XC Wheels - Budget £250

Avoneer

Hi Guys,
Probably been done a thousand times, but I'm after a wheelset for £250 max.
Bit out of touch with current tech so what's out there?
Most of my riding will be on gravely, hard pack trail like at Lee and Cragg Quarry.
Shimano XT ???
Stans rims ???
Hope hubs ???
I can build my wheels if necessary.
Initial thoughts were Shimano XT hubs with Stans Olympic rims.
Any thoughts ?
Thanks,
Pat.

cycleclinic

Forget stans rims. The olymic rim is very light and not very stiff. You will have a more flexible wheel with these that can go out of true quite easily. I have found trying to drop wheel weight buy using a lighter rim does not work well for me at least. I had a 26er wheelset once with DT Swiss XR350 rims, the rims weigh 350g and never again too flexible for my liking.

Ryde have the Trace trail out. It cost £70 weighs 450g it is 24.8mm internal width and is made with a 3mm offset to the spoke holes which improves tension balance (in fact it is quite close to being even on both sides). I have built mine up with shimano hubs (XTR but XT will do nicely as well) with sapim laser spokes lateral stiffness is very high (so they will stay true). the 29er wheels I have weigh 1625g. Been riding them for a couple of weeks so early days but they erm feel wonderful. what I like the most apart from the low weight is the tyre (2.2" conti race kings) come up at 57mm and I can run 20 psi in them which I cannot do with 2.2" Conti X-king tyres on narrower (but lighter) Velocity Blunt SL rims.

I would personally use a Shimano XT or XTR hub over a hope hub (although hub hubs are pretty good) just because for your budget you can have XT hubs and not skimp elsewhere on the build spec. XT hub work very well indeed and the new M8000 hubs are thru axle compatible on the rear as well.

Building your self is not a bad plan but get a tension gauge. If you buy the Park TM-1 be aware it under reads by around 10% on the common Sapim race/DT Comp spokes and sapim Laser/DT revs but it will allow you to get relative tension quite even. useful if you are a bit tone deaf. Dont forget to stress relieve the wheels throughly by grasping pairs of spokes and squeezing hard. Do this throughout the tensioning process as it beds the spokes into the hub and stretches them a bit. You will also see a tension drop if it is done properly and of course tension has to be raised. This helps you even out the spoke tension. Then when it is all dished and tensioned continue stress relieving until the wheel no longer goes out of true (if it does true and stress relieve again). Stress relieving is one of the keys to a reliable wheel set. Your hands should hurt alot by the time it is done properly.

njee20

Eh? Stan's are the go to XC rims, XT hubs on Olympics would be good, although the Olympic was superseded years ago by the Alpine...

Personally I'd far rather have lighter rims, IMO a 450g rim is massively overkill for XC use, but it all depends what you want on the spectrum of light versus strong.

Flex is a bit of a red herring I'd say. Last 26" wheels I had were Podium MMX rims with A2Z hubs - 1240g. I'm sure they flexed, but they also felt far better than heavier and 'stiffer' wheels!

The Rookie

I have built my own wheels using Alpine rims, found them much stiffer than some much fatter and heavier (but cheaper) rims.

My personal suggestion if you can build you own would be....Used Hope hubs with new bearings (about £50-60 with the bearings), Stans Crest rims (lighter and stiffer then the Olympics which as NJEE says are an old rim, or Alpines for a more XC use) and get some DB spokes from tartybikes which were the cheapest I could find (Sapim 2.0-1.8-2.0).

My sub 1450g wheelset cost me £180 with some luck on the front hub.

njee20

Crests are heavier than Olympics, which later in life were c330g, but yes, still stands.

Ferrals

If you do go for Ryde, the trace XC would be enough for XC I reckon are lighter than crests (320g v 365g for 650b), I have some and they seem good, although on another forum I saw a bad review.

The Rookie

njee20 wrote:

Crests are heavier than Olympics, which later in life were c330g, but yes, still stands.

