Commuter wheels (700c)?

drhaggis

After the death of the stock giant freehub (1.5 y), and the corroded rear Aksium nipples (1y, 3k mi, one bloody winter), I fear I need another wheel(set). I would like to use a cycle to work voucher. My "long term" plan is to replace my rim-braked 2016 alu Defy 2 with something more sensible: hydraulic disc brakes and proper mudguards on at least 28c tyres. Therefore, spending more than £300 on wheels without the tax break hurst my scottish self.

On one hand, handbuilt is clearly the way to go on the long run, but it seems I'd need about £350 and no c2w scheme is available for these, right? So given some people here are happy with Campagnolo wheels, and their spoke tension out of factory seems to be good, I was considering either Campy Khamsin (brass nipples, sealed bearings) or Zonda C17 (brass nipples and stainless steel spokes, but cup & cone bearings). Any recommendations? Would I need rim tape for the Khamsins?

Note that these wheels will do ~2k miles of commuting in Edinburgh, in all weather (except, possibly, sun), and won't be religiously cleaned. At most every two weeks, as I live in a fully carpeted flat. Will be ridden on the shared paths, which are gritted and on the filthy side come winter. I'm about 72 kg and commute with a ~4 kg backpack.

joe_totale-2

Shimano RS11's have served me well, they seem hard to find now but these seem to be an equivalent:

https://www.merlincycles.com/shimano-rs ... 13877.html

You get easy to maintain cup and cone bearings and if you need spares then Shimano ones are freely available.

tgotb

I think it's a rule that any complete bike is sold with terrible wheels (presumably because buyers focus on other aspects of the spec).

I always find cup & cone a pain to adjust properly; on top of that, replacement cones can be hard to come by and trashed cups can't be replaced at all. These days I'm much happier with a stock of replacement cartridge bearings (which you can get from generic bearing suppliers for a couple of quid each) and a home-made bearing press (a few quid's worth of bits from Screwfix). During the Winter I ride twice a week in mud and pressure-wash the bikes afterwards; if I discover a bearing is playing up or has seized, it takes minutes to replace.

Sample size of 1, but the best bog standard factory-built wheels I ever had were DT Swiss; I've never heard of people having significant issues with them (unlike entry-level Mavics, which as you've discovered appear to be made of fairly dense cheese).

mudcovered

I'd second the recommendation for cheap shimano wheels. They do seem to be cheap, well made and easy to maintain. I bought something similar to the set recommended above as a cheap fill in set to use while waiting for my handbuilts to be rebuilt. They are so good I decided to leave them on until the rim wore out.

Mike

drhaggis

Thanks for your suggestions! Are Shimano's nipples brass? I'm afraid I can't go aluminium on wheels that will see grit 3 months a year at least.

mudcovered

DrHaggis wrote:

Thanks for your suggestions! Are Shimano's nipples brass? I'm afraid I can't go aluminium on wheels that will see grit 3 months a year at least.

Given that mine are so old its difficult to speak with certainty for current ones. One thing I will say is that I've never had to go anywhere near the spokes as the rims have stayed perfectly true despite me riding on gravel on 28c tyres.

Mike

wolfsbane2k

I was running on a set of rosebike wheels ( viewtopic.php?f=40042&t=13080112,) newest version of them here;
https://www.rosebikes.co.uk/xtreme-road ... 400-339576

Did 6k km in almost weathers other than serious ice/snow, over 2 years with poor maintainence and lasted without any problems until I pinged a spoke on a pothole/cateye combination.

At over ,120kg just for me, plus bike and luggage on top, for £120 for the wheelset I was more than happy.

And uses bras nipples.

frogonabike

FYI Fulcrum and Campag are the same company so I'd expect build quality to be similar

My old commuter came with a pair of basic fulcrum disc wheels (7's I think) and they are bomb proof. Bearings need changing regularly as the seals are crap but it costs about £10 for all of them so I can live with that after each winter.

greenamex2

DT Swiss.

Mud, gravel, road salt, rain etc. Just needed a single bearing replacing in 4,500 miles. A couple would probably have needed replacing in another 2,000 or so but did them all anyway.

The freehub needed nothing at all.

anonymousblackfg

Am looking at a long term set of commuter wheels, set of DT Swiss handbuilt onto kinlin XR22s possiblily Bitex or novatec hubs to save some cash. I'll report back if I ever buy them.

cjcp

anonymousblackfg wrote:

Am looking at a long term set of commuter wheels, set of DT Swiss handbuilt onto kinlin XR22s possiblily Bitex or novatec hubs to save some cash. I'll report back if I ever buy them.

I think I had handbuilt Novatec / Kinlin combo around nine or ten years ago. Really liked them.

EDIT: DrHaggis: I've had about three or four sets of Campag Sciroccos over the last few years. Very happy with them. I'm between 82-84kg, with a backpack that often takes me up to the 88-92kg range.

drhaggis

OK, I've gone Zondas, based on brass nipples, also selflocking according to Campag marketing. I'm a bit concerned about cup_and_cone on the long term, but we'll see. Got them on cycle to work. Fingers crossed!