A pair of Gipiemme Roccia Disc wheels came with my PX cross bike last August.
I’ve done 9 races this year. The bike was always cleaned afterwards, and lube applied where necessary.It was never jet washed, I always use a bucket and sponge/brush.
Yesterday I decided to get them ready to sell as I’ve got some new ones.
Dont think I’ll bother, they’ll just got to the tip.
The rear freehub was seized, I left it overnight with penetrating oil, and it was still stuck, but did free off with a hard yank with some stilsons.
The axle is as rough as a badgers behind. A bit of grease on the bearings isnt going to bring it back to life.
The front is a little better, but still very rough when turned over.
Very disappointed with these wheels. I’ve been cross racing for 25 years, my previous Campag (low level campag) wheels lasted for 10+ years, these havent lasted a season.

You could argue that they’re cheap components fitted to a cheap bike, then used regularly in mud.

You could argue that they’re cheap components fitted to a cheap bike, then used regularly in mud.

This

PX, the Mountain Warehouse of bike shops.

Hardly unexpected.

Planet-X in low-rent component shocker! How else do you think they can churn stuff out for less than the rest – corners to be cut including putting grease in bearings. Gipiemme made some nice stuff in the 70s and 80s, but since then it’s been the low-rent OEM market.

I’m sure px used to sell those wheels for about 60 a pair or something silly.

Give them to a bike charity place or something.

Yep – they are properly rubbish. Mine lasted about 250km of Lakes riding.
Equally I sort of factored that in when I bought a PX XLS for £1000. I just bought a cheap set of ex-demo Fulcrums off eBay that are still going strong (mainly because like you I have had good experiences with Campag wheels).

My brother has been running these for a couple of years now on his commuter bike. I laughed when he told me what he paid. I remarked they’ll not last long. He’s had no problems whatsoever. Replaced previous Alex rims on chosen hubs that lasted about 2 months.

With the PX wheelset I bought (wtb i25 on el guappo hubs) I just didn’t expect them to be as crap and unfit for purpose as they turned out to be. Fell for the “we fit them as standard to all our mtbs they’re that good”. Kept them on the burly hard tail for a couple of months before loosing faith in them. Took to LBS to re-tension, didn’t last long. Now had them on a rigid commuter for a year. Would like to mock them for not handling commutes, but did take them down stair sets and off urban drops quite regularly. Rear is dead (to me) now. Lost dish so a 2.35 tyre rubs one side of the frame. Snapped spoke, some outrageously loose spokes, but the rim isn’t that wobbly considering. Front is good. Just poor build quality.

I have a pr of Gipiemme carbon tub 45 rims laced to Gipiemme hubs. Ive had them about 10 yrs. They are still fantastic.

With the PX wheelset I bought (wtb i25 on el guappo hubs) I just didn’t expect them to be as crap and unfit for purpose as they turned out to be

Those rims are ok, and I think the hubs are reasonable for the money. Sounds like they were just really badly built and maybe they saved money using straight gauge spokes / cheapy alloy nipples.

I’d just pick up some aci double butted spokes and re-spoke the wheels and they should last a long time (hub allowing)

With the PX wheelset I bought (wtb i25 on el guappo hubs) I just didn’t expect them to be as crap and unfit for purpose as they turned out to be. Fell for the “we fit them as standard to all our mtbs they’re that good”

TO be Fair, i’ve done thousands upon thousands of miles on my El Guapos in all conditions and they’ve been great.

I had the cheap fulcrum db with my Planet X xls, front seized after a couple of months but tbf, once I put bearings with proper seals in its been faultless and done most of the winter riding on my hack cx bike which is left out in the garden. Obverse – Heard so many stories about the rear free hub being substandard I only used it twice and it’s been in a wheel bag ever since. Planet X road wheels I received on my xls have been fine though.

I had Gipiemme wheels on my single speed that over a couple of years I did 3,300km on including The Dirty Reiver and similar rides. They were still true and smooth when I moved the bike on.

Quite possible that at the cheaper end of the spectrum the quality control doesn’t match that on more expensive wheels so you get some that are particularly bad.

With the PX wheelset I bought (wtb i25 on el guappo hubs)

I had those too. The hubs were a nice surprise, decent quality, nice to work on and no problems with them.

But then maybe I didn’t keep them long enough to have problems because the spokes in the rear just would not hold tension.

Granted I was riding rugged stuff on a long-travel 29er, but I was regularly re-tensioning it several times on a ride. And the rims were a bit soft too.

Not to be dismissive of the OP, but I’d automatically consider any wheels coming on a well-priced PX bike to be made of tinfoil and toothpicks – and stick them on eBay unused.

PX are more the IKEA of cycling than the Mountain Warehouse.
Some of the stuff is pretty good, some is cheap, sometimes there is an overlap in these categories, but not always.
Buy with your eyes open and there’s some good kit. Fail to do so and…

The brass neck of a man attempting to sell some roccias after a race season 🙂

Most stock wheelsets are poor tbh, or at least specced well below the rest of the bike – you’d need to be spending top money to buy a bike where you could honestly say these wheels are great.

A grand is a great price point for a bike, you just need to take the wheels and tyres off it and ebay / spares / bin as appropriate, then spend another few hundred to get something decent.

Don’t underestimate how good a typical low end Shimano or Campag hub is compared with the slightly cheaper hubs chucked on nearly all mid range bikes.

This issue is very much not limited to PX. Although people do like to be mean to them.

Most stock wheelsets are poor tbh, or at least specced well below the rest of the bike – you’d need to be spending top money to buy a bike where you could honestly say these wheels are great.

Have to agree with this.

The wheels on my CAAD-X were woeful too. I sort-of gave them a new lease of life with copious amounts of grease, but really I’m only keeping the rear as a turbo trainer wheel for bikes with disk brakes. They were those horrible cup and cone formula hubs. I do have some spare hope hubs so might strip them and see if the maddux rims are light enough to bother saving.

Don’t underestimate how good a typical low end Shimano or Campag hub is compared with the slightly cheaper hubs chucked on nearly all mid range bikes.

+1

If someone isn’t specifying a £30 deore rear hub, question why, and how much cheaper can you go……..

OTOH, a guy at work has an XLA with those wheels, the build is rubbish but he must be thousands of miles into them by now, so……

You could argue that they’re cheap components fitted to a cheap bike, then used regularly in mud.

PX, the Mountain Warehouse of bike shops.

Mountain Warehouse stuff has become really quite good in recent years, just to clear that up.

You can get semi-decent wheels on £1k-ish road bikes.

Canyon spring to mind for starting at the Aksium kind-of level IIRC. And Giant’s own-brand wheels are not terrible IME.

It’s a bit of a cliche but wheels are almost as important as the frame on road bikes, not just in terms of good ones being nice – but in determining the character and ride feel of the bike.

I’d just pick up some aci double butted spokes and re-spoke the wheels and they should last a long time (hub allowing)

Also didn’t like the fact the freewheel was alloy so needed a hammer to get the cassette off it (ie bite marks). The freewheel comes off much easier than the cassette does.

Just replaced it in the end with a CRC custom wheel, Shimano XT hub (135QR) DT Swiss 25mm rim, & dubble butted spokes. Admittedly it was almost as much (£128) as the pair of PX wheels, but no subtle kinks in random places along the spokes, which is nice, and evenly tensioned spokes, another bonus. The last CRC custom built wheel I bought also with XT hub, lasted years with very little maintenance (unfortunately also it’s downfall).