WHICH WHEELS

Paultheagle

i have always found the advice on this site useful so hopefully help me again !

I've had my kinesis tripster atr for about 2 years now and although very happy with my "one bike does it all" - i'm thinking its time to upgrade some parts, naturally the first biggie is the wheels...

i'm currently riding the standard kinesis cx crosslight disc clinchers, 28 spoke front and back, 24 mm wide 22 mm deep, hubs were kinesis own aluminium sealed bearing with standard 6 bolt mounting - weight is around 1800 g. they have been impressively smooth and have stayed true - i run conti gp 4s pretty much all year, sometimes swapping for schwalbe one's for summer months - both on 28's.

my style of riding is 80 % road - 20% gravel/dirt road, downs link/avenue verte sort of stuff, i also do a bit of light touring with tubus on (tent/sleep kit etc) and have short bike for commute.

so my goal is to get an upgrade to a lighter faster set, maybe just a bit less rolling resistance on the tarmac and easier for climbs wile still being able to cope with the light off road/trail stuff i do and to support a bit of light touring (say 20 kg max), i am also tempted to go tubeless as this seems to fit the gravel/adventure bike profile well IMO and quite fancy the new pro one tubeless...

my own research has led me to 2 sets up to and around £700 catagory:

Fulcrum - 2016 Racing 5 LG Disc Wheels - http://www.fulcrumwheels.com/en/collect ... acing-5-LG

mavic ksyrium pro disc all road, which come with Yksion Elite Allroad in 30mm tyres fitted http://www.mavic.co.uk/wheels-road-tria ... sc-allroad

any thoughts comments/experience on the above or any possible alternative suggestions much appreciated !

trek_dan

I wouldn't sweat on going tubeless yet. The tyres available are all either hideously expensive or just plain rubbish.
If it were me I'd go for Farsport carbon clinchers (or similar) and have them built onto a set of Hope (or similar) hubs.

darkhairedlord

none of those will make you faster or make it easier to climb.

hypster

Kinesis claim their CX disc wheelset is 1555g. Wheels are usually weighed without skewers and rim tapes. Are you weighing your wheels with? The reason I ask is because the Kinesis CX Disc wheelset already seems pretty light to me and you may be considering new wheels which are not much lighter when you add in the extra parts.

On that basis I don't think an expensive upgrade is warranted unless of course you have an older wheelset which may be heavier.

mrb123

How about some handbuilts - maybe Pacenti SL25 rims, Hope disc hubs and Sapim D-light spokes.

ryanshattered

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19722726#p19722726]hypster[/url] wrote:

Kinesis claim their CX disc wheelset is 1555g. Wheels are usually weighed without skewers and rim tapes. Are you weighing your wheels with? The reason I ask is because the Kinesis CX Disc wheelset already seems pretty light to me and you may be considering new wheels which are not much lighter when you add in the extra parts.

On that basis I don't think an expensive upgrade is warranted unless of course you have an older wheelset which may be heavier.

The current V3 Crosslight Wheels are 1555g, previous generation ones were quoted as 1828g

curto80

I have a pair of the original HuntxMason 4 season disc wheels for my Trippy. I use the Kinesis stock wheels for off-road and switch to the Hunt for road riding, especially in the winter when my carbon bike hibernates. I'd recommend them highly and am sure they could cope with some light off-road.

arlowood

OK here we go - sorry but I have to interject with the handbuilt suggestion.

For your budget of £700 there are loads of offerings out there from wheelbuilders that will satisfy your need for a better quality set of wheels that will also be easily serviced an repaired should the need arise.

A few perveyors to consider are Moonglu

http://www.moonglu.com/collections/road-disc-wheels

I have a set of theirs built around Hope Pro2 Evo hubs and H Plus Son Archetype rims and they are sublime tho not the lightest with 32F/32R spokes

There is also Malcolm at the Cycleclinic ( a regular contributor on these forums)

http://thecycleclinic.co.uk/collections/road-disc-brake-wheelsets

and Spokesman wheels

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Spokesman-Wheels

don't worry about the Ebay listing - he is a respected builder with lots of great feedback

hypster

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19722775#p19722775]ryanshattered[/url] wrote:

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19722726#p19722726]hypster[/url] wrote:

Kinesis claim their CX disc wheelset is 1555g. Wheels are usually weighed without skewers and rim tapes. Are you weighing your wheels with? The reason I ask is because the Kinesis CX Disc wheelset already seems pretty light to me and you may be considering new wheels which are not much lighter when you add in the extra parts.

On that basis I don't think an expensive upgrade is warranted unless of course you have an older wheelset which may be heavier.

