Can anyone recommend me some cheapish wheels, lightish but fairly strong (going on a long-travel hardtail for riding lots of rocks and the occasional 4ft drop)? I hear Superstar wheelsets are good? Tempted by Stans Flow rims, but they’re not cheap. Currently got tired WTB Dual Duty rims on Pro 2s – anything a bit lighter than this combo would be good, so long as it’s reasonably robust. Ta.

were you planning on using them on holiday in Spain?

those with lighter rims would be my choice tbh

Merlin have cheap 355’s £80 a set but they are not that strong IMHO

Superstar have Flows on Switch hubs for 220 quid a pair ATM. Mine arrived today.

slainte 😀 rob

Junkyard – no, UK, Calderdale and Lakes, but thanks for your post.
Colournoise – thanks for that, sounds like amazing value. Don’t know anything about Switch hubs – are they supposed to be good? Don’t suppose you happen to know the weight of the wheels without tyres and tubes?

superstar either work well or fail abysmally – they have issues with QC and the customer service is shocking. the general view of their stuff ids very mixed to put it mildly

I would avoid tbh as you have Hope stuff so getting new rims will be cheaper, makes more sense and will give you hubs for life pretty much.
Lacing rims is easy and you can then just get the trued.

i doubt anyone would swap Hope Hubs for Superstar tbh

The switch hubs are decent, Novatec units I think. Standard bearings seem fairly poor, at least, none of the ones I know of have lasted very well, but that’s easily sorted. I don’t think they’re far inferior to a Pro 2 despite the price difference.

Fruit doesn’t like it when I mention this but while most of the SS wheels I’ve seen have been really well built, a couple have been rubbish- uneven tension and visible wobble from new. Then combine that with the possibility that Legendary Superstar Customer Service will occur. But the parts are such good value, that I’d still consider them- price of a proper rebuild would still leave them cheaper than the competition, and if you get a good one then that’s even more of a bargain.

Reckon it’s probably worth the risk. Just a pair of Stans rims, plus new spokes, nipples and a decent wheel build, will set me back around the same as these new wheels, if I’m not mistaken. Got Superstar pedals and they’ve been great.

Been running Superstar XC430 rims on Superstar Slick hubs for the last 18 months with zero problems.

Currently got tired WTB Dual Duty rims on Pro 2s – anything a bit lighter than this combo would be good, so long as it’s reasonably robust.

Again though, why would you ditch the Pro 2s? I see your point about overall cost, but if you have wheels comprising Pro 2s and Flows, it’s worth going with that.
Unless you fancy something new, in which case, feel free to ignore 🙂

i doubt anyone would swap Hope Hubs for Superstar tbh

Only someone clinically insane would do so. Hope offer great products, at great prices and have even better after care than almost anyone else in the industry.

Superstar rather fail there….

wl – Member
Colournoise – thanks for that, sounds like amazing value. Don’t know anything about Switch hubs – are they supposed to be good? Don’t suppose you happen to know the weight of the wheels without tyres and tubes?

First thing I did was get the scales out when mine came earlier.

Can’t remember weights to the gram, but front was 980g ish and rear was just under the kg (that’s just rims, spokes, hubs and rim strip). For me that’s plenty light as my previous wheels (Azonic Outlaw) were around 1.3kg front and 1.5kg rear.

slainte 😀 rob

Nicko – I know what you mean and I’m not bothered about just trying something new or changing for the sake of it – I’m totally happy with pro 2s. It’s just a matter of economy. By my (admittedly sketchy) calculation it would be significantly cheaper to buy new wheels at Superstar’s prices rather than buy the Stans rims, all the bits and then pay for a build. If anyone on here knows the real maths, feel free to let us know. Ta.

i have been happy with my switch hubs original bearings lasted 12 month really easy to change 2 , i have snapped my free hub and replaced with a steel one ,but to be fair if i had the money then i would buy hope as there uk products and the customer service, superstar hubs nova tec what ever are very well made and have taken a beating so i would buy again

I recently got flow rims on switch hubs. Very quick turnaround from superstar and no probs so far. Weight was total of 1980g for the pair.

