David started mountain biking in the 90’s, by which he means “Ineptly jumping a Saracen Kili Racer off anything available in a nearby industrial estate”. After growing up and living in some extremely flat places, David moved to Yorkshire specifically for the mountain biking. This felt like a horrible mistake at first, because the hills are so steep, but you get used to them pretty quickly.
Previously, David trifled with road and BMX, but mountain bikes always won. He’s most at peace battering down a rough trail, quietly fixing everything that does to a bike, or trying to figure out if that one click of compression damping has made things marginally better or worse. The inept jumping continues to this day.
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This rang awfully true to me – I got some RSP wheels (admittedly a cheap set) when I first went 650B. The freehub died very quickly and they didn’t do a replacement! Very poor, so swapped to Hope, despite the massive price hike. I’d think long and hard before splashing out on anything expensive that was RSP branded I’m afraid.
Yeah, the mechanicals were a shame, because the ride quality was second only to the Mavics in this grouptest. Once set up they ran without trouble for the test, but these would have been a shoo-in for best value if not for the issues mentioned.
I have two sets of the cheaper Raleigh wheels with Chosen hubs and Alex rims. Both free hubs have played me up with an intermittent failure to engage drive. This has mainly been in situations where you back pedal to avoid a rock then try and put the power down again. You end up sometimes doing a whole crank revolution before it engages drive. One of these wheels has done less than 500 miles so it’s a real pisser. Raleigh were next to useless. It’s a different pawl system to that shown and my thought is that the springs are too weak, but I’ve not gotten around to trying to source stronger ones yet.
Shame, because apart from that they are ok.
Description says 6 pawls, picture shows 3 pawls…
900 GBP for a 1785g carbon wheelset with low quality hubs…. WOW!
I just got a custom built wheelset with spank rims (Oozy Trail 345 front, Spike Race 33 back) and Newmen Evolution SL hubs. (light, strong, star ratchet freehub, 36t is more than enough for my riding) Quality handbuilt with even spoke tension. 1700g 😉 for ~ 600 GBP. (same wheelset with hope pro 4 even would have been 90 GBP less and about 100g more)
Carbon wheelsets for over 900 GBP? Better save the money for a bike holiday / trip to awesome riding sites…