Viewing 31 posts - 1 through 31 (of 31 total)
  • Do people really spend £1500 on a wheelset?
  • neil853
    Free Member

    http://www.bikeradar.com/mtb/gear/category/components/wheel-sets/product/review-syncros-fl25-carbon-wheelset-12-39779

    Listen I’m the last to talk about spending money on bikes, I have a Blur LTc that spend most of my disposable income on but £1500 for a wheelset? Makes my ProII/819 look entry level 🙄

    ojom
    Free Member

    and more.

    neil853
    Free Member

    More than £1500 on an mtb wheelset? 😯

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    khani
    Free Member

    My lbs last week had an order for TWO sets of enve carbon rims built on Chris king hubs, over £1600 per set, off the same person, so yes..and more….

    binners
    Full Member

    I was looking for a set of wheels for my road bike last year. I went onto Ribble and searched. The pair of wheels at the top of the list were £1700. I assumed the search results were being catogorised as ‘most expensive first’. However, on checking, the list was being filtered as ‘most popular first’ 😯

    ojom
    Free Member

    You should see what roadies spend

    molgrips
    Free Member

    They are a fair bit heavier than say ZTR rims on American Classic hubs and cost three times as much.

    hora
    Free Member

    What normally happens is a manufacturer puts a silly price on. It then gets noticed by say the Sunday Times who then feature [insert product] in their paper/supplement which then draws the attention of rich types who thing ‘I want the best’….

    epicsteve
    Free Member

    The most I’ve spent on MTB wheels was about £400 for a set of American Classics and I thought that was a lot. For most riders I suspect there wouldn’t be a lot to gain from spending much more than that.

    hora
    Free Member

    In 2004 I spent £400 on Chris Kings/Mavic handbuilts. Beaut’s. I wouldn’t spend the same again though.

    khani
    Free Member

    I’ve paid £400-500 for crossmax in the past, but hope hoops make it hard to justify anything else nowadays…

    bennyboy1
    Free Member

    They’re a rip off imo!

    I’ve got some Roval Traversee EL’s on one of my bikes and managed to get them brand new a few years back for £450 (RRP at the time was £600), now I’m aware that some people would baulk at that but in comparison to those Syncros wheels the Traversee are only 1550g and plenty stiff for me, there’s no way in hell I’d pay an extra £1000 for naff all, if any performance improvement (saving approx 3og because the rims are carbon…). The DT Swiss 240 hubs on the Rovals are almost certainly better than the hubs on those Syncros aswell… :-O

    xiphon
    Free Member

    Some people even spent £200k+ on a car.

    The other 99.5% of drivers don’t though…

    mboy
    Free Member

    The “do people really spend that much on” argument can be applied to all sorts really. Just because you or I could in no way justify it (spent £324 on a pair of wheels last year, with 45% off RRP or therabouts, still had to think long and hard about it as had never spent that much before!), doesn’t mean to say that somebody else won’t.

    Wheels are a bit of a runaway market right now though, it does seem that every week, someone else has brought out another ridiculously expensive wheelset or other, and the “who actually buys these when you can get 95% of the performance for 20% of the price?” question will keep cropping up in most of our heads. Personally, I think these expensive wheelsets only exist to satisfy the errant minds of roadies who’ve recently converted to Mountain Bikes, incapable of “only” spending £500 on a pair of wheels they need something with carbon rims to satisfy their desire to spend! Or something like that… 😉

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    I used to think the same about £150-£200 wheelsets, my next one is going to be about £300 (hope Pro2evo, DT DB, spank subrosa evo), so I can see why people would buy them, it’s just a progression (buy soem hope hoops, next time some £600 crossmax, then some £1000 whatevers), especialy seeing as once your ‘needs’ are raken care of any disposable income can be spent on ‘wants’, so you don’t need 10x the income to spend 10x on wheels, and at that price they’re in keeping with £2.5k frames and Fox 36’s.

    Talking about the cost of bike parts with a mate a few weeks ago and how expensive 10speed mechs/chains/etc were. I remarked that I’d given up worrying about that kind of thing as it had cost me £35 in petrol to come down and ride in the Peaks for the day (plus post ride chinese/curry and beers), and I considdered that acceptable so a £50 mech doesn’t seem so bad after all. It’s my hobby and I enjoy it so I may as well enjoy it, and for most people that inevitably involves some kind of nice parts buying, otherwise we’d all be riding arround on Carrera’s that cost less than a pair of hope hoops and are perfectly adequate 90% of the time!

    xiphon
    Free Member

    To be fair, roadie rims don’t suffer quite the same abuse as say…. a year riding the Lakes?

    HoratioHufnagel
    Free Member

    I’m pretty much an MTBer/commuter only but turned up to a “crit” race a while back to watch some friends racing and couldn’t believe how expensive the bikes were.

    I don’t understand the performance chasing either. A race may be won by seconds so it could make a difference, but its not like theres much prize money or anything?

    It made the Surrey Hills Peaslake body armour/DH bike scene look like a charity shop.

    hora
    Free Member

    I can definitely see the ‘need’ to spend silly money on decent road wheelsets. The difference would be great.

