I’ve got up to £1500 to spend on some new wheels for my road bike, what do you recommend? I want some all-round wheels that’ll be stiffer and lighter than my current Mavic Aksium Elites! I’ve tried google, but there are so many to choose from I start getting confused (easily done) and I’ve spoken to a couple of lbs’ who (obviously) want to sell their products (one recommended Fast Forward and the other carbon Mavics). Thanks

Handbuilts, your choice of rim laced with CX-Ray spokes onto some posh hubs

You don’t need to spend £1500. Get some Kysrium Pro SLs and yu’ll be amazed at the difference in climbing stiffness and sharpness in the handling. Most Mavic retailers will discount these from £800 to £600. You’ll also lose about 150 gms in weight.

I have Campagnolo Shamal Ultra’s. I really like them.

Ah, Mavic carbon road wheels, the ones I waited a year for then gave up on…. I have recently ordered a set of Mr Hope’s carbon road wheels instead, due in the next few weeks.

Ksyrium Pro are nice. They carry speed particularly well. I have had a set of the disc ones since Spring.

As above no need to spend £1500 on wheels when Fulcrum Racing Zeros can be found for £650

Reynolds Assaults for summer and keep your Aksiums for winter

Can’t stress how good the Reynolds are!

Mine are up for sale now too if you want to save a chunk of cash, only reason I’ve gone for the slightly deeper Strikes on my new aero road bike.

Loads to choose from. My all round would be fairly light 40mm carbon rims. Someone else’s might be different depending on their riding and typical terrain.

My LBS had some Roval CLX 40 carbon clinchers on sale for a grand, I was tempted.

Reynolds Assault and Zipp 303’s well worth a look too.

Fast Forward F4R with DT240 hubs are under a grand a pair at ProBikeKit too.

You could get some Knight 35 clinchers on 240 hubs just in budget too.

Are these to be all round year round wheels?

Magic ksyrium pro exalith.
An outstanding set of wheels. I’ve used them for 18months now. Still true and the buzzing noise whilst braking will stop getting on your wick.

Jeez so much guff on one thread.

Climbing stiffness?

Cannot stress how good (from someone selling)

Carry speed?

Jeez keep on reading the press releases guys!

I wanted the top end Mavic alloy jobbies when I was looking – they’re similar to your budget. But I ended up with Bontrager Paradigm Elite TLR which are about £750 from memory. Respectably light and plenty stiff enough. Ive had a pair of alloy rimmed fast forward f4’s before. Nice wheels although I did crack one by the spoke hole but it was replaced under warranty. This time round though I wasn’t particularly after an aero carbon wheel.

I have been very happy with my Zipp 303s. My experience with them seems to be backed up by their consistent (and across the board) five-star reviews. They cost me £1250 from a UK retailer in Stealth ie black decals.

Have Zipp overcome their hub problems…or instead concentrating on whale inspired designs?!

Recent hubs seem a big improvement. They’ve had their fair share of recalls and hopefully lessons learnt!

Chris King hubs, some Enve rims and CX ray spokes. Handbuilt are always nice to ride and repairable.

Yeah, just get the priciest stuff you can.

Keep the Aksiums and go to the Alps for three weeks.

..or buy some Zonda’s go to the Alps for two weeks and give me £200 for the great advice.

Chris King hubs, some Enve rims and CX ray spokes. Handbuilt are always nice to ride and repairable.

Only about £1000 over budget!

Substitute Chinese rims and you’re there though. I’ve got FarSports 38mm rims on Tune Mig/Mag with CX-Rays and they’re bloody good. About half your budget too

I’ve got Ksyrium Pro Disc’s on my Cx bike I’m pleased with them especially considering the beating they’ve taken. 😳

Thanks All,

Are these to be all round year round wheels?

No, they’ll just be used in summer(ish)

Nice choice and budget to have. How much of that budget do you really want to spend?

Few questions you might want to think about. I’d look at stuff like how much climbing I do, if your typical routes are very hilly you might want lighter wheels and shallower rims as your avg speed will be lower. Lots of down hill and it also worth considering the braking qualities. If your rides are mostly rolling / flat you might trade off some weight for more aero. You might also want to think about your avg ride speeds as deeper rims tend to be less stable at slower speeds.

Will you be racing on them? What sort of racing? You might want to think about how easy they’ll be to service, repair or replace. Wheels like the FFWD that come on standard DT hubs might be a good option if racing.

How concerned are you about aero performance? If you’re spending a lot of cash to buy aero performance then you want to know you’re getting something that works. Can be hard to find good test data on some wheels. Zipp’s are a very common sight on time trial bikes as performance is known to be good and there’s a lot of test data out there (most manufacturers who do publish data will often use Zipps as a baseline comparison.)

FWIW, my race/summer bike has Zipp 404 clinchers (front also gets raced on the TT bike when not using the 808.) Though I do also have some 50mm Planet X tubs that I’ve used for some crits when I’m worried about crash damage.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/easton-ec90-aero-55-road-clincher-wheelset/rp-prod143626

I’m very reliably informed these will drop in price shortly.

For the last two years I’ve been running 38mm Carbonal carbon rims, CX Ray spokes on Nova Tech hubs, 1420g, £550 from Spokeman.

I’m using them tubeless with 25mm Schwalbe Pro One.

I’m very reliably informed these will drop in price shortly.

I’d do my research on these, Easton had some awful problems with their hubs a while back.

Also a bit deep and heavy for all round wheels (depending on your definition of all round!)

I nearly went for those Easton in tubular a few months back but CRC wouldn’t offer a similar discount to what they already had on the clinchers, around £1200 at the time.

The tubs are now at £999.