Wheel/tyre upgrade for weight/rolling

I doubt it, maybe if your wheels were carbon fibre. But that would blow your budget.

If you cruise the internet for wheelsets, they all give you the weight, so you can compare your current weight with them. Don't make the mistake of going too light! Remember what Gary Fisher said (the guy behind the MTB revolution and Trek). He said "light, cheap, strong, pick two!" You have already said cheap, so I'd avoid light if you do any rough trails or are a heavy or aggressive rider.

Reducing weight is not necessarily the best thing to do, I once paid £600 (and that was in a sale) for a 26" E13 wheelset that weighed 1806 gm for the Shimano XT wheelset (1846 gm) I was getting rid of. The difference was the internal rim width was wider and the wheel was a lot stiffer, the rim was a super light alloy, and the freehub had many more points of engagement. And it had cartridge bearings not the Shimano cup and cone! So, the wheel was more expensive and hardly any lighter at all, but WOW! what a difference on the trail! It was immediately noticeable that it picked up quicker, and went where it was pointed with less effort. This latter point was even more noticeable on rough corners.

Tyres. The Continental Trail King is a particular favourite of mine, but only if you have the version with the black chilli compound (BCC). If the advert doesn't say BCC, then it doesn't have it! The BCC tyre has that amazing combination of grip, life and reduced drag that many tyre manufacturers find so hard. Amazingly, there are no indicators that I can see on the tyre wall that says "BCC" or similar, so you won't know what your tyre is. Unless of course it has a wire bead, in which case it isn't BCC. Conti make BCC tyres in other tread patterns and you may wish to pursue the RaceKing which is lighter and has a faster rolling pattern. But the grip is not so good as the TK.

Tubes weigh about 200-300gm depending upon manufacturer, so lets say 250gm. To go tubeless, you will save that per wheel. To that you must add 100gm of sealant. You don't need tubeless tyres (UST or LUST), or even tubeless ready (TLR). All tyres except proper tubeless tyres need sealant to hold air and to stay up. But ALL tyres need sealant to survive a puncture. So you are recommended to add sealant, any latex based sealant is the one I'd go for. If you get the Cont tyres, you might as well get their Conti Revo sealant specially formulated for their rubber.
Going tubeless will affect your ride in a very good way. Experiment with tyre pressure. Unless you go for a significantly lighter tyre than your existing Conti TK, then you will be able to reduce tyre pressure and gain a lot of extra grip, especially when climbing. And all without any pinch punctures!

Anyway, tyre weight. You are looking at 150gm ish per wheel right at the rim where it does most good. I read somewhere that losing weight at the rim is where to spend your money because it feels like you have lost 3x as much. That 3x is due to the rolling moment of inertia of your wheel having changed, so acceleration, cornering and braking is improved noticeably. But you very soon get used to it!

Personally, having actually done what you want to do I would not change the wheelset right away. Instead I would focus on the tyres and go tubeless. The tyres will cost about £48 each. Yes you can get what appears to be the same tyre for less than half the price , but it won't be BCC I would get this:
https://www.wiggle.co.uk/continental-cross-king-folding-mtb-tyre-protection/?lang=en&curr=GBP&dest=1&sku=100596445&kpid=100596445&utm_source=google&utm_term=&utm_campaign=Shopping+-+All+Products&utm_medium=base&utm_content=mckv|sQn4nWuZw_dc|mcrid|295270531587|mkw||mmt||mrd|100596445uk|mslid||&mkwid=sQn4nWuZw_dc&pcrid=295270531587&prd=100596445uk&pgrid=60973737802&ptaid=pla-522417750384&gclid=Cj0KCQjwirz3BRD_ARIsAImf7LM9HsCseoPllfH_sWB3cdbUHIBYtkie28Yzhcnjc2bj4e7oyh9mAakaAp_AEALw_wcB

Remember what I said, if it doesn't actually say "black chill compound", then it isn't. It is the reason they cost twice as much.

Then a pair of tubeless valves, about £12
Some sealant Conti Revo sealant is about £6 for 240ml, which is enough for two tyres of your size plus some spillage.

So that is 2 x £48 + £12 + £6 = £114

Then read up on going tubeless.
The next bit is optional, spend £47 on an Airshot tubeless tyre inflator. If you are going to go tubeless and stay tubeless, then you will bless the day you bought one of these.
https://www.tweekscycles.com/uk/airshot-tyre-inflator-aisairshot/?istCompanyId=56f52ebf-49f3-492a-9cbb-cb6ab0fc1bf0&istFeedId=33b89177-5114-4491-9c2a-09a3a7cb23b2&istItemId=wiltaxqpm&istBid=t&gclid=Cj0KCQjwirz3BRD_ARIsAImf7LPENAjXYuhCv2X8zelfhCqxyfZIN_KsSREV0UtLGo_yjDIoaaeT6toaAkkYEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

