Custom wheels vs hunt

How does custom wheels from chainreaction with a Hope hub compare with a HUNT RACE AERO WIDE WHEELSET?
Obviously this is completely dependent on the components in that custom wheel. I had a play and just picked what seemed like the most expensive parts and price wise for two wheels it was coming to around £500 (a good £100 more than hunt but within the ballpack)

Would you go custom or get off the shelf? If you went custom for less than £500 what would you go for?

We’re talking road wheels here right?

Ive got the HuntxMason 4season road wheels (for disc brakes) and so far they’ve been good. They’re a lot lighter has previous road wheels I’ve had and they look lovely in my mind. For £300 they seem like good value.

The hubs look nice and so say have precision Japanese bearings in – but essentially I believe they are rebranded novatechs. So the quality of the hubs won’t be as good as Hope.

The hunts are build with what I believe are decent quality double butted spokes and rebranded kinlin rims.

So if for £500 you can get custom wheels with Hope hubs, double butter spokes and something like a DT rim and the weight is similar to the Hunt then I’d spend the £100 extra for the custom wheels I think.

Lots of factory built road wheels have fancy spoke patterns and straight pull spokes – I’d rather have a decent j bend spoke build where you can easily (and cheaply) get replacement spokes if you snap something and where all components in the wheel are also easily available.

Machine built Taiwan wheels vs Chain Reaction built wheels?

I’d go somewhere a bit more local/high reputation for custom wheels.

Have you checked out handbuilt wheels by cycle clinic? Malcolm has a good rep and will build you pair of kinlin rims onto bitex or Miche hubs for around £300.

Attractive as the Hunt package is on price, they’ve only been availble this summer haven’t they? I’d want to wait a bit longer for some cross-seasonal feedback from users. Saying that, the price almost had be taking the plunge, but my local shop (who used to be a Hunt stockist) advised against it citing a lot of grief with the hubs and lots of unhappy customers.

Have you looked at JRA Traildog builds? Not Hope builds, but competatively priced and handbuilt to your spec and decal colours.

For customs builds, Strada wheels on the south coast are worth a look too. Hope/DT hubs builds on Stans and DT rims for about £500.

Another to consider are Mavic XAs as they are often heavily discounted, and while reviews are scarse, they are light and ride very nicely.

Thanks for all the input, i’m very early on in considering to get a new set of wheels and have to admit I was sucked into the Hunt branding and positive reviews.

Really like the sound of some custom wheels, as it would be great to discuss my needs with someone and get a set made within my budget.

I’ll check out the 3 options that have been stated above.

+1 for Malcolm @ The Cycle Clinic. The road and MTB wheels he has built for me have been faultless. Nothing fancy about the components, just a very good build.

Isn’t Hunt just a badge and price hike anyways?

Cocomo- I believe the Hunt wheels are handbuilt in Taiwan rather than being machine built.

Yup, Hunt rebrands stuff, and the wheels are handbuilt in Taiwan. Most of their alloy rims come from Kinlin, and the hubs are Novatec. Their specs and prices are pretty good tho.

I’ve been running a set of 4 Season Gravel Disc alloy wheels for about half a year. No complaints so far. Sometimes I do rocky singletrack descends on my gravel bike, and i’ve bottomed out the front tyre countless times (running really low pressures tubeless). Probably not what the wheelset was designed for, yet they’re as true as when they arrived and there are no dings on the rims.

I’m not racist, I think a Taiwanese bloke can build a good wheel too. :D

I thought there was an issue with a model of Novatech hubs, which a number of people were having issues with, but they were not the model of hubs that Hunt use?

Hunt are a triumph of marketing over content. Made up from parts you would be highly unlikely to select yourself with the original brand names on them.

If I were in your position, I’d get a custom built set from a quality wheel builder or a factory set from a brand that actually makes stuff. Build quality is at least as important as component quality.

I have to say my Hunt wheels do seem to be well built. The local bike shop who ordered them in for me checked all the tension and build before putting them on my new bike.

They normally sell Hope or Mavic but have found there’s a demand st the moment for Hunt so they’ve decided to order them in for people if they want them. But they won’t touch fulcrum as they’ve  found too many bearing issues.

I’m not defending Hunt but I don’t understand the logic.

So a factory wheelset that is built in Taiwan is better built than a Hunt wheelset that is also built in Taiwan? Why?