I’d say new build would be equal. Say 2x£80 for crest rims Plus £85 for build inc spokes is £245. 🙂

Just got a pair of superstar custom wheels delivered this afternoon, superlegero rear hub and switch front on am 490 rims, they are light and look beefy,and quality looks great,time will tell

if your not in to much of a hurry and coming to mayhem il rebuild your wheels at mayhem if you get the parts (email me if you need me to work out the spoke lenght) for a bottle of dr pepper and jaffa cakes cos im feeling really nice and the fact that im building 3 other sets of wheels for people there 😆

Got Superstar & Hopes – both really good,reliable & light..But one is much cheaper than the other……If I was buying another set,I’d go for SS…..

wl – if you want rid of your pro2 hubs then let me know…

Buy a set of Hope Hoops- you’ll get them for well under £300, and sell your old set- probably worth £100ish even on a bad day.

I’m no Superstar hater, but there does seem to be a bit of quality variability- when they had wheel sets for £150 or so a while back they were worth considering, but when it’s only £60 more to upgrade to Hope…

I’ve had Flows on Switch hubs for about 18months now. Bearings in the hubs were rubbish but easily changed then the freehub body went like this (though not quite as catastrophic):

Changed for one of the steel ones, as I figured it could at least partially be down to wear-and-tear. Seems to be a bit of a thing for Novatec freehubs though.

Apart from that, they’ve been fine (take that for what you will, but I’m actually pretty happy with them for the price). The Flows are still round and true despite some pretty ungraceful riding.

I bought there Tech2 wheelset (slick hubs = Novatec) about 18 months ago and ran ’em for a year.
Only retired them because I wanted to run Stans tubeless.
The build quality was good, nice even tension and have been easy to tweak to keep true.
As others have said, the original hub bearings were either poor quality or just badly sealed/not adequately packed. They failed within a couple of months. I replaced with cheap ebay bearings but well packed with good grease and they were faultless since. I’d even go so far as to say that they have been more resilient to the local grit and crap than my Pro2s.

<EDIT> They’re sat in the garage unused at the moment. I might as well sell them if you’re interested.
I seem to remember the Tech 2 Wheelset got a “recommended” review in Singletrack, but that might have been with the switch hub.
£80 posted? </EDIT>

Ive had Superstar AM430 wheels for the last 18 months….frankly i think theyre unbeatable. They go round, dont fall apart (touches wood furiously), and a bargain cheap. They even look the danglies (especially in white). I know the customer service is patchy to say the least, but ive personally used them for years, and never, ever had any problems…i suspect ive just been lucky though.

CaptainFlashheart – Member

Superstar rather fail there….

…Yes they can be a bit hit and miss, but any company who can reduce the “all knowing one” to online threats of arson and ruination must be worth some bonus points 😆

I’ve got Superstar’s £160 AM wheelset with their own brand rims which are made by Alex and Switch Evo Hubs which are Novatec D881SB front and D882SB rear (click links for info). I agree that the bearings they come with are pretty low quality as mine need replacing after 6 months and 1,000km but even good quality bearings don’t last forever so it’s not like you’ll never need to replace them on other hubs. As far as I can see the best replacements are SKF bearings from Katec on ebay at £40 for a full set (6804-2RS x 2 & 6802-2RS x 4) which you’ll find if you search “prorider switch”. In my experience Superstar’s customer service has been great, they’ve always responded well and within a day to emails and returns and when I had a big off buckling my front wheel and knackering half the drive side spoke with the chain they fixed before wheels for free including return postage so it only cost me £12ish to post them to them with Parcelfarce.

I’ve always been impressed by my Halo freedom wheelset – don’t know the weights off hand, but they’re not to bad for how tough they seem to be.

I got a set of Superstar Switches laced to Stans Crest.

Be warned, I had to tension them up properly as the spokes were massively out of tune to my trained ear. Some of the spokes were actually loose.

However now I’ve built them properly I’ve actually been trying to break these rims. They seem to be able to cope with the drops I dare to chuck at them…… 3-4 foot, to the point that I am keeping them on for trail centre duties instead of using my Flows.