I spend more time on a road bike than I do on a mountain bike but I don’t see myself as a roadie; it’s just a matter of consequence. I work 20 miles from where I live so I ride it most days so I clock up the road miles.

Over the last couple of years I’ve had trouble with wheels; I’m a fairly heavy feller at 90kgs (dressed) and managed to muller my Bontrager races after less than a years riding, and have just ripped 4 spokes out of the rim on my Planet X B-Type after 4 months (3000km’s) use.

I’m replacing the Planet X wheels with some CX wheels (A57’s) for commuting but want to keep something nice for the weekend.
So, from experience, I know that Hope II’s on Stans Arch rims are a cut above any other mtb wheel out there for performance, strength and weight and price. So my question is; is there a similar road wheel for less than £400 that’s suitable for heavy riders, stiff as you’d like and 1600g or there abouts.

Any comments/recommendation welcome….cheers in advance.

mavic ksyriums are said to be strong; although spares and servicing can be tricky.

hope also do road hoops – but i haven’t heard much about them.

if i were a serial wheel wrecker i’d be inclined to get some handbuilts from a reputable builder. the build is more important than the components.

Best shimano hubs handbuilt with mavic open pros are hard to beat I use mine for cx as well as road

Another vote for the handbuilt route, Mavic Open Pro’s are THE reference road rim that everything else is compared to.

I’ve got a set on my CX, built up with Hope hubs, the wheels are 3 years old and have done the Three Peaks plus Peaks and Lakes offroad rides, commuting, winter training etc and are still as good as new. Ceramic rims though so wear is much less of an issue.

Hope hubs handbuilt onto Open Pro’s?
Did a pair for someone who raced 2 full seasons of cx & training before they needed re rimming as braking surface was worn out.
About as reliable as you’ll get & easy to service hubs.
Either that or Kysriums IMO.

Mavic Open Pro’s

that’s what I was advised when I asked a well respected wheel builder (and I’m a ‘bit’ over 90kg)

I built Open Pro onto XTR hubs (36H) for my tourer. It’s often laden and still gets ridden over some fairly rough stuff (as well as Edinburgh cobbles) and it’s been fine.

+1 for open pro rims on at least Ultegra hubs

I like hope; always have but arn’t these a bit of a winter training/touring wheel?

I have a few sets of 32h open pros on various shimano hubs (105 up) built by Harry Rowland (http://www.harryrowland.co.uk/ top quality builder used by Roberts on their hand builds)and they are excellent, strong but light. Put a decent tyre on them – Vittoria Open Corsa Evo CX, if you’re keeping them for best and they are all you need. I’ve just built some dt swiss 520’s as an alternative to open pro’s which feel quite stiff but not had them long enoughtto realy judge them yet.

I have open pro’s on Hope pro 3 hubs – I bought them nearly new from bigdugsbaws via the classifieds and they’ve been excellent. They’re no especially light but nice and solid and have stayed very true.

Cheeky question – how are you over 90kgs riding 40 miles a few times a week? 😉

shortbread_fanylion – Member
<snip>Cheeky question – how are you over 90kgs riding 40 miles a few times a week?

Cos he’s 6’10” so watch what you say! 🙂

Yikes 😆

ok, what road rims for a 75kg streak of p155 who doesn’t muller his stuff?

something light, strong, and cheap.

and the moon on a stick please.

I had the hope pro3 hubs on open pro’s, solid set of wheels. But the freehub drove me insane on the road, which is odd as I love the racket my pro 2’s make on my mtb.

ok, what road rims for a 75kg streak of p155 who doesn’t muller his stuff?

something light, strong, and cheap.

and the moon on a stick please.

Planet x model b.

Hope road Hoops come in a variety of flavours and most under your £400 budget. They do a Pro3/Open pro combo, also some 24h straight pull hubs on a few different rims. After Christmas sometime I believe they are starting to use the Stans No tubes Apex rim.

I have the Pro3/DT R1.1 combo and it’s the best set of wheels I’ve had in ages. They hand lace, machine tension then hand check all wheels, except the carbon rims which are hand tensioned also.

ok, what road rims for a 75kg streak of p155 who doesn’t muller his stuff?

something light, strong, and cheap.

and the moon on a stick please.

Tiagra hubs (about £38 the pair) dt swiss 520 rims (c£75) Sapim race spokes (c£30) and a spoke key for c£5 and make them yourself. Doing it yourself gives you the option of picking up cheap bits if youshop around (£12 for the Tigara front hub) and choosing rims which match your needs / desires

American Classic’s

I weigh in at significantly over 90 kg and use hand-built wheels on both my road and CX bikes. It might seem unimaginative, but I use Open Pros on both the CX and road bike, laced to Ulegra hubs on the CX and Dura-Ace on the road bike.

Just my experience mind you, but when you weigh up the price, weight, strength, stiffness, ‘resistance’ exerted by bearings, quality of build, ease of sourcing spares for repair…it becomes difficult to justify buying ‘factory’ wheels in my opinion. Especially for training use.

Over the last couple of years I’ve had trouble with wheels; I’m a fairly heavy feller at 90kgs (dressed) and managed to muller my Bontrager races after less than a years riding, and have just ripped 4 spokes out of the rim on my Planet X B-Type after 4 months (3000km’s) use.

I’ve got a bontrager wheel on the back, and it is pretty creaky, after a couple of years of a similar commute, and needs truing more often than I’d like. I only weigh 75kg or so.

On the front, I replaced it with shimano hub on open pro (dynamo hub on the front). I’ve worn out one rim through braking so far, without it ever losing true. I have a replacement tiagra hub/open pro rear wheel that I’ll stick on once the back wheel wears out a bit more.

Joe

Ambrosio Excellence, 32h front and back, Ultegra 6700 hubs £293 from Wheelsmith.co.uk

The wheels I got from him are amazing, far better than any other handbuilts, perfect tension, have stayed perfectly true after many races and training miles.

ease of sourcing spares for repair…it becomes difficult to justify buying ‘factory’ wheels in my opinion

+1 Over the last couple of years I have had spokes break on factory built road wheels (Mavic and Shimano) both times because we were on holiday in rural Ireland no spare spokes have been available localy and the wheels have been unusable. Because of this I am gradualy relegating my factory wheels to commuters and training bike and replacing them with hand built jobs.

I’m over 90kg and use Mavic rims on my road bikes, never had a problem with them, the Open Pro is a good compromise between weight & strength IMHO. I have mine built on campag hubs except the front on my winter/hack bike, which is built onto a Shimano nexus dynamo hub – the hub is so heavy it has it’s own gravitational pull lol, but so handy to have a decent light there whenever it is needed – I tend to leave the light on unless the weather is particularly nice.

Consider slightly bigger tyre carcass, maybe 25mm, if your bike has the clearance for them. 23 to 25 doesn’t sound like a big difference but there is a distinct loss of ride harshness using the bigger tyre.

cheeky question – how are you over 90kgs riding 40 miles a few times a week?

That’s a very good question. I don’t drink, have a fairly healthy diet, commute at least 180km a week, long ride/run at the weekend (3+hrs), swim twice a week (usually between 1-1.5miles with drills thrown in), and run/gym at lunch time 3 times a week. I’d like to think it’s muscle but it’s not; I’m 24% fat.

Thanks for the comments. I reckon hand made is the way forward; I’m probably swung due to the availability of spares when things go wrong. Probably look at Ultegra/Open pro’s.

For something pretty, practical and hardwearing, how about Royce 36h hubs on Halo Aerorage.