How do we know where the components that the “big brands” use actually come from, which manufacturers actually make it?

Can’t you just go to Taiwan, and stick your name on a bunch of generic components? Other than Hunt how do we know how many big manufacturers do this with some slight changes to the product? But even if they do all of this I don’t see why is it such an evil thing if the product works great in the end.

Malcolm @ Cycleclinic will build you a pair of XR31T Kinlin rims on Miche or Novatec hubs – the same spec as Hunt.

BORG31 Disc brake wheelset -700C centrelock

I’ve built a few pairs of wheels with Novatec hubs – bearings aren’t brilliant but easy to swap to something more fancy, otherwise never had one go wrong – I’ve seen far more problems with Hope hubs, but maybe people ride them harder.

DT wheels are built in their own factory in Poland from components they’ve designed and made rather than picked from a catalogue.

Dave at https://dcrwheels.co.uk/ built me a beautiful set of road wheels a few months ago. Run really true and good spoke tension. Not expensive either. He will be building my next set of MTB wheels. It would be worth ringing or contacting him because he has a lot of stuff that is not shown on his website. Best wheels i have had in my 60 years of cycling.

DT Swiss factory wheels are well worth a look.

I thought they were all hand laced then stuck into the tensioning machine that tightens em up.

in theory someone could give em a scrunch then pop them in again for another round of tensioning.

not sure how this is any different to doing it by hand, just got a better tool than a spokey :-)

Hunt are definitely hand built – says they go through a 2 person Process and are built by a team who have built thousands of wheels.

Factory wheels I’ve read can have slightly uneven tensions – especially where they have butted spokes. They are more prone to twisting as they are tightened, so when you hand build them you can compensate for that.

Hunt seem to divide opinion between those that like them and those that think they are a triumph of marketing. I have some, like them and would buy them again.

Yes I could probably get the same cheaper if I looked around or knew what the components were and got a set built but I don’t have the time or the knowledge for that. Buying Hunts was easy and for me that was worth something. I also got them from a proper bricks and mortar shop so any problems I could just pop back in.

Obviously YMMV and I think that will go a long way in making your choice but my 2p, if you like the Hunts then buy them

I’ve got some MasonxHunt wheels.  Yes, I could have got the same spec wheel cheaper and also looked at custom options.

Wont go in to specific detail, but when I had a really small issue (like really small), I had a new rear wheel next day delivery, no questions asked/no attitude/just really friendly, above and beyond type stuff.

They are light for the price, IME pretty well built, and backed up with top customer service. If I ever get round to carbon on the road bike, I’ll go back because of the customer service/support.

Contacted a handful of the custom builders via email. Most haven’t replied yet, so I’ll have to try giving some of them a call when I have a free moment.

Generally speaking their websites aren’t particularly great at presenting available options other than in-house named builds, so do require a conversation.

https://www.actionsports.de

They have a wheel builder where you will get weights too.

https://www.actionsports.de

They have a wheel builder where you will get weights too.

Excellent pick. I used actionsports.de for a couple of wheelsets now. Very good quality and excellent configuration page. You can pick from 80 buck wheel to xxxx bucks wheel…

Delivery time is around 2 weeks.

I normally use their “home brand” FunWorks rims with DT Swiss hubs.

Re those Actionsports.de wheels, I’ve looking at those for ages, particularly these as I want the DT hubs:

https://www.actionsports.de/en/dt-swiss-350-boost-disc-is-atmosphere-22-os-comp-race-wheelset-29er-1670g-11155?c=730

However, can anyone comment on the ease of tubeless with those rims?  I’m hesitant to buy  a rim I don’t know which will plague me for years when mounting tyres, yet don’t really want to pay £100 more for a set of Stans rims.

I had a set of Stans flow mk3 rims built into Hope pro4 hubs by CRC

Hand built in the UK (Northern Ireland) ordered on the Sat morning, built, shipped and delivered by Monday morning

Ive had many wheels over the years from 2k carbon road wheels to £100 wheels for my hybrid and the CRC built ones have stayed the most true and have been the most abused, they even came with a piece of paper telling me the tension of each wheel on each side of the wheel

All for less than £400

What do you want from a wheelset?

Yes, HUNT are eastern rims on the upper end novatec hubs.

