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Looking to upgrade my road wheels and go tubeless while I'm at it. Currently running an older model of thr vision tri-max. Not looking for anything too fancy or carbon. I'm 12 stone and will be using these for anything from a quick ride to all day sessions on poor roads but generally on nice days in summer not winter.
Been looking on ebay for the likes of hunt aero wide or mavic Ksyrium elite ust. Prefer the look of the Hunt wheels but suspect the mavics are better.
Anyone have experience of both or care to throw into the ring another contender??
All my wheels have been from Superstar for under £200.
50% off at the mo, the most discount they ever do, and only once a year if at all.
Anyway, pay a tenner for a local shop to do spoke tensions which can be a bit variable, and you are good to go.
I had ksyrium elite and they were pretty good. Depending on your budget however I'd be looking at the prime carbon 50m wheels at crc. I had a pair, they were fantastic wheels and at that price an absolute steal.
Those Prime BlackEdition wheels look just the ticket but waaay over budget (although my head is easily turned) - was hoping for a good used pair at around 250
Cero AR24 or AR30, Strong, light and cheap!
Downside is that freehub body quite noisy
Personally I'm not a fan of Mavic's straight-pull spokes; they (certainly used to) have a lower tension than conventional J-bend spokes, and aren't as easy to find spares for.
The prime black are 625 quid. But the rr 50s (the ones I had) are only 425 with a set of tyres and tubes.
Not 250 quid I admit, but they worth considering if you can stretch the budget
Mason x Hunt 4 seasons aren’t too much over your budget new. Hubs seem ok and they look nice / are light - especially considering they are disc wheels. Front has been perfect, rear had an incident with a pot hole and needed a new rim and subsequent re-spoking. Since then all good so far.
Campag Zondas are working well with my current bulk. Can be run tubeless too if you get 2 way fit rims.
Forgot to say the Hunt’s are tubeless ready / come pre tubeless taped and with valves. Just need tyres and sealant.
Mavic's bladed spoke wheels are built to extremely high tensions, so high that if a spoke breaks it goes with a loud bang and the wheel goes straight out of true. However replacement is easy and the wheels are stiff and strong. Read up though about Mavic's freehub system, which is cleverly engineered but requires annual dismantling and servicing, so they are not fit and forget wheels.
Anyone know anything about the hunt hubs? I'd heard they were re-branded novatechs. I'm leaning towards the hunt aero wide, have seen some sell recently for about 250 on 'that' auction site and think they look better than most out there. My bike is kind stealthy looking and debadged where possible. Nearly bought those prime bad boys tho, credit card in hand - close one! Guess that saves me a beat down from thr mrs come the end of the month 😉
The Hunt hubs do look like Novatec but I have read somewhere Hunt stated they categorically weren't Novatec. It's no bad thing either way. I've got both Hunt, Novatec and Mavic hubbed wheels and it's only the Mavic hubs I've had an issue with. The freehub went wobbly within a month due to the plastic bushing they use. Was replaced under warranty but it's wobbly again a year on and I wouldn't say it's been thousands of miles!
Novatec and Hunt hubs have been fine on the other hand.
Used to have some mavic wheels and the freehub did need the odd strip & relube. Only got the mavic death howl once and fixed that with a new freehub.
Have some hunts on my gravel bike. The hubs seem identical to novatec. I managed to get crud inside that rusted up the pawls but they sent me some new ones for free (despite being well out of warranty) and now the hubs are good as new.
To be honest, once you've decided your budget then the ones you most like the look of will be the best.
@baileyswalk - I’m sure when I was looking that the Hunt branded hubs are Novatec, but re-specced with better bearings and seals especially for Hunt.
Mine are coming up 2 years old and the hubs still seem to be running smoothly having had no maintenance whatsoever.
Dt swiss components:
350 hubs and r460 rims (eg from r2-bikes.com)
Spokes and nipples from rosebikes. Probably competition double butted. Silver to save money. Brass nipples.
Use dt swiss spoke calculator for spoke lengths.
Assemble the wheel yourself and take to a shop for final true and tension.
Components will about use your budget. Shop help may tip it over but they will be awesomes.
Stickers can be removed.
I’ve just bought Hunt Aero Light Discs for my SS and they feel amazing, but they did replace some stupidly heavy Shimanos. Based on them to date I’ll probably get a second set for my Planetx Evo when the nicer weather rolls around.
Edco have their Optima disc tubeless on sale at £250, was £550.
This was part of one of the comments on the thread over at Road.cc on their Aerodynamicist wheels from Tom Marchment at Hunt...
