Generic Chinese rims have gotten very good. I bought a pair of Firecrest clones last year. I was able to spec the spokes and the hubs and the build quality is excellent. I season of racing (I do a weekly road race) at 200+ lbs and they are still as true as the day I bought them. Brake tracks are good even in the rain as long as you don't try to use the cork brake pads.

They were about $700 with Sapim spokes and novatek hubs. I just can't see buying Zipps again for 4 times the money. For the, "I don't trust them crowd", I've had a 404 where the brake track separated from the rim and an Ardennes hub flange crack.

I am pretty sure that Hunt does their own rim profile (and maybe hub) designs and then sources the manufacturing to one of the Chinese mfgs. Kind of like the same business model as Boyd https://boydcycling.com/

It's not the quality that's the issue, it's mainly the cost plus shipping time which compounds any warranty issues. You can pick up a set of wheels for $700, but that's what my near new 808 tubs cost. Plenty of 2nd hand bargains out there especially with tubulars. And that's why Chinese wheels haven't taken off in Australia. The cost. The best solution would be to do what Caden Wheels does, purchase the rims from China, build them in Australia. They then become an Australian product :)

Swiss Side Hadron Classic are in your budget and great wheels.

https://www.swissside.com/collections

I don't want tubulars, if I did I would have looked at used, they are dirt cheap. For the price of a set of 404s I could buy 4 sets of wheels and have warranty replacements readily available for years.

3 years, 4k miles and 2 crashes on mine and they're like brand new. highly recommended from me.

As said before, Yoeleo and Farsports have been there.
And almost all of their rims across the line passed the UCI homologation protocol tests.

https://www.uci.org/docs/default-source/equipment/liste-des-roues-homologu-es---list-of-approved-wheels---fra.pdf?sfvrsn=9f00368f_72

So IMHO they can be trusted.
FWIW Farsports wheels are much cheaper...

Louis :)

Something I realize now ->

People that have Yoeleo wheels like it and nobody reported any problems

People that don't have it or are scared of it (I'm too ) but never really had a wheel set to try.

My conclusion based on this very not scientific observation is the wheels are fine and work fine, people are just scared of any Chinese product ( myself included )

I still not confident to buy a wheelset, as silly as it sounds to my rational mind.

The same thing happened with "Japanese cars". For quite a few years, nobody would buy them because they were garbage. Then they got pretty good.

We're in a weird spot with "Made in China" wheels. "Made in China but branded with a non-Chinese brand name" seems fine, but "Made in China and branded with a Chinese brand name" scares people.

My guess is that time and experience will change things a bit. But it takes time to change perceptions.

---

-Mark Rebuck, http://www.markrebuck.com/

That is actually a great analogy.

Have to think about that since both my cars are Japanese! LOL

Well, I'm Chinese and there are people who are scared of me, so there's that.

+1, UCI approved, cost, and good reviews helped me decide to try at pair. Purchased the SAT60/88 for my P3 almost 2 years ago and they have been great! zero issues.
Just bought the new 2019 Bianchi XR4 disc and decided to go with Yoeleo again (SAT 50/50). I highly recommend them.

I don't mean in a bad way - hope you know that.

But you probably know there is some Chinese manufactures that is hard to trust. And there is some Chinese companies producing all the famous brand bikes for American brands. You just don't know what you getting sometimes.

But again, there is a lot of people that have this particular wheel saying it is trustworthy than people saying it is not good!

There are shitty American manufacturers who have released bad product. Same with European, etc. etc. By this point we should know that factories anywhere manufacturer to various price points. Plenty of great quality coming from Taiwan and China.

If I were in your shoes, I would order this and be done with it. These occasionally go on sale for under $1K, but now this is the best thing going. And, these are likely faster than most other wheels you are thinking about. Add a rear wheel cover some day, and you have a smokin' fast set of wheels. And, this comes with tires, tubes, cassette, and wheel bag. What's not to love?
https://mybikeshop.com/...6-plus-wheelset.html

No issues with my Yoeleo Wheels as well. They are about 8 months new. These are the SAT C60/60 SL Clinchers. They tipped the scales at 1577g, Yoeloe Super Light Hubs, Ceramic Bearings and Sapim CX Spokes. The folks at Yoeloe custom made these for me with the red anodized nipples. Before the Yoeleo wheels I had an older pair of V shaped Gigantix Carbon wheels. No issues with these too.

Dude!!! It looks super nice!!!!! Congrats!

Final update ->

End up getting some Reynolds wheels with My Bike Shop.

After a couple of days I follow up and they told me it was out of stock for that particular model I have purchased.

They end up giving me an upgrade and even though they had some supply chain problems it was delivered about a week after that.

I truly appreciate My Bike Shop, great costumer service!

So in case you are thinking about new wheels I strongly recommended!

Ordered a set of Reynolds from My Bike Shop on Friday.......here is hoping they have them in stock I guess.