Upgrade wheels on a Ribble CGR Ti?

grand_onion

I am about to buy a Ribble CGR Ti Sport bike and im wondering whether to upgrade the wheelset using the bike builder on the Ribble website.

The bike comes with Mavic Aksium DCL 19 700C Wheelset which are not tubeless ready. Also it seems that the wheels are not rated highly, both by reviewers and other bike users in forums. There are a plethora of choices including other Mavics and more expensive alternatives in the bike builder. 
However, given that the bike is nearly 3K my budget for wheels is low. Im wondering whether to upgrade to the Mavic Allroad SL 650B Disc CL Road+ Wheelset for an extra £150 (which are tubeless ready) on the website or buy an alternative set of wheels elsewhere. My max budget would be £200 tho and im looking for a set of 700 wheels. In theory I could sell the base Mavics that come with the bike and use that budget to add to the £200, so perhaps my budget could be £300.

Any recommendations/advice greatly appreciated

ugo.santalucia

swapping 700 for 650 only makes sense if you plan to use the bike off road only. On roads you want 700c rim size.
That is by far the most important consideration, anything else is fluff that you can address at a later stage. Tubeless is nice if you like it, but we have lived without for decades and we were just fine.

secretsam

ugo.santalucia said:

swapping 700 for 650 only makes sense if you plan to use the bike off road only. On roads you want 700c rim size.
That is by far the most important consideration, anything else is fluff that you can address at a later stage. Tubeless is nice if you like it, but we have lived without for decades and we were just fine.

I find tubeless an absolute godsend (as an atheist!) for riding off-tarmac - it's a huge benefit. You don't generally notice it working until you take off the tyre and find all the holes that have been blocked!

grand_onion

Ah I made a mistake in the original post, I meant to refer to the Mavic Allroad DCL 700C HG Wheelset not the 650B version - I intend to get a second 650 wheelset further down the line.

The advantage of upgrading in the bike builder is that it would be cheaper than buying a wheelset separately.

ugo.santalucia

150 does not seem a lot of money… I do not know the wheels in question, so hard to tell, but if you want tubeless, then it seems a no brainer