Help me choose some wheels please.

Mental Mickey
Mental Mickey Posts: 406
edited June 2010 in MTB buying advice
I've got to be honest, I'm totally confused about wheel builds, so many opinions like everything else, I want some Hope Hoops building via my LBS and was talking to another separate LBS who advised me the Mavic EN521' or EX 721's would be a better choice over Stans Flow ZTR's.

Yet I keep reading on that Singletrack site that Stans Flow are the dogs danglies, but the bike store tells me not to trust forum opinions as they had many customers report dings and what have you on the Flows, but no problems with the Mavics.

Then again, this particular LBS don't do Stans Flow, what a surprise. :lol:

So you can understand why it's soooo confusing.

So I'll give you some brief info and give me an honest answer as best you can.

I'm losing weight and currently just under 14 stone, was just over 16.

My bike is a Stumpjumper FSR, I've put the DT Swiss 420 sl's that came with the bike onto my hardtail which came with Mavic XM117's, which are cheap and cheerful I'd imagine. I changed the rear hub on the DT swiss rims to a Hope Pro 2 and like it so I'll probably go with Pro 2's for the new wheels.

I intend to do jumps/drop offs of a small nature, nothing in the D/H class but some of the lips of the jumps/drops can be 3 or 4 feet high.

My riding style is what you could call Semi Aggressive - Highly Incompetent.


Hope this helps. :D

Comments

  • njee20
    njee20 Posts: 9,613
    Hmmm, a forum of impartial users, or a bike shop with a strong vested interest, who would I trust... :-)

    If it's Hope Hoops you're getting then it doesn't matter if your LBS 'do' Stan's rims (they can get them through Paligap pro-forma though if you're custom building), the wheels come complete from Hope, and are far far cheaper than a custom build.

    For my money it'd be Stan's every time. I'd definitely recommend getting the pre-build Hoops from Hope too, unless you want something radically different, which it doesn't sound like you do!
  • njee20 wrote:
    Hmmm, a forum of impartial users, or a bike shop with a strong vested interest, who would I trust... :-)

    If it's Hope Hoops you're getting then it doesn't matter if your LBS 'do' Stan's rims (they can get them through Paligap pro-forma though if you're custom building), the wheels come complete from Hope, and are far far cheaper than a custom build.

    For my money it'd be Stan's every time. I'd definitely recommend getting the pre-build Hoops from Hope too, unless you want something radically different, which it doesn't sound like you do!

    Hello and thanks for a reply.

    I think I should have elaborated more, the guys in this bike store just grinned basically when I mentioned forum opinions, so please don't take offense anyone, I'm sure plenty of people will know their onions so understand the point about impartial users.

    Please bear in mind that this store were aware I was buying my wheels from ANOTHER LBS and NOT THEM, I just mentioned that I was giving consideration to Stans Flow as I heard good things, they were telling me they had heard of problems with them going out of true and so on, they went on to tell me their shop deals with Mavics simply because they don't get problems coming back to them from unhappy customers.

    So I guess I'm trying to find out if there is any truth at all behind what they said.

    Here's 2 wheels builds costing the same.

    http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/ ... s-09-34845

    http://www.bikeradar.com/gear/category/ ... t-09-34753

    Are they both equally as good, or any differences I should think about? (apart from the hubs)

    I'm basically looking for something that crosses that border from light XC riding and moving toward something more aggressive, my bike is XC and not AM category but I want to feel confident my wheels wont go out of true or suffer any other problems easily while chucking myself in the air.

    When you say pre build, I'm assuming that's what my LBS doing the work will do as they deal in Hope stuff, have shown me a catalogue and so on, but I'm not entirely sure what pre build means other than I would guess it means buying a set already made up with a combination made by Hope, rather than picking and choosing individually tailored stuff?

    Now I'm even more confused ...lol :lol:
  • njee20
    njee20 Posts: 9,613
    Basically your LBS can either order some hubs from Hope, some spokes from Madison and some rims from Paligap, put them all together and charge you the sum of the parts.

    Or... they can order Hope Hoops from Hope, which are pre built wheels built by Hope, they unbox them, hopefully check them in the jig, then hand them too you. They're far cheaper.

    I personally wouldn't bother with the SP-AM versions, straight pull spokes are a faff, and those use proprietary rotors. I'd get these, or if you wanted something lighter I'd custom build, sticking with a conventional 32 spoke build, perhaps using something like ZTR hubs.
  • jayson
    jayson Posts: 4,606
    Ive got a pair of handbuilt wheels from merlin using en521 rims and they've been fantastic so far, completely shruggin off everything ive thrown at them and im not the worlds smoothest rider.

    If you want somethin strong and still fairly light i would recomend them myself.
  • njee20 wrote:
    Basically your LBS can either order some hubs from Hope, some spokes from Madison and some rims from Paligap, put them all together and charge you the sum of the parts.

    Or... they can order Hope Hoops from Hope, which are pre built wheels built by Hope, they unbox them, hopefully check them in the jig, then hand them too you. They're far cheaper.

    I personally wouldn't bother with the SP-AM versions, straight pull spokes are a faff, and those use proprietary rotors. I'd get these, or if you wanted something lighter I'd custom build, sticking with a conventional 32 spoke build, perhaps using something like ZTR hubs.

    I get you now.

    Was even more confused earlier after I emailed the bike store I bought said bike I'm upgrading from, the answer was that if they wheel build was good, then all wheel sets are good lol.
    It was also mentioned that Mavic parts have to come from France making it more of a pain to do replacements than Hope.

    But I think I'm getting mixed up because I see combo's involving Hope pro 2 hubs with Stans Flow, Hope pro 2 with Mavic EN521 and so on.

    The above mentioned are pre built Hope Hoops or not?

    My original idea was to go with the Stans Flow combo, the LBS doing this work can order them in for me, I'll just have to go for it as this MTB stuff is all too confusing at times. :!: