Im after a carbon wheelset, below are the options (sorted in claimed weight order)

Strada_________1370_____£1400___Est cost with CK hubs,
EC90 XC_______1416_____£2000___Full UST
Enve__________1424_____£2104
sram rise 60____1440_____£1780
roval sl________1440_____£1300
light wheels____1460_____£900___Are these the same as the strada?
Reynolds______1596_____£1159
mavic SLR_____1620_____£750___Added for comparison
Whyte carbon___1640_____£1000
EA70 XCT______1745_____£550___Current wheelset
Fulcrum carbon__1100____TBC___when are these due out ?

Thoughts ?

Bump for the evening shift

Ps. The use is XC and I’m 72kg

Cheers

You know that the 1100 Fulcrums that photos were going around for were tubular only?

I’m quite tempted by the Light Bikes option at present, if I can find the time to build some wheels. From what I have read they seem to be good quality for the price.

The Strada rims look nice too – had a nice chat with Jonathan at the Bespoked show but thought it a bit too cheeky to ask if they were from Light Bikes! He did say that they are having them custom drilled with offset spokes (for more even spoke tension)

Gary: Fulcrum are tubular that makes sense now durrrrr

Yeh the light bikes rims seem to get good reviews, so if Strada are using a variant of them then its certainly no bad thing

I´ve been riding the SRAM wheels for a few months. I snapped an axel which was replaced under warrenty in 4 days which is cool because I personally consider that I was riding a “bit” outside what the wheels were designed for. I´m no SRAM fan but these wheels have been amazing. They spin up really fast and what´s more important for me is how stiff they are. Cosmetically they´re still brand new which, considering how I¨ve been riding them, is nothing short of amazing.

SRAM Rise 60 29″ Wheelset Review

Got any links for those light wheels?

I have the wide Light Bicycle (Chinese import) 29er wheelset. With the hub options I got (15mm bolt thru, 142×12 rear bolt thru) they use a heavier 4in1 hub combination with steel axles and freehubs that bump the weight up, so my wheels were 770g and 980g. I’d get the rims and some German sourced DT Swiss 240s and ask a local wheelbuilder to assemble them if I was to do it again.

Cant fault the rims, super stiff, light, accelerate nicely and give the tyres a great confidence inspiring profile. Nicely finished too. Somewhat less than any of the prices listed above too…

http://www.light-bicycle.com/carbon-mountain-bike/carbon-mountain-bike-wheels

http://www.stradawheels.co.uk/shop/29er-carbon-xc-wheels/

Wow many of those wheelsets are worth more than my bike!! The most expensive are probably worth more than my wifes car!

Do people actually spend over 2k on a set of wheels?!

Thanks womp, are the strada wheels 400 just for the rims rest of the build on top? Light cycles appears to be cheaper than 900? 554 usd

Iv just had to buy my wife a cheap car so I could afford some new wheels, needs must though hey

Yes I was trying to work out if the strada are light cycles but if they are it looks like they are slightly modified so I guess you have to decide if that plus the UK back up is work the difference

The £900 for the light wheels was just the rim plus DT Swiss hubs decent spokes and a wheel build

I’d do that of your options. Light Bicycle rims, 240s, Revolutions. If you want to spend more get 180 hubs. Be the lightest combo then, and still cheaper than the Enve/Easton etc offerings.

I’ve got a set of the strada’s laced onto I9 classic hubs. Really noticed the difference straight away coming from a set of BORs onto DT swiss 240 hubs.

I’ve personally known Darren at Strada for many years now and he certainly knows what he’s doing when it comes to wheels. I think that the support and knowledge you get with them is worth the money. I can’t think of another company that offers a lifetime truing policy.

If you give them a ring their put together a wheelset that is perfectly suited to you. right down to the nipples.

They’re either brass or alu. It’s not really a superior service that they’ll build with exactly what nipples you want!

I’m a bit 50/50 at the moment – I can put together a reliable set of wheels (but would have fun with thru axles and my wheel jig) but I’m quite sure that the Strada build would be better …. however I don’t have the cash in my hand right now so somewhat academic!

Morning all, thanks for the help so far, today is payday and im getting giddy about buying some new wheels, the problem is iv still not made a decision!

– ENVE seem the safe but expensive option
– light cycles the cheap and cheerful
– Strada seem a happy medium but are they worth 500 more than the light cycles(excellent build, offset spokes)
– Sram rise have a good review but I think are a little to robust/heavy for my needs

can any one else give me a last minute steer ?

I am just building up my 2nd set of Light Bicycle 29er carbon wheels. I have been using a set on one bike since September last year, and they have covered about 1k miles without any issues, so thought it was time to upgrade my other bike too. I have built them onto Hope hubs, so not especially light. Combined with Bontrager rim strips they work very well tubeless.

Gary, you can buy a set of end caps that push into the hub letting you use a thru axle hub on a normal wheel jig. I got a set from ebay from the US.

For the Light Bicycle 29er carbons – are people going for the “cross country mountain biking” or “wider carbon mountain” options? I presume the former?

–Kristan

All mine have been the wider style. There is a massive thread on mtbr about these rims and most people on there have the wider ones.

Jason – how much do the LBs on Hopes weigh and as above are you running the XC or AM rims? Similar discussion going on here;

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/29er-wheels-crossmax-st-vs-hope-hoops

I’m interested in knowing this too Jason. A friend of mine (messiah on here) has built up a 26er pair of wider carbons on Pro2 Evo hubs and they came in at 1500g using DT Rev spokes and brass nipples (I think). A quick fag packet calculation by me using manufactures stated weights came up with a target weight of 1620g (1650g tops) for a pair of 29er wheels.

