Wheels £1000~

2brflow

Hi,

Weight: 81kg
Looking to get a new set of wheels for my Trek Emond S5:
http://www.trekbikes.com/gb/en_GB/bikes/road-bikes/performance-road/%C3%A9monda/%C3%A9monda-s-5/p/1440000-2017/

Current wheel specs:
WheelsAlloy hubs; Bontrager Tubeless Ready rims
Front HubAlloy
Rear HubAlloy
RimsBontrager Tubeless Ready

What I want out of them
I am looking to get a wheel set perfect for hilly course around 56 miles <- Do a lot of triathlons around this range and also where I live is very hilly.

What I am willing to spend
Any advice for spending around £1000 on wheels - will go over if worth it. :?:

I have training tools and I am training hard, just looking for advice on wheels. Thanks.

bikes`n`guns

Have Wheelsmith build you a pair on Dura Ace hubs.

singleton

For what you decribe, worth consdiering some hunt 38mm carbons with tubeless tyres.
https://www.huntbikewheels.com/collecti ... 26wide-899

I have their race aero wide aluminium wheels and they're great. I decided that I couldn't personally justify the extra £500 for the extra 7mm depth the carbons gave, but getting some great reviews: https://www.huntbikewheels.com/pages/hunt-reviews-press scroll down a bit.

Alex99

2brflow wrote:

Hi,

Weight: 81kg
Looking to get a new set of wheels for my Trek Emond S5:
http://www.trekbikes.com/gb/en_GB/bikes/road-bikes/performance-road/%C3%A9monda/%C3%A9monda-s-5/p/1440000-2017/

Current wheel specs:
WheelsAlloy hubs; Bontrager Tubeless Ready rims
Front HubAlloy
Rear HubAlloy
RimsBontrager Tubeless Ready

What I want out of them
I am looking to get a wheel set perfect for hilly course around 56 miles <- Do a lot of triathlons around this range and also where I live is very hilly.

What I am willing to spend
Any advice for spending around £1000 on wheels - will go over if worth it. :?:

I have training tools and I am training hard, just looking for advice on wheels. Thanks.

The perfect wheels for you are a power meter and some training. Ha ha, just kidding.

cycleclinic

you can spend as little as £300ish or £1000 on an alloy set and wheelset that will perform as good as each other. towards £1000 you can have carbon rims but the deeper they are the more aero they are. Whether it is hilly your end or not the aero gain is always there. there are good 30mm deep alloy rims so spending the extra on a 38mm deep carbon set is well rather pointless from a performance standpoint.

Also DA 9000 hubs are nice but they dont do the job of a hub any better than cheaper sets from HOPE or Miche. As for rims well there are obviously all the "factory" sets out there like Dura ace c23 or c35 wheels but they are quite pricey for what you get. Campagnolo do the shamals and the Bora one. From wheel builders you cant really go wrong with kinlin rims. The alternatives (DT Swiss, Pacenti e.t.c) are just more pricey without doing the job of being a rim any better although some of them do look very nice.

So you can buy a wheelset with well known brand names on and pay the premium or pocket the change and buy something that just works.

pippi_langsamer-2

Shimano WH-9000 would be my recommendation.

I'm about the same weight as you, and have used DA C50's for years in races (tubular). They're light, and seemingly a lot more robust than some other wheels of similar weight/ spec.

Oh, and the lovely hubs of course....

matt_n-2

Singleton wrote:

For what you decribe, worth consdiering some hunt 38mm carbons with tubeless tyres.
https://www.huntbikewheels.com/collecti ... 26wide-899

I have their race aero wide aluminium wheels and they're great. I decided that I couldn't personally justify the extra £500 for the extra 7mm depth the carbons gave, but getting some great reviews: https://www.huntbikewheels.com/pages/hunt-reviews-press scroll down a bit.

I personally don't see why anybody would pay a grand for what amounts to a pair of Chinese open mould rims on cheap generic hubs with cheap Pillar spokes.

You could get that wheel set from any number of Chinese sellers on eBay, Aliexpress for less than half the price.

I don't want to knock a British company but they're really milking the price there with the emphasis on 'British' designed.

Look to Zuus, Farsports and the cycle clinic for much more realistic prices of these kind of wheel sets.

ugo.santalucia

A grand for a pair of wheels to go on a low-mid end bike?

Bit like buying a pair of Tod's shoes to go with a polyester suit from Marks & Spencer, no?

You can get very good wheels for around 300 quid... Mavic, Campagnolo or something bespoke from a builder

ugo.santalucia

Matt_N wrote:

Look to Zuus....

Please, don't! :?

matt_n-2

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Matt_N wrote:

Look to Zuus....

Please, don't! :?