But you’re buying cheap aluminium shallow clinchers. Unless you’re hoping they’ll last forever if you somehow pony up for 240s hubs (and save no weight) they are about as light and simple as you’re going to get for the money.  The wheels will spin as well as the bearings you’re willing to put into them, and the only downside is that plausibly the freehub might be a little slower to pick up (which is a non-starter if we’re going into the list of things people pay money for but are utterly irrelevant).

Those BORG 31’s on miche hubs are 1740g. The HUNT’s are 1498g for £75 less. Your local wheelbuilder is not going to be able to magically beat this, and he won’t have the sales volume to get the price low enough to compete. Unless you’re like 120kg plus in which case perhaps lose some weight before you focus on upgrading your wheels for little benefit.

Kryton – I think its false economy not to go for Crests – they are a known quantity and so much easier to sell on later. I’m still really pleased with my actionsports.de wheels

I bought the Hunt Aero Wide wheels about a month ago, with a sub £500 budget they seem to be good value and good balance of weight/cost. Certainly a decent upgrade from the stock wheelset. Hunt in general seem to have a good following in the press and do well on tests albeit not been through any long term tests yet. I’m sure as others have commented that have a £1k budget is going to get you a whole lot more wheel and longevity but for me and my riding these are perfect.

They feel nice and stable riding at speed and good climbing the Welsh hills.

Re those Actionsports.de wheels, I’ve looking at those for ages, particularly these as I want the DT hubs:

https://www.actionsports.de/en/dt-swiss-350-boost-disc-is-atmosphere-22-os-comp-race-wheelset-29er-1670g-11155?c=730

However, can anyone comment on the ease of tubeless with those rims?

Have two bikes with actionsports / FunWorks rims. One 29er with 25 mm rims and the other 27.5 with 35 mm rims (for 2.6 inch rubber). Both with DT 370 hubs. Low cost version.

But run both bikes with tubes… – no idea how they behave tubeless.

i’ve got some Hunt X Mason 4 season disc wheels… and i’ve run them all year round for the last 18 months and they’re still bob on having done over 3k miles, through 2 winters of snow/ice/crap/etc…

i had to change a tyre once and couldn’t for the life of me get it to seal tubelessly… in a moment of desperation i reached out to hunt, who arranged a courier to collect and they put the tyre on for me and sent it back… 3 day turn around, zero cost to me…

i also switched the wheels to another bike after about 12 months of ownership and had to convert the hubs back to QR to go on the new (to me) frame… so i rang them, and they sent me the conversion kit next day in the post… zero cost to me…

now, ok a wheel builder may be able to save you a bit of dosh, but that level of customer service has me converted and if i ever need to buy another set of wheels, for any bike, ever, Hunt will be my 1st port of call and i will recommend them to everyone who asks… they offered to help for free, without hesitation, and without me even asking them to… it gives me a warm feeling inside

Spoke with Dave from DCR wheels and I’m very tempted by some aforce wheels. Probably overkill for what I need but it’s not all just about necessities

I picked up a set of crest mk3’s on stans hubs for 375 a few weeks back. Hard to argue with and the hubs seem nicely enough made. Not as colourful as hopes but 100g lighter…

I have Hunt XC wide 29er wheelset. 1600g ish, £320 – about as cheap as I could get for a very good weight, think my Whyte carbons were around  that.

Clickiest freehub I’ve ever heard. Love it.

Sealed tubeless on old tyres that were a bit of a git last around first time.

My LBS reckoned they were among the very few pre built wheelsets including factory ones that needed no attention out of the box.

Most importantly, marketing or not, they look mint :-)

Replacement spokes and key in the box.

I’ll be buying a plus set next year, and would get a cross or road set if I wasn’t already sorted there..

Hunt have just saved my trip to the Alps.

I’ve got a crack in the rim of my 2+ year old just-out-of-warranty rear wheel. The wheel has done at least 5,000 miles (possibly as many as 10,000) through London and Surrey potholes.

So, they’ve shipped a new rear wheel to France and it’ll arrive before I do.

It’s my second encounter with Hunt customer service and I’ve got nothing but good things to say about them.

That level of customer service combined with price to weight ratio is why I bought Hunt for my Tripster build

I have a handbuilt from 23mmwheels.co.uk its over what you want to spend but with a hub compromise would be in budget. I’m very happy with it.

I did find a lot of custom builders slow to reply or didn’t reply.

I think as people above have said, the Hunt wheels offer good VFM and have good customer service.

I don’t know if you would scrape a DT350 hubset in under £500 or not…