I haven’t weighed them built up but adding the bits up gives 1,735g, so not especially light.

Rims are 388g and 392g (so about the same as a 29er Crest rim)
Front Pro2 Evo (15mm) 179g
Rear Pro2 Evo (142x12mm) 306g
64 x DT Swiss Comp 292mm black spokes and brass nipples 470g

The obvious place to save weight on these would be the spokes and nipples.

Mine are the wider (AM) rims made with their new process. My old rim are made with their old process and were about 20g heavier each.

I have posted these before, but here are a couple of pictures of the wheels (my older ones)


The wheel has the Bontrager rim strip fitted. The roll of Stan’s tape on the floor was for my wife’s Crest rims in the background.

Thanks for bringing this thread together, I too have been looking into Carbon Rims and just before Xmas I was errr’ing towards the SRAM 60’s, however now I too am looking into the Light Bikes but ill go for the thinner rims for XC SS’ing..
Cheers chaps.

go for bor’s

Thanks Jason. So you can get away with 292mm spokes front and rear with the wider Light Bicycle 29er rims and Hope Pro II Evo hubs? That’s useful to know.

Yes 292mm spokes worked fine for me. I think the spoke calculator I used gave lengths of between 291 and 293mm.

Thanks. That certainly sounds a lot easier than road wheels, where I’ve always needed three different spoke lengths to build a set of wheels. One box of 72 spokes; job done and plenty of spares 🙂

Will probably go DT 240 and the Light Bicycle 29er rims here. May be worth having a look at the Syntace ones too, expensive but they sound rather good.

Jason – thanks for the info – did you order direct from LB and if so how long did they take to arrive?

Post nick from another thread…

I have just had a pair of Light Bike 29er wide rims, stronger version for heavier riders (412g and 420g) built onto a set of ss tesla hubs with DT SuperComps.

There are no eyelets and the spoke holes are not offset but they had no blemishes and were plenty stiff.

They built up nicely with slightly more tension than would be normal with no issues around the spoke holes.

Wheel weights with no valve or tape were 932 and 833 so 1765g overall.

Cost wise it came in at £525 including the build by http://www.bikewheelguy.co.uk/index.html

I have gorilla taped them and have a set of Nobby Nics on tubeless with no sealant and no leaks.

Off to North Wales for 4 days this weekend so can feedback some more info then.

Jason – thanks for the info – did you order direct from LB and if so how long did they take to arrive?

Yes I ordered direct from LB. They are very easy to deal with. I ordered on 2/4/13 and I had the rims in my hand on 22/4/13. The rims I wanted weren’t in stock so that includes their manufacturing time too, the rims were despatched on 9/4/13. I had to pay £16 custom charge (most of that was Parcelforces’s handling charge!)

Quick question to those who have ridden the wider/AM LB rims…

Since carbon rims seem to be noticeably stiffer, would you consider going down to lower spoke counts (28, 24?) OR lighter spokes (i.e. DT revs) if you were to build again??

At the moment i have 29er 355’s and want to lose a little weight and gain a bit of stiffness, would be for XC so dont run massive tyres.

The temptation is growing….

Another question – for those that built thier own wheels how were they to work with?

I’ve built one wheelset before a2z hubs and stans olympic rims and it took me forever to get them true. They still are out 1-2mm but to get them perfect the tension was all over the place.

Would have thought these rims would be easier to work with as they are stiffer?

I posted my thoughts so far on my 26″ LB carbon rims on this thread

Revolution spokes and alloy nipples for me and they feel nice and solid so far… like a good wheel should

The rim is really stiff compared with light alloy rims so the wheels were a piece of piss to true… like building with a doonhall rim 8)

I stuck with 32h just because it keep it all simple when changing components around. I did consider Revolution spokes, but wanted black spokes which i don’t think you can get in Revolution flavour. Plus I have been really pleased with how my first set of wheels has performed so didn’t want to change it.

I would agree very easy to build with, much easier than a light weight Stans rim. Just don’t loose a nipple into the hollow part of the rim, as I found it took ages to get it out…

messiah: On that other thread you mention not using a torque wrench. I guess you mean a spoke tension meter of some sort. I must admit that I’ve never bothered with one of these and just tend to go for “fairly tight” and nice and true without worrying too much about equalizing spoke tension. But I’ve only ever built road wheels, which don’t get the same abuse as off road one, so am wondering whether the time has come to buy a meter.

By the way, I think you can now get Revolution spokes in Black. E.g.

http://www.bike-discount.de

Cheers,

Andy

Roverpig Yes, I meant I didn’t use a spoke-tension-meter 😆

As a recreational wheel builder I’m happy with spoke tension by finger tips. If I was selling wheels I’d buy a tension-meter to be able to prove to my customers that I’d done it right 8)

Yes you can get black revolution spokes but I wanted silver because they are stronger (this is not based on FACT in ANYWAY… silver is cheaper and more available is all). I did use black and silver alloy nipples to tart them up a bit though 😆 😕

Thanks. I think I’ll stick with my “that feels tight enough” approach for now then. One of the advantages with building your own wheels is that it’s easy enough to true them up again if they go out of true (and add a half turn extra all round if they keep doing it – not that I’ve had to do that yet). With disc brakes and big fat tyres a little buckle in the wheel is a lot less of a pain than it is on the road anyway.

I’m not sure if this is the correct for all of them… but some of the super light and low spoke count wheels I’ve played with have what feels to be a very tightly tensioned build. I have wondered if this is in some way to re/create the stiffness lost by the reduced spoke count? I’m guessing that the high tension is something which makes them feel great… until one spoke breaks and the whole thing pings to a pringle.

Puts me off low spoke count wheels… I’d rather have 32 super light spokes so I can afford to lose one or two during a ride.