I know , I know It’s been done a thousand times before. I have a Giant Defy 2 with the bog standard Giant S-R2 wheels . I’ve done around 2500 miles and apart from a couple of services they have had no other love.
Anyhoo , I’ve only a small £200 budget and was wondering if there is any point in upgrading.

My options are the following .

Mavic Aksiums
Fulcrum 5’s
Shimano r500’s .

Or a set of second hand Kysirium or Mavic Open Pro with Hope hubs.

My thought’s are I dont like the bladed Aksium spokes and heard bad stuff about Fulcrum 5’s.

Please enlighten me.

just get good tyres, you’re not going to get much improvement with the wheels at that price point. You may get a bit, but not much.

For your budget – the used Dura Ace on open pros for £150 in the classified. None of the above will give an improvement on the wheels on your bike. You need to either double your budget or go handmade. I bought a set of used Ksyrium Elites and I like them.

Cheers guys will have a look at the Dura Ace ones , I had originally had fairly cack tyres on but eventually bought Conti Grand Prix 24’s which made a world of difference. Im no Cancellera but can fire round corners fairly quick and with confidence. I think the only advantage to the wheels mentioned above are sealed bearings as opposed to cup and cones on the Giant wheelset.

Any link to the Dura ace wheels would be good. 🙂

I’ve got superstar elite they cost me about £170 made a lot of difference my bike had mavic ask rim on before superstar wheels are much lighter and faster

what about the superstar ones. 1500g a pair for 170 quid. Just ordered a pair.

link

They are exelent wheels for the money

I expect those bare wheels to weigh (all in) around the 2Kg mark.
And we all know the rule about losing rotational weight – especially if you’re riding uphill.
At around £200 I think you can have a worthy upgrade – but I would factor in some decent tyres as well. I believe Giant put their own brand wire beaded tyres onto a lot of their bikes – worth checking.
For around £200 you could get Shimano Ultegra wheels or Fulcrum 5s or Mavic Aksiums.
The Ultegras are under 1700g and the others a bit over that. I’d also like to try the Campag Scirroco 35s and they might be worth investigating also.
I’ve not had any problems with bladed spokes either – so not sure what issues you may have had.

Edit: those Superstar ones are worth a look. Good weight on those.

I’ve got Fulcrum 5s and they are great; light, stiff and spin well, not had any bother with them, although I don’t want to have to get replacement spokes so I’m careful with them

if you can get those dura-ace/open pros from the classifieds then go for it, that’s a bargain

those superstar look like a good deal tho, assuming they are built well. get some decent tubes and vittoria open corsa EVO from PX

actually don’t delay and get the open corsas now (and good tubes) and bang them on the current wheels and see what the improvement is

Thanks folks for the replies , good for thought and plenty options. 🙂