Hey everyone. I’m building up an off-season training bike and I’m trying to figure out what wheelset to go with. I’m looking in the $600 - $800 range and was wondering if I should buy factory wheels (i.e. Ksyriums or similar) or get something hand built (i.e. wheelbuilder.com)? Any recommendations on pros or cons?
I know nothing about having wheels built for me, and would be open to suggestions if you tihnk hand built is the way to go. I weight 150 pounds, and this will be on a road bike.
good timing. there’s an article about this subject on the home page.
if you choose hand built wheels, your budget is too high. mavic open pros w/dura ace hubs and top quality spokes shouldn’t cost you more than $550 or so. the nice thing about hand built is that if anything goes wrong, the constituent parts are still perfectly sub-assemblies for new wheels. does it work to take a ksyrium hub into a store and say, “build me a wheel around this hub.”? i don’t know. i doubt it. but having those dura ace hubs, they’ll last you forever.
but, this time of year, end of season, i’d be sore tempted to look at some of the specials on factory builts. you could get two pair of nice factory built wheels for your budget, and that extra set of wheels is handy. look at those fulcrums and neuvations on special i mention in the article.
just realize i don’t look at wheels like you might. i don’t consider them a part of the bike. you have your bike, and then you have your wheels, and from one day to the next you slap one set of wheels or another on whatever bike you’re riding. so there’s no pairing and matching going on here. that’s just my approach.
Thanks for the reply and info. That is good timing with the article.
By the way, I had posted a while back about trapezius and front front deltoid soreness, and you suggested shortening and lowering my cockpit (which seemed counter-intuitive at the time). I did what you said, and the soreness/discomfort went away immediately. Who knew a few centimeters would be all it took!
Better yet, if you’re a halfway decent wrench, build your own! It’s nowhere near as difficult as people think. Zinn and the Art of Road Bike Maintenence has a great chapter on the subject. Check out Sheldon Brown’s article, too - full of really useful links:
Among other things, there are links to spoke length calculators here. I like Roger Musson’s - pretty easy to use. You also might want to consider buying Musson’e eBook. Lots more useful information there.
This is a great way to increase your independence from the LBS.
Dan is giving you practical advice. He’s got lots of practical wheels in his garage that serve him and whoever is borrowing one of his bikes well. Can’t argue with that.
I know that I personally like a bit more bling on my bike. Maybe that’s because I’m half his age and am still a sucker for stuff like that. My next wheelset I’ll be building up will be using the DT Swiss RR 1.2 hoop, CX-Ray spokes, DT Swiss 240S hub in the front, and PT SL 2.4 hub in the back. In your application, it sounds like you sub in the DT Swiss 240S for the rear instead of the Powertap. The RR 1.2 hoop is my favorite aluminum wheel to build with; it’s a bit heavier, but the construction is superb. The CX-Ray spokes have shown to have greater fatigue life than the other spokes that Sapim offers, so they are practical in that regard, but are also lighter and look sweet. The DT Swiss hubs are arguably the nicest hubs around. Do you need a set this nice to get in good training. Defiinitely not. If you want them though, they’ll come in just below the top end of your budget.
FWIW, I work at www.wheelbuilder.com and would probably be the guy building these up for you, so if you have any questions, shoot.
Forgot to mention…The factory stuff is generally pretty solid, but the tolerances we build with are much stricter so all else being equal the wheel will last longer.
I’ve loved my Zipp CSCs they’re light, bomber and easily repairable. I’ve seen them on sale a couple of places of late. competivecyclist.com had a pretty good review of them.
For training wheels, I just go cheap cheap cheap. My last set of training wheels were bought in Japan. Broke a spoke on my front wheel and had to get back on the road for a key workout the next day. Had to go down to Tokyo anyway with the wife to see a friend, so I just cruised around a few shops I knew for a replacement. Finally found what I was looking for. A front wheel was hanging up for under $100. I take it up, and they tell me only sold as a pair. No worries, the pair was under $100! And it included rim tape, tube, and cheap tire. Could fit all that in my bike case for the trip home so I had to take the rear wheel apart. Rebuilt it when I got back home. Key thing is these are TRAINING wheels. At $100, if they only last a season I’m more than happy. Sure they aren’t aero, may have lousy hub, etc, but for everyday training who cares?
If you can’t build up a set, go with wheelbuilder and just get some cheap, but sturdy, rims. I like the Velocity Deep V ($267 for the set at wheelbuilder). A little aero and a sturdy rim. Also like the Mavic CXP-33. Those things are bullet proof.
Both hubs are very high quality. The front hubs cost about the same, while the rear Chris King is about 20% more than the DT. I prefer the DT, but at that level it’s more just personal preference, not so much that one clearly stands above the other.
We don’t build up many wheels with Shimano parts, so it’s hard for me to say based on experience. Based on their other components though, Dura-Ace tends to be very reliable and well built and I’d imagine their hubs are the same. The DA front hub is about half the cost of the DT 240S, while the rear hubs cost about the same for the DA or the DT 240S.
you said ‘training’ wheels. get a set of ultegra hubs, 36 DT Swiss spokes, mavic open pro or CXP33 rims. it’ll cost you about $250-300 and last a lifetime. save your money for the better race stuff.
For $800 you should be able to get a set of DT190s ceramic hubs and some DT spokes. Next year come up with another $800 and you’ll have a front Zipp rim and be well underway to a rear rim. A few years down the road you’ll finally have a set of wheels, and they’ll kick ass!
LOL
Or go get some Aksium’s. Nice training wheels and I’ve never had a problem with mine. I also am a fan of handbuilt wheels because if a spoke breaks on you they are much easier to find. Get an Ultegra or DA hub, some DT 1.1 or 1.2 rims, and a decent set of spokes and you’ll have some damn nice wheels for cheap.
if you get a good wheelbuilder, handbuilt is the way to go. i have a pair of 32 hole mavic open4cd’s laced to a chris king front and a white industries rear that i’ve beat up pretty good on my road bike for AT LEAST 9 seasons and in that entire time i’ve only had to replace one spoke and have them trued about 4 times.
others are right, there’s no bling factor but these wheels are dependable with a capital D.
Another vote for Mavic Open Pros laced to something dependable. I’ve got mine on Ultegra hubs, and when I destroyed the rear rim in a crash I just bought another rim (off of ST actually!), took the destroyed wheel and the new rim to the LBS, and they swapped everything over. Voila, new wheel.
If these are training wheels, then all you care about is that they’re dependable. Save the money for some bling wheels later.
In regards to the DA vs King vs whatever… I like DA hubs myself. VERY good hubs that last for-freakin-ever. Only other way to go for me is with an ultegra. Last I opened the two up the berring races were really the only real “functional” difference so the DA would last longer. BUT you could rebuild your ultegra hub with DA races and you then have a DA hub… At least as far as how it rolled and how long it lasted.
I rebuilt my hubs once a year so in the end, I would choose an Ultegra hub for cost and rebuild it after a year to be a DA on the inside.
I’m a fan of DT revolution spokes. Nice and light and wicked strong… if built well.
Open pro rims were also my rim of choice. Mostly because they’re great rims and when I worked at excelsports (some of the best wheel builders on earth I might add) we ordered open pros by the truck load so the cost was amazing for employees.