Help choosing wheelset, Superstar, Shimano MT55 or Mavic Crossride

Looking to upgrade the wheels on my missus’ bike, currently heavy alex rims on cheep shimano hubs. Got around £125 to spend and looking at

-Superstar sale wheelset, switch hubs with xc430 rims.
-Shimano MT55 wheelset (bonus with these, currently have centrelock rotors)
-Mavic Crossride wheelset

Which do you reckon are best bang for the buck. Only going to be used for xc easy trails.
cheers

had a pair of crossrides on my last bike. they’re good wheels, very light and quite nippy. they use flat bladed spokes so make sure you can get spare should you need them. probably wouldn’t be a problem for your missus but if you were to ride them hard you may notice some slight flex.
i ran a pair of maxxis ignitor 2.35 tryes on them so i know the rim can handle the largish tyre

+1 for Crossrides. My set are over 4 years old and have been well used and reliable.

Some people with the Mavic spokes seem to have issues if they ever need a spare one. Seems like you have to by a set of them, not just the one you broke. Also seems LBS’s dont always stock them, certainly not individually, they have to order in a set and dont want to get lumbered with 30 spokes when you just need one.

Shimano wheels come with old fashion cup and cone hubs – which are pants compared to simple/cheap cartridge bearing ones.

(but wait and soon some luddite will be along to tell us his cup&cone bearings have lasted since the first world war, whereas the rest of us just pop in some new/cheap cartridge bearings every few years)

Cheers folks,
the only thing holding me back from the Shimano’s are the cup/cone bearing, whilst Superstar/Mavic have cartridge.
The spoke issue is the negative for the Mavics and Supertsar seem to be the build with no negative, but the stories of how poor SS can be keep me thinking against them.

They will only be ridden by the missus, she’s only just started riding, so it’s easy tracks with blue trail centre runs.

Get the Superstare ones, if you read the thread about them almost everyone has had no issue at all. Just the OP who has “issues” 🙂

Cup & cone should have died out with steam power and funny spokes are just going to be a pain when you need one.

I recently picked up a set of the MT65 wheels from bike-discount for 118 quid (plus shipping) which I thought was a real bargain as they have the proper UST rims if you ever feel like going tubeless…

MT-65

Me, I just love fiddling with those cup & cone bearings 😉

Cheers perthmtb, but the wheels need to be for 9mm QR front and rear

I’d get the Superstar ones just to have the option to change to a different axle size in future. The bearings can be a bit rubbish in Superstar wheels, but they’re easily changed. I’ve had a Mavic wheels in the past (Crossland and Crossline) and wouldn’t use them again tbh: broken spokes, broken hubs and bearings that loosen every ride.

I too had bad experiences with Crossrides. They were cheap but not very durable. I pretzeled the front wheel after a fairly minor get off and found it very difficult to get a replacement rim and the cost was non-economic for such a cheap wheel. The rear hub actually broke where the spoke fits into the hub which obviously finished the whole wheel. So, one set of wheels 100% failure rate. At least it started me getting wheels built which are in the long run the best wheels to have.

Had 2 sets of super star wheels the XC and the AM both on Switch Evo hubs. Done thousands of miles on the XC and a decent amount of the AM in plenty of crap conditions. Slight issue with a couple of spokes having to high tension on one of the AM wheels which I had replaced to be on the safe side. Not had to re-true other than that and I haven’t had to replace bearings yet.

I would buy again from them but I would possibly look at Stans rims next time just for the tubeless readiness.

superstar, a no brainer out of that lot for me.

cheap, easily replaced & easily sourced spokes if you do need them

the hubs have a good reputation (they are just rebadged novatech ones, so thousands of the things out there)

the vast majority of people have absolutely no issues with superstar kit

They are likely to be the lightest of the lot

Think you can get individual Mavic spokes from http://www.bike-components.de/
My crossrides were basically fine for a reasonably budget wheel. The freehub seal eventually started to drag though, and make a horrible noise, meaning the cassette and chain want to carry on going round while freewheeling. Can get 3rd party replacement kits to fix this though.

Ended up with a handmade Shimano XT / Mavic XM719 combo for not that many € more than a pair of crossrides. Just need to check+grease the bearings regularly.

+1 for Superstar wheels. No problems with mine – been using them for the last 6 months.

Ss. The bearings have worn a but quicker than expected but cheap to replace. The builds have been good.

Thanks for all the advice folks, plumped for the Superstar wheels

I’ve just opted for superstar but on Pacenti rims, for the same price as Stans, but eyeletted, given that the most common complaint on stans seems to be cracks around the spoke holes.

I have opted for AM rims for xc use too, given I’m a biffer.

Been running AM490 rims (which are re-badged Alex Rims) on Superstar Switch hubs for over a year now with no issues. (went for the AM’s ‘cos i’m a fat lump)
I might get them re-tensioned at some point as the front is a tiny bit buckled after getting a branch jammed through it.

I’m sure you’ll be happy with them.

How easy is it to pop the bearings out of SS wheels, and drop new ones in? Bearing press required, or bodge with socket set and mallet?
Might consider them for the next bike.

socket set and mallet