The current V3 Crosslight Wheels are 1555g, previous generation ones were quoted as 1828g

As I suspected, thanks for the update.

cycleclinic

There is quite a good DT Swiss rim the the R460 disc brake. Cheap and quite wide. Half the price of the Pacenti.
Kinlin have a disc brake version of the XR22t. This comes in off set drilling which is great because even spoke tension left/right will result prolonging spoke life.

The Pacenti rim while good now has real competition. Rims not in the U.K yet but it wont be long.

Paultheagle

OK everybody - thank you for the sage advice...

i must admit at being intrigued at the prospect of getting a set hand made (who wants to look like everybody else) - particularly if this isn't that cost restrictive, in a relative sense...

but i really wouldn't know where to start - any recommendations as to reputable wheel maker and the sort of spec i should be looking at ?

mrb123

Best bet is to email a couple of wheel builders with details of your budget and the sort of wheels you're after. Have a look at DCR wheels, The Cycle Clinic, Just Riding Along and Moonglu.

hypster

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19723311#p19723311]Paultheagle[/url] wrote:

OK everybody - thank you for the sage advice...

i must admit at being intrigued at the prospect of getting a set hand made (who wants to look like everybody else) - particularly if this isn't that cost restrictive, in a relative sense...

but i really wouldn't know where to start - any recommendations as to reputable wheel maker and the sort of spec i should be looking at ?

Wasn't arlowoods's post detailed enough for you?

964cup

Pacenti SL25 28 2x on DTSwiss 240 built with CX-Rays would be about £625; add rim tape, valves and tubeless tyres and you'll be there or there abouts. For £750 you could have the same rim on Chris King 45s.

Or go with a deep-section Chinese carbon clincher rim on a decent hub; less money, not tubeless, but aero bling.

Frankly I'd probably just spend £250 to upgrade to the Crosslight V3; it's an excellent wheel for the money, and if you're riding 20% off-road why risk a £700 wheelset?

ugo.santalucia

Why do you want fancy rims to wheel around 20 Kg of panniers? When you have that kind of load any wheel is exactly the same... except the light ones might fall apart

Also, AFAIK your crosslight weigh under 1600 grams, hence probably lighter than the sets you have eyed

Pointless upgrade, really... :roll:

964cup

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19723552#p19723552]ugo.santalucia[/url] wrote:

Also, AFAIK your crosslight weigh under 1600 grams, hence probably lighter than the sets you have eyed

I think he's on the V2s, which are about 250g heavier. Hence my suggestion he goes to the V3s. OTOH if he wants to spend £700 with a wheelbuilder from these 'ere parts, who am I to disagree?

cycleclinic

To be honest a set the is going to be reliable in the long term is going have to use triple butted spokes like Sapim force or DT Swiss alpine III and a higher spoke count. The resulting weight will be close to 1800g.

If you think for one moment that you can have a relaible but faster set that is wish full thinking. The only way to make a faster set would be with a more aerodynamic rim which means expensive carbon but if you have a rack and pannier on the bike the drag from that makes aero wheels quite pointless.

Wheels do not change rolling resistance tyres and rider bike weight does.

So I am not sure what to suggest as you have conflicting goals, fast and light but robust enough for loaded touring (20 kg in panniers is jot light).

Also you can spend £70 on a set of pacenti sl25 or half that on DT wish r460. You won't be able to tell the difference when riding apart from the 2 mm difference in internal width, that might make a 1mm difference in tyre width. You won't even need to spend £300 for a build with the DT or kinlin rims. You won't save any weight though unless you spend big on DT Swiss 240 disc brake hubs and then you could have a 1710g wheelset with 56 triple butted spokes. The more time you spend touring the better a 32 spoke build could prove to be.

964cup

This feels to me like you need more than one set of wheels if you really want optimally to do all the different things you describe - although I'd suggest different bikes instead. I have an Enigma Excel which I built (as an experiment) to use both as a fast Ti road bike and as an Audax bike. It has various bits of kit that come on and off for the different roles, but the key thing is wheels - for its road racer mode it has Mavic R-SYS SLR tubulars (for which money I would otherwise have built something more aero in a 20/24 on R45s, but I had them lying around); for Audax and winter commuting it has Pacenti SL23 on Son Delux (dynamo) front and Record rear, built 32 3x with Sapim D-Light. That wheelset is pretty well a kilo heavier than the Mavics, all up with tyres & Record QRs, but the bike has at least another 3kg of excess weight from the rack, empty panniers, dynamo lights & wiring, mudguards, SPD pedals and Brooks saddle. My point being that running it in that trim, the weight of the wheels is irrelevant, and it's their durability and the presence of the dynamo that matters.