So after a few years of focusing more on the road and selling off all bouncy bikes, I want to get into Enduro riding/racing again.

Imagine spending around £2000. Looking maximum value/performance for money. So far thinking YT Jeffsy for ~£1400 (base model delivered). Then would be looking for a set of ‘race’ wheels.

Wouldn’t be the smoothest rider about, but not heavy either at sub 70kg kitted up. Looking far and wide for a good wheelset, but doesn’t seem to be a lot of info about and i’m a bit out of the loop these days.

Stans Bravo look like the dream.
Blue Flow look interesting at about £800 and crash replacement/rim replacement policy is pretty important to me when I’m spending that sort of buck on wheels.
Then thinking custom build of China’s finest – is Light-Bicycle still the place to buy from? Throw in some novatec hubs and sapim spokes?
Anything else? Heard some stories about American Classic having dodgy hubs. Mavics seem pretty overpriced.

I see the YT is boost (12×148) rear end, but not forks, so I could be quite limited there.

(If you know of any good deals on trail/enduro bikes also, speak up as I’m not fully set on the YT yet, but it’s definitely leading the value for money game so far. Nukeproof Mega 290, Whyte t-130, Radon, Vitus Escarpe also considered but not as excited about any of those)

Stans Arch Mk3 on DT Swiss 240S’s.

Sixth Element 38mm on Hope Pro 4 hubs

I bought light bike rims, and got my lbs (who I trust) to build them. Came in about the same with as complete from china with hope hubs.

I can’t get spending £800 on wheels on a £1400 bike.

Is there not a complete bike with wheels to suit for that price.

Although guess you’d make some decent money back on wheels sold as new from the jeffsy

DT EX1501s or build as close as you can with DT 240s or 350, on DT EX471 rims.

Not flashy, but ride better than way more expensive options.

You could go Rose Uncle Jimbo or Granite Chief and then plump for EX1501 or XM1501’s in the configurator. Complete bike may go over budget but E1700 might be a good compromise and bring the price down.

Easton ARC 27/30 rims on some dt hubs. Tough enough for 100kg of unskilled rider on a 29er.

Some good suggestions so far, much appreciated, carefully considering them all.

@coomber WRT £800 wheels on a £1400 bike – I’m buying the bike for the geometry.They don’t sell frame only or framesets. It has Shimano SLX which is also fully functional. We’ll see how the fork and shock is. After a good frame, wheels are the most important part. To buy a good frame, and good wheels, I’d be looking at a top end spec’d bike, with parts I don’t necessarily need/want. This is a more cost effective way to do things and I can upgrade smaller parts as required/broken.
Doubt there’s anything to be made on the Jeffsy stock wheels as they’re selling at about £200!

@paulneenan, hadn’t considered Rose. Looking for a 29er pretty exclusively, so neither of those, but found the ‘Root Miller’ on there and looks interesting. Are you riding a Rose?

Has anyone any experience with riding Stans (Flow or Arch) and carbon rims? Would be interesting to hear of any stiffness/damping differences.
Like the idea of carbon for stiffer & lighter wheel but would rather be dinging an alu rim in a race run than cracking a carbon one if it came to it.

After a good frame, wheels are the most important part.

If you were referring to buying a road bike I’d agree.

I am coming from a big road biking background, so would you care to say why you don’t think this is the case?
I’m more than happy to not spend more money! But I do think it would be a significant performance improvement.

I gathered that as road bikes are built around the wheels and frame.

Now don’t get me wrong, wheels are important but you won’t notice half as much difference between a £200 set to a £800 set of wheels compared to the difference good suspension versus cheaper suspension can make, i.e. front forks and rear shock.

I’ve had Stans, Shimano XTRs, Giants full carbon rims, American Classics, cheaper own brands and you can tell a slight difference but not as much as a lower end fork compared to a higher end fork.

For MTB’ing the frame and suspension are arguably the most important components.

You also have to factor in that with MTBing you are far far more likely to damage/break your wheelset in some way and although yes you can get parts replaced it’ll start to get expensive with higher end wheelsets. If you can afford it crack on but many in the MTB world view wheels as a consumable.

Fair point OP and as someone who has never owned a pair of expensive wheels, I’m probably not worthy of responding to be honest.

However I’d want to be 100% sure that the bike was what I was expecting first before thinking along the line of that price wheels.

Davemonty – I hear good things about the Rootmiller but unsure how it compares to the Jeffsy etc. Perhaps a demo might help?

Yep. I’m on a Jimbo.

CRC will do a custom build of Hope Pro 4s,Stans MK3 Arches and Double butted spokes for £408 delivered.

Larrylamb, cheers, good points made there. Potentially am not paying enough attention to suspension after so long chasing pavements! Rockshox Pike and Monarch on the Jeffsy base model should be solid though?

@Gravesendgrunt, that’s looking bloody good value! Will look into that one.

Currently getting some Nextie 35mm rims fitted to Hope Pro 4s, to give my trusty Intense Carbine a bit of a revamp.
£700 ish
Graham at Slam69 is the Uk dealer: great guy; great service, and no messing about direct with China.

http://slam69.co.uk

Rockshox Pike and Monarch on the Jeffsy base model should be solid though?

Yes they are, to be fair for £1300 that Jeffsy AL is a bargain. The RC versions of the Pike and Monarch are fine, if you’re coming back into the sport I’d suggest getting the Jeffsy AL and just riding it for a bit and go from there.

I’d certainly not spank out upwards of £800 on wheels when you might find the current ones are more than enough.

Presumably you’re looking at the medium Jeffsy as all other sizes have sold out?

I’d be buying a pair of arches/xm421s on hopes/DT’s and spending the money saved on the next model up Jeffsy (al comp 1) which comes with a very good set of wheels to start with.

Looking at the spec it does seem amazing!

the pike will be fine,

the monarch ime is probably the weakest link , but still not terrible
and the wheels actually seem a bit narrow-
are superstar still 25% off at the moment get a set of ryde enduro rims(or whatever you fancy) with ss switch lite boost hub on the back for about £300?!

If it helps any I’ve just had some stans flow 3 built up with sapium spokes and pro4 hubs. Not risen yet as been lazy but they are nice set up also worth noting there a 2000gram set built but I’m not light. So if me I’d look at the arcs and arches rim wise got both and there good rim choice.

I’d be buying a pair of arches/xm421s on hopes/DT’s and spending the money saved on the next model up Jeffsy (al comp 1) which comes with a very good set of wheels to start with.

Are they not the same wheels or am I missing something ?

Gonna get flamed for this but try Superst’s custom wheel builder section.

You can then spec hubs that are pretty basic Novatec rebrands all the way to super duper stuff with about a million points of engagement.
Rims can be from the main players like DT Swiss, Mavic, Ryde etc or superstar’s own brand.
Everything from narrow (by modern standard) 21mm stuff to wide Enduro-tastic 30mm width stuff.
Even if they arrive shonky (and I’ve yet to have that happen) most LBSs will tension up a wheel for a tenner.
Why anyone would go somewhere else and have to deal with proprietary spokes, long waits for spares etc is beyond me.