Of course, Farsports have many customers but no Hunt wheel has ever come from Farsports and all our wheels are built in Taiwan not China. There is a considerable difference in terms of longevity of technical and bicycle experience between Taiwan and China. All our hubs and spokes are Taiwanese too. Please note these are not Novatec road hubs which have 14 degree engagement, and again many large wheel companies use open mold hubs. The hubs on the Aerodynamicist wheels use an open mold freehub that is very well proven (no-one wants a newly designed freehub system, freehub systems take such high loads that new systems always have teething problems) with a fast 7.5 degree engagement with our own Hunt lightweight hub body. The open freehub system used in many of our alloy road wheelsets (again not Novatec) is shared with 2 of the USA’s largest high end wheel companies. We are about to source some alloy rims from Giant Light Metal in China (yes part of Giant), but they are probably Asia’s largest high-end alloy rim manufacturer and make the highest spec rims for the 3 largest European alloy wheel companies and many major motorbike companies too, so they will provide us some of our best aluminium rims moving forwards.
Sounds a bit more than just changing bearings and seals on an existing Novatec hub. He does admit they are open mold though.
I wonder why he is so concerned to repeatedly mention it. Surely if even some of your components are out of 'the catalogue' then novatec is as good anyone and better than many. Is he just being frank or is there an element of snobbery?
Edit: Or are all novatec free hubs slow to engage?
He was replying to a number of posts saying hunt just use Novatec hubs with kinlin rims and hoike the price up.
happy with my 4 season Mason Hunts, light strong tubeless, perfect. Piece of cake to service the freehub and pawls as well as its an interference fit, no tools required. Running both GP5000 and Schwalbe pro ones with no issues at all, in fact the 30mm go up with a track pump.
I've had a pair of Hunt Aero Light Discs for ~18 months, given the cyclopath pheasants and other wildlife that I often encounter in the South Downs lanes, I appreciate the clicky freewheeling in order to reduce the odds of my bike turning into a cannon that fires me into a roadside tree!
Nearly bought https://www.cycledivision.co.uk/wheels/disc-brake-wheelset/cero-ard23-aluminium-disc-clincher-wheelset-23mm-7741
Nearly bought https://www.merlincycles.com/alex-cxd4-tl-ready-clincher-road-disc-wheelset-700c-109026.html but they were out of stock at time.
Thought about https://www.probikekit.co.uk/bicycle-wheels/campagnolo-zonda-c17-disc-brake-bolt-thru-clincher-wheelset-2018-black/11349857.html but the disc brake version of this rim brake classic felt a dive into the unknown.
https://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/WPFULR70065D/fulcrum-racing-700-disc-650b-centrelock-clincher-wheelset look intresting for ~£130 with the promo code, albeit I've no idea on 27.5" road tyre options/prices.
https://www.wiggle.co.uk/prime-rr-50-se-carbon-clincher-disc-wheelset/ look nice for ~£430, but there seems to be a fair few negative Prime wheelset posts around and they did seem to come up as regular as clockwork in Chiggle's returns Ebay store (trisort resort or something similar).
Just bare in mind that aero is usually king over weight until you get to ~8% inclines and internal rim width of ~20mm will blend nicer into wider ~28mm tyres. The Hunts are only 17mm https://www.huntbikewheels.com/products/aero-light-disc-road-wheelset-1449g-28deep-22wide , but they are £369 currently... https://www.huntbikewheels.com/collections/road-cx-disc-brake-wheels/products/hunt-34-aero-wide-disc-wheelset might be worth the extra ~£110 on both counts.
I bought a set of the prime rr50 wheels recently, I honestly can’t fault them and can’t see that spending twice the money would get me a better wheel. The hubs are cartridge bearing and easy to service, the free hub is very easy to strip and service. Maybe the sealing isn’t as good as some but I don’t see that being a big deal (if it’s even true) as half an hour will do a full rebuild anyway.
Just an interesting point, wiggle didn’t have the rear 12 x 142 axle in stock. I bought an axle from hunt to convert it and it fits perfectly.
I should probably mention that I'm still running rim brakes so disc only wheels are out, however, still lots of good suggestions here and have found the non-disc versions for most. My bike is a Lynskey Sportive, I don't think carbon would really suit it and also I'm not convinced by the tales you hear of cheaper carbon wheels with a brake track (overheating and power loss - no ta).
I'm kinda set on the Hunt wheels I think unless anything to good to be true crops up: Hunt Aero non-disc
(I do like the DT swiss 350 hubs tho, so also looking at the spline 1600 as an option too)
Might just buy direct from Hunt instead of waiting about for something on ebay - you know what it's like once u start looking I'm sure! 😉
Daz, glad to hear that worked out. Saw it on other thread..
I'm poised to go for the 50% off Superstar Paves mentioned in post 2 (looks like they are still in stock - just need road50 code).
Anyone got any positive/negative experience of Superstar wheels (can open... worms everywhere)?
Sorry for the slight hijack 🙂
Edco also do a rim brake version for their Optimas; sale price £250 for a pair.
Superstar wheels are fine if you check the spoke tension, I've had some pairs that have been fine and had one pair that lost all tension in about an hour.
I fitted the Hunt Aero wides to my winter bike couple of months ago, it's transformed it and no issues tubeless (was a pig to get the tyre on the rim though). Great wheel for the money.