailers on ebay.
Why are you wanting to replace the fulcrums ? Under £200 at RRP I don't think you're likely to get anything that will offer any performance advantage over them.
That said, the above post from MisterMuncher and the post he quotes from Badgermilk offer some good avenues to investigate if you do need to replace your wheels for reasons other than a performance upgrade.
Uh-oh. Could this be the start of another 26 pager?
BTW what became of the Prolite Braccianos? in the picture in the link to your Felt 5. I had a set of those for £218 on offer from CRC a couple of years ago. Might be worth seeing if they're doing any similar offers at the moment.
The Fulcrum 5s are probably worn beyond being safe, although TBH I have no idea if this is true. I've ridden through 2 winters and covered about 16000km on them, mostly commuting, all weathers. I've not taken the best care of them either. Goodness knows how many brake blocks I've been through, replaced the bearings at least twice. Great wheels though, no flex, spin for ages (depending on bearings of course, factory ones were good) and have never gone out of true! They're probably ready to be retired though, right?
You guys have made me think I should probably buy a tool for checking the rim thickness on the 5s - any suggestions regarding this?
Nowhere near Sheffield I'm afraid, I'm a Kent lad.
Merlin cycles do them under £200 for (I believe)the wider rimmed one's and £150 ish for previous models. They've also got Mavic Aksiums for £149 with tyres and very little less money without tyres. I've heard they're solid wheels but never used them myself.
You need a decent vernier caliper and two lengths of a known quality. By that I mean two small pieces of something you can lean against the inside and outside of the rim, knowing exactly how thick they are. You measure the total width, and subtract the known quality and here's your rim thickness. 0.9 mm or less throw them away.
I normally use segments of a 2 mm plain gauge spoke.