The rim’s wearing out on the CX bike I used for commuting – I’ve already swapped it out once, I reused the spokes and just swapped the rim.

I could do the same again, but many people say that reusing spokes is bad, mmmkay – so doing it twice is making me just a bit nervous

Looking around, I’ve seen shimano r500 wheelsets starting at arounf £70 for a pair – but the front wheels are radially laced, not laced 3 cross. Is it a massive difference in terms of strength?

I’m not racing on the bike, I’m riding it to and from work with a rack and pack and am not the smoothest and most subtle of riders…

I used to ride my cross bike with radially spoked Race X Lites around Ashton Court, never once trued them and they’re still perfect.

I’ve got some R500s on my bike for training and just riding along. They are without doubt the buy of the decade. I bought them as a stop gap wheelset, but I found them a nice ride over winter. Thinking they wouldn’t last I rode through everything on them. Today they’re still in use and still straight and true.

I have Mavics cheap wheels the Aksiums, and you have to treat these with kid gloves. Twice the price and only a few G’s lighter.

I’d happily race cross and ride trails on them. But go Ultegra and it’s a different story, well with mine it has been.

hmmm. new rims – £44. New wheels – £64

I built a Hope Mono front hub radially, 28 spokes onto a Mavic Open Pro and thrashed it on trails without a problem, prior to that it spent years on my SS mtb with a 26″ rim built radially. Currently got a Mavic Aksium wheelset which is 20 hole front and rear, the front is full radial, the rear is non driveside only. Just do it.

15 years ago I used Mavic sprint rims on 28 spoked Record hubs, tied and solderd, on my cross bike. It had a lot of banging around Peak district trails. The shop in Macc that sold me them told me that they were old hill climb wheels of Boardman. They were exactly the same. I did wonder.

You’ll be fine swapping the rim again.

You’ll also be fine using a radially laced wheel

Just get the new wheels, you know what happened last time you swapped rims!

I use campag Neutron wheels for riding cx. They’re fine.

Just get the new wheels, you know what happened last time you swapped rims!

Swapping rims was fine, it was rebuilding from scratch that caused issues 😳

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

My Cube came with a radially spoked front wheel, which I thought might not be up to the job. So it proved, the bike is about 2 months old and I’ve had the front wheel rebuilt already after it went out of true; had it done 2 cross this time.

radial spokes are fine. 3 out of 4 of my cross front wheels are radial including a 12 spoke with a carbon tub rim which I’ve raced plenty of times with no problem and I try not to mince!

Radial wheel + rim brakes = ok
Radial wheel + discs = recipe for disaster as they stress the spokes differently.

A well built radially laced wheel should be ok if a fairly solid rim is used. CXP33 (a bit aero) and radially laced fronts used to be a good choice for cx bikes- mud struggles to build up on them!

How about a rim with a ceramic braking surface? Not tried one myself- might last longer. I reckon the spokes will still be fine too.

I’d go for a decent handbuilt, 3x wheel and replace rims as they wear out. If you are wearing rims out first then cheap factory builts are going to be thrown away quite quickly.

I think I’ll go for a new rim on the front, the back’s fine still and they’re tiagra hubs which seems pretty decent. Might be worth me stripping the hub down firt just to make sure it’s not shot.

This shows disc brakes on road bikes are pointless eh?