If the OP wants similar wheels to the Hunts then they're basically the same as are most of the carbon clinchers at that end of the market.

Same benefit of a UK seller and warranty, same low end components in the wheelset.

It's not a personal recommendation as I've not used them just pointing out the options.

drwae

I have had BORG31 wheels from the cycle clinic for a couple of weeks and they are great wheels, and cost only ~£380. So just speaking about what I'd have done with £1000 to spend, I'd have bought the same wheels, some good tyres and a power meter (assuming you already have a cycle computer & sensors) or a groupset upgrade (I want sram red22 etap I only have the crankset atm).
I have ridden with people with deep carbon rims and when it comes to the flats and downhill I can keep up with them without much problem provided I get down into a nice low position get into 53x11 and really put the power down
I considered options such as Chinese carbon (discounted quickly due to the fact my insurance only pays out £10k on the event of my dismemberment or death ) , Wiggle COSINE carbon wheels, Shimano carbon wheels, in the end I went with handbuilt alloy wheels because it is someone's profession not a kid in a sweatshop in China that doesn't care about the end product and I have spent too much money getting my previous Shimano wheels trued at my LBS!!
I also had similar quotes from Strada (pricier and didn't offer any input on my initial suggestions on rim/hub which probably weren't great as I have no experience with wheels) and DCR wheels (pricier) .

ugo.santalucia

drwae wrote:

in the end I went with handbuilt alloy wheels because it is someone's profession not a kid in a sweatshop in China that doesn't care about the end product

I have a friend who is going to Nairobi for work.. he kind of expects to see straw huts, dirt tracks and naked men with spears... it will be a shock to see skyscrapers and 8 lane carriageways and most likely a Dolce & Gabbana outlet

The reality of manufacturing in China is nowhere near as bad as we seem to think. "sweatshops" in China don't look too different from the ones over here and the wages are fairly similar, once you factor in the cost of living.
Slavery was a thing of the west, more than it was a thing of the east.

It is true that an artisan has to look after his reputation and therefore has more care for the product, but that is not to say that a wheel builder in China by definition doesn't give a toss about the stuff he builds. I always found Farsport wheels are built to very similar standards to the wheels I built. That is not always the case, but it's also not true that all artisan wheels are well built... I have seen some dreadful wheels from UK builders too.

drwae

ugo.santalucia wrote:

drwae wrote:

in the end I went with handbuilt alloy wheels because it is someone's profession not a kid in a sweatshop in China that doesn't care about the end product

I have a friend who is going to Nairobi for work.. he kind of expects to see straw huts, dirt tracks and naked men with spears... it will be a shock to see skyscrapers and 8 lane carriageways and most likely a Dolce & Gabbana outlet

The reality of manufacturing in China is nowhere near as bad as we seem to think. "sweatshops" in China don't look too different from the ones over here and the wages are fairly similar, once you factor in the cost of living.
Slavery was a thing of the west, more than it was a thing of the east.

It is true that an artisan has to look after his reputation and therefore has more care for the product, but that is not to say that a wheel builder in China by definition doesn't give a toss about the stuff he builds. I always found Farsport wheels are built to very similar standards to the wheels I built. That is not always the case, but it's also not true that all artisan wheels are well built... I have seen some dreadful wheels from UK builders too.

Well the problem is lack of warranty or any support if something goes wrong. Sure a wheel builder in the UK can go out of business but I think it is less likely for that to happen to an established wheelbuilder than trying to get support from a Chinese wheel supplier.
I have tried to go cheap before with Chinese imports (mobile phone) and found that if something goes wrong they won't help or ask you to ship it back to China at cost (they can ship here for pennies. we have to pay probably £100 to ship a set of wheels back to china). They also claim only 1 year warranty which is a problem. If I am spending £400 on wheels I expect my £400 to last more than 1 year. Even the wiggle ones have a 2 year warranty which I still don't feel too happy with. Again it's £400, even £200 per year is a bit much for using some wheels. Normally I wouldn't mind but because there is a higher failure rate with these imported wheels it is (you can find horror stories all over about them overheating with rim brakes and blowing, etc.).
That being said I have not personally tried them. If someone gave me a set I would use them but I don't feel like risking my money as well as my life

cycleclinic

It is true that not all wheels from uk builder are well built. some are some are not. You simply have to know who you are buying from. Same goes for "factory" wheels. Some manufactuers have a better rep than others. Campagnolo is probably the better of the lot but that only because I have a campag bias built into my brain.

I am not an artisan. There is no black magic to wheel building it is a process nothing more nothing less.

DeVlaeminck

Second hand is always an option - some deep section carbons get bought by people with a lot of money as race day wheels and get sold on with very little use. OK you wont be getting a warranty with them.