If you insist on changing your wheelset straight away...
So you have now spent £161 of your £500 budget. You have saved £331. That leaves you enough money for a Mavic Crossmax Elite wheelset for less than £300 in the sale. Make sure your bike is suitable for the hub widths (these are boost). The weight at 1630gm looks a bit XC to me, but if that is what you do then they will be perfect.
https://www.wiggle.co.uk/mavic-crossmax-elite-boost-mtb-wheelset/?lang=en&curr=GBP&dest=1&sku=100423134&kpid=100423134&utm_source=google&utm_term=&utm_campaign=Shopping+-+All+Products&utm_medium=base&utm_content=mckv|s35BMWyZl_dc|mcrid|295270531587|mkw||mmt||mrd|100423134uk|mslid||&mkwid=s35BMWyZl_dc&pcrid=295270531587&prd=100423134uk&pgrid=60973737802&ptaid=pla-576454153327&gclid=Cj0KCQjwirz3BRD_ARIsAImf7LPim4tIQ44cBThTeuajjKkYfUJ7GsfchYWebgWjEBdlJjlY1KgpSVwaAmEGEALw_wcB

Have fun and let us know what you end up doing and whether it was all worth it.

danlightbulb said:

.............The current wheelset is Mavic XM319 so only 19mm internal width. I was concerned that I would struggle making this narrow rim tubeless, and its width really limits me to 2.2" width tyres as a maximum. I note alot of the modern wheel sets (including the highly rated Hunt Trail Wide which is the set I was looking at) are 30mm internal width.

I weighed my front wheel and its 2.2kg all in, including brake disc.

Who told you that the tyre width is limited to 2.2"?
I have just checked on line with WTB and Schwalbe. For a 19mm internal rim width, WTB say that the ideal is 47-52mm for an mtb tyre, but perfectly OK up to 62mm (2.44"). Schwalbe just say 24-63mm and don't differentiate what sort of use the tyre is put to.

I used to have a Mavic wheelset with 19mm internal rims and I was happy with the Maxxis Ignitor 26 x 2.35", first with tubes and then later tubeless. Once I discovered the Conti TKs on a trip to the Alps, I switched to the TKs 26 x 2.2" an stayed with them for quite a few years.

Later, as first of all fat tyres came out requiring very wide internal rims, then mid fat, bikes started to come with wider and wider rims. My rim progression went from 17 to 19, then 21, 25 and now 30mm. A 2.4" wide tyre on a 17mm was dangerous, but OK on 19mm. I stuck with the 2.2" TKs through the 19, 21 and 25 era. It was only when my current bike came with 29 x 2.6" that the rim width expanded to 30 mm. As you say, modern rims are wider. That is only because tyres have become wider. The professional riders of only a few years ago didn't have the wide rims of today and they got on perfectly well without them.

Try going tubeless and with better tyres before you spend the big money on a new wheelset.

Wheel weight is quoted without tyre, valve or disc, so to compare your current set, you need to either find out by looking it up or to remove the tyre, tube and disc and weigh it.

PS: Mavic wheelsets are very good, don't ditch it for something inferior. There is more to a wheelset than just the rim width. My Mavic wheelset lasted three years before I even had to change a spoke! No freehub or bearing problems at all. It was still going strong several years later when I lost touch with the guy that bought the wheelset.

This is useful:
https://www.wtb.com/pages/tire-rim-fit-chart

I can assure you that a 2.4" tyre will run on a 19mm internal rim without the tyre rolling off on corners. I ran 2.35" Maxxis Igniters for years on a 19mm rim. (OK, it's not 2.4" exactly, but it's only 25 thousandths of an inch smaller on either side).

I use Gorilla tape to do my rims. When you strip off the old tape make sure that you get rid of the old adhesive if there is any. 25mm wide tape might just do the job OK without running up the sides of the rim wall too far. If it does it will make it harder to get the tyre on. This in turn will make the tyre harder to get off,especially if you have to do it trailside. Be warned that some riders that use Gorilla tape report that once on, it is very difficult to remove. I've not had that problem yet. But the Sherwood Pines Bike shop recommends its use.

You ought to start a separate thread on tyre choice. State where you ride, what wheel dia, what rims, what sort of rider you are (fast, aggressive cornering and big jumps, or a long distance cruiser over mostly smooth (ish) trails. What you a re looking for, light or robust, grippy or smooth rolling etc.

PS: Guys that expect slower riders to give way without as much as an "excuse me" have been around since the dawn of bicycling. They were 4rses then and are 4rses now. It is just that a the power of"e" makes them more noticeable. People don't become 4rses just because they bought an emtb, they already were an 4rse!

You are overthinking things, @danlightbulb.
You can have a tyre with very low rolling resistance or a tyre with superb grip. You can't have both. In MTBing tyres are always a compromise.
Put your new Maxxis tyres on, ride your bike and stop worrying.

Well I put a lot of effort into trying to persuade you to go with the TKs. Maybe I tried too hard and it was counter productive?