    On a mountain bike though unless you are a pro XC racer I don’t see the point above a certain price/level.

    njee20
    Free Member

    And few XC racers have £1500 wheelsets… If nothing else, ZTR Podium rims (or Race 29ers) are lighter than virtually all carbon rims, AX Lightness and Innolite notwithstanding.

    I’ve had 2 sets of c£1500 road wheels – a set of 1200g shallow section tubs, which were lovely, and a set of 50mm carbon clinchers which I wasn’t too enamoured with. Awesome on the flat, but felt slow and unwieldy uphill, and tyres were scarily loose – had a tendency to find the bead sitting on the top of the sidewall, just ready to roll off 😯

    Carbon MTB rims just aren’t quite there yet IMO.

    cookeaa
    Full Member

    I suppose people spend what they can afford and/or justify, given unlimited funds and no ‘Er indoors factor I’m sure I could spank that sort of sum on a set of wheels, would I benefit from them? that’s another question all together…

    Good luck to anyone lucky enough to be in the position to make such a purchase I say, I hope their wheels bring them as much enjoyment as my cheap ones do…

    crazy-legs
    Full Member

    I’m pretty much an MTBer/commuter only but turned up to a “crit” race a while back to watch some friends racing and couldn’t believe how expensive the bikes were.

    Average price of road bikes is more than MTBs – you need to spend more to get something “decent” but even so, I’ve seen bikes costing the thick end of £7000 at 3rd and 4th Cat crit races. 😯

    hora
    Free Member

    Girl at work on Friday

    “How much have you spent on bikes over the years”

    – Dunno. Lots probably

    “You could have bought a decent car with that money”

    – Erm…okaaaay

    Zulu-Eleven
    Free Member

    “How much have you spent on make up over the years”

    – Dunno. Lots probably

    “You could have bought a decent pair of t*ts with that money”

    😀

    njee20
    Free Member

    I’ve seen bikes costing the thick end of £7000 at 3rd and 4th Cat crit races

    How many have you seen not at races? Of the >£6000 road bikes I’ve sold (a reasonable number) I don’t think a single one will ever see a race number. If nothing else, racers rarely walk into a shop (even 3rd cats) and spend that. They’ll have a relationship with/ride for a shop.

    Rubber_Buccaneer
    Full Member

    hora – Member
    Girl at work on Friday
    “How much have you spent on bikes over the years”
    – Dunno. Lots probably
    “You could have bought a decent car with that money”
    – Erm…okaaaay

    Was she on the back seat of your little hatchback banging her head on the armrest when she asked this? 😉

    Is this why you want a van….

    geetee1972
    Free Member

    My Easton Haven Carbons are brilliant and everyone who’s tried them agrees pretty much immediately. I’d buy them again in a heart beat.

    Alejandro
    Free Member

    “How much have you spent on make up over the years”

    – Dunno. Lots probably

    “You could have bought a decent pair of t*ts with that money”

    *snigger*

    It does make you wonder when you can buy Stan’s rims on a decent set of hubs for a fraction of the price and lighter than some fancy Syncros or Easton carbon malarky why anyone would bother with the later. I suppose there’s more to it than just weight but in the end it will be down to the rider and not the wheelset to do the job properly.

    crazy-legs
    Full Member

    It does make you wonder when you can buy Stan’s rims on a decent set of hubs for a fraction of the price and lighter than some fancy Syncros or Easton carbon malarky why anyone would bother with the later.

    Because some people don’t want to research the hub/rim/spoke options, don’t want to wait while a shop orders parts in and builds them and want something that looks a bit bling.

    There are plenty of people out there who don’t care about customisation or going for the lightest, they just want to walk into a shop and walk out with “the best” whatever that may be. We used to get 3 or 4 a month – “what’s the best bike in the shop?” or “what’s the most expensive [insert name of component] you sell?” Out comes the credit card, off goes the happy customer.

    hh45
    Free Member

    otherwise we’d all be riding arround on Carrera’s that cost less than a pair of hope hoops and are perfectly adequate 90% of the time!

    NNNOOOOOO!!! Thats all wrong. I like my Turner with DT Swiss hubs, carbon that and Titanium the other. Just stop it.

    cynic-al
    Free Member

    that has to be the worst “review” ever written

    kingkongsfinger
    Free Member

    Road wheels £ 3,749.00 and they are for up hill use only.(see link below)

    My mate had a pair of the cheaper version, still £ 2000.00+. First race he did with em someone lost a bidon in the bunch, I saw it bouncing around then heard my mate shout behind me as it went into his front Lightweight wheel and f00ked it up, they are virtually un repairable. Second race he tried to take his gilet off on the move, cocked the procedure up as it fell out of his jersey pocket and it got wrapped in his rear Lightweight wheel and **** that up as well, expensive season!!! LOL
    http://www.westbrookcycles.co.uk/wheels-c90/road-wheels-c119/lightweight-obermayer-tubular-road-wheelset-p199589?utm_source=froogle&utm_medium=ppc&utm_term=lightweight-obermayer-tubular-road-wheelset-product-20-20-shimano-product-20-20-shimano&utm_campaign=froogle#250960

Viewing 31 posts - 1 through 31 (of 31 total)

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