Black Crest 340g, Black Olympic 350g - both claimed, that said I agree I have seen Olympics weighed and later ones coming in around 330-5, (my 330g Alpines were 320g), not sure about actual Crest weight, but in reality the two must be about the same within part to part variance.

cycleclinic

The trace xc is lighter but narrower and having lighter narrower 29er rims and these trace trail rims i definately prefer the wider trace trail rim.

The reason why i suggest these ryde trace trail over the stans offering is because they come in an off set drilling, wider and they are stiffer thus i even built my own set with sapim laser spokes and it is stiffer than a 26 wheel i did once with stans crest rims with sapim race spokes ( i have ised laser in a number of mtb wheelset without issue but to use them the rim have to be very stiff). Thats why the ryde rim is my prefered choice. People often choose a brand because other people use it and have no issue it does not mean however there is nothing better on the market.

Also i have had light 350g rims before for a 26er mtb and they were rubbish for me. Wheels were simply not stiff enough to stay true for the xc riding i do and i do not have problems with any other of wheels staying true. The rim was a dt swis xr 350 which is similar to to the stans offerings at the time.

Also a 450g rim is not over kill for xc use they feel light when riding because this 29er wheelset is 1625g. Rim weight is less important than other factors when riding. so not overkill at all In fact just right.

The Rookie

thecycleclinic wrote:

The trace xc is lighter but narrower and having lighter narrower 29er rims and these trace trail rims i definitely prefer the wider trace trail rim.

The reason why i suggest these ryde trace trail over the stans offering is because they come in an off set drilling, wider and they are stiffer thus i even built my own set with sapim laser spokes and it is stiffer than a 26 wheel i did once with stans crest rims with sapim race spokes ( i have ised laser in a number of mtb wheelset without issue but to use them the rim have to be very stiff). Thats why the ryde rim is my prefered choice. People often choose a brand because other people use it and have no issue it does not mean however there is nothing better on the market.

Also i have had light 350g rims before for a 26er mtb and they were rubbish for me. Wheels were simply not stiff enough to stay true for the xc riding i do and i do not have problems with any other of wheels staying true. The rim was a dt swis xr 350 which is similar to to the stans offerings at the time.

Also a 450g rim is not over kill for xc use they feel light when riding because this 29er wheelset is 1625g. Rim weight is less important than other factors when riding. so not overkill at all In fact just right.

Well that may be your opinion, I built my last two sets of wheels, one with a 375g Ryde rim and one with Alpines, both perfectly stiff enough for me, no issue. Rim weight is of course second only to tyre weight as being in the worst possible place in terms of translational plus rotational inertia.
I'm not sure I believe that wheel weight with 450g rims, my 26" wheels are 200 g lighter with 260g lighter rims and circa 10% shorter spokes......so unless you have very very light hubs it's not happening.

njee20

Seems plausible. My 29er wheels are 1370g, with rims 200g lighter.

Also i have had light 350g rims before for a 26er mtb and they were rubbish for me. Wheels were simply not stiff enough to stay true for the xc riding i do and i do not have problems with any other of wheels staying true. The rim was a dt swis xr 350 which is similar to to the stans offerings at the time.

Whilst I've had 290g rims which were absolutely fine. Never went out of true, stiff enough, no issues. Used at various trail centres and several thousands miles around the Surrey Hills, and numerous races.

The Rookie

njee20 wrote:

Seems plausible. My 29er wheels are 1370g, with rims 200g lighter.

It's not impossible, just a rather 'skewed' spec to have superlight hubs/spokes and what are quite heavy rims.

Ferrals

am i missing something - the op didn't specify wheel size?

having said the the op hasn't replied either so its probably a relatively pointless discussion!!

njee20

Olympics have only ever been 26", so I was assuming that.

Ferrals

Ah I thought the cycle clinic was saying he shouldn't get super light rims as he was riding a 29er - but I think I just got confused about what he was saying!

rockmonkeysc

Isn't wheel stiffness down to the quality of the build more than anything else?

njee20

It's a factor. I'd rather have a well built wheel made with light parts than a crap wheel with heavy parts.