I have had an old 1990s road frame up in the attic for years. I took advantage of the Black Friday sales and managed to get a good deal on a groupset. The last major outlay is wheels. I have a budget of max £400.

Coming from an MTB background I don’t know much about road bikes, other than that I expect I will be terrified when going round corners in the wet. Are there slightly wider rims that take slightly wider tires around? Or will slightly wider tires fit on standard width rims? Or am I worrying too much?

Some advice says to get the wheels made by a wheelbuilder, some says off the shelf will give more for your money… Any recommendations appreciated.

PS A hard wearing black/grey rim would be appreciated, but I am open to ideas.

I suspect with a 90s frame, your tyre clearance will be limited, even a true 28mm may not fit.

Aero over weight unless you focus on steep climbs greater than ~8% gradient.

As above your tyre clearances are likely suited to a 23-25m tyre, so a modern wide road rim may not do you any favours.

My personal preference is a cheap functional wheel from DT Swiss using 350/370 hub. 3 pawl ratchet which is easily serviceable, bearings are maybe £20-30 and can be done at home with a few sockets and a hammer (and original bearings seem to do 5k miles for most). These tend to be 1500-1700g for a set and between £200-400 depending on what you can get hold of.

PR1800 spline in a 23mm rim are not heavy, cheap and very useable – if you can get them.
PR1600s are slightly lighter but far easier to get hold of.

Both also have very nice QRs, assuming they fit the frame.

Hunt seem to be the wheel of choice at the moment? Pal of mine has a set (admittedly disc wheels on his gravel bike) and he rates them highly

I’d go for some primer ones off wiggle. The aluminium ones are nice. They look like novatech hubs and kinlin rims like many of the others. I have some on my race bike. They’ve been on for 2 seasons now and are holding up very well. Won some races on them too.

I think modern factory wheels are pretty good these days. I’ve not had any experience that suggest hand builts are any better if you aren’t after something niche.

I would second the prime race wheels, less than £200, lighish and have been reliable for me even riding loaded offroad on gravel bike.

A second hand set with Mavic Open Pro rims; the low profile will suit an old race bike frame. They’ve gone out of fashion due to disc brakes and wide rims, still make decent wheels though.

Look for Dura Ace/DT Swiss/PMP/Hope hubs. 28 spoke or 32 spoke.

These are cheap but you’d be limited to 10 speed Shimano cassettes due to the freehub splines being taller.

Open pro hubs, Sapim spokes and decent hubs. I have several sets of these. The nicest with dura ace hubs and I bought them on eBay for £150. Ten speed is essentially worthless for road so some good value available. Lovely to ride. I also have some DA9000 hubs with black spokes and nipples and black cxp33 rims on another bike that serve as the team spare wheels. The people that have ridden them have universally said how nice they are compared to carbon low spoke wheels. I run 20/24 spokes but spokes are not heavy and 28/32 are all fine.

Quality wheels will transform the ride. I use Harry Rowland, but there are plenty of good builders.

Contact Malcolm at the Cycle Clinic. He will build you something suitable. I think he owns a large fleet of road bikes of various vintages so will be able to recommend a perfect set for you.

https://www.cycledivision.co.uk/cero-ar24-evo-alloy-wheelset-2017

Pretty good for £189. I’ve had 3 seasons out of mine so far

How much do you weigh and what sort of riding will you do on the bike?

What is the tyre clearance? What tyres are you likely to fit, tubes or tubeless?

Do you prefer cartridge bearings, cup and cone, or are you happy with either?

Do you want very light wheels or aero ones? Based on that and your weight, do you want fewer spokes or more for greater strength?

New only or are used ok?

As suggested above, there are some great 9/10 speed wheels being sold off relatively cheap if you are willing to go used.

I could tell you my answers but I’m not sure it’s particularly helpful as our priorities likely differ. I have a preference for robust easily maintained wheels, so tend to go for mid range Shimano hubs, double butted j bend spokes and brass nipples from DT Swiss or Sapim, more spokes rather than fewer, rims that are likely to still be available in five years if damaged or worn out and so on.

If it’s an old frame and you aren’t into road bikes that much I’d be tempted to spend less than £400. Maybe pick something cheaper up like a Mavic Aksium – I ran a pair on my Boardman Team Carbon for years with no maintenance required and they were relentlessly reliable.

Commuting in all weathers with rim brakes – even a few days of snow. They were a million times better than the Ritchey wheels that came on the bike.

https://www.merlincycles.com/mavic-aksium-one-clincher-road-wheelset-75460.html?utm_campaign=googlebase-GB&utm_source=googlebase&utm_medium=shopping&utm_term=Factory+Road+Wheels&ucpo=17192&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIpLXI3Ymj5gIVTbDtCh0qnQafEAkYDSABEgJvJ_D_BwE

£142 for the wheelset.

I went a bit more bling with a £300 Hunt wheelset on my current bike (not that bling in the grand scheme of things but for me it was for a bike I mostly commute on for fitness). They are lighter – as well as being wider and disc wheels – but I’m a bit nervous about the strength of them with the weight and only 24 spokes. I banged one through a pot hole and wrote a rim off and ever since have had issues with snapping spokes. It was a big impact, but equally the Aksiums didn’t ever need any attention at all over many years.

In terms of tyre size you might find you’re quite limited with frame clearance – if you can fit in at least a chunky 25c tyre it’s worth going with that over a 23c for comfort and less pinch punctures. Continental gp4000 is a great tyre in my experience.

Those ^cero^ wheels are good. I’ve ran 2 sets of superstar wheels arc rims on Volta hubs(set up tubeless) going on 3rd year no issues. I got them at £150 a set in sale.

Mavic Aksium etc at similar price are ok’ish but heavy which makes any bike that wee bit more sluggish

As above your tyre clearances are likely suited to a 23-25m tyre, so a modern wide road rim may not do you any favours

The opposite might actually be true. Whilst your frame (and fork) might not be able to take a 28mm, a wider rim internal width makes for a bigger tyre. So it could a wider rim would allow you a ‘big’ 25mm and that’s the bast you will manage.

Fulcrum 3 or Campag Zonda which is essentially the same wheel set.

Here we go, can of worms time again…

People will get all religious about hand-built for longevity/ease of repair

Others will recommend Hunt which will be followed by lots of sneering and ‘why should you pay more for the branding’ comments (brilliant service for one).

The default answer was/(is) Ksyrium Elite’s followed by moaning about aero and longevity/non ease of repair

I’ve got various incarnations of all of the above and have had very few issues with any of them. Hunts are great IME, handbuilts are great particularly if you’re choosy about the bits n bobs and Ksyrium’s (or equivalents) are also ace. I’ve had a pair for ~10 years and have ridden most of the Premier league (read ‘used during TDF’) cols in the Alps plus all sorts of other stuff and 20k miles and they’ve been A1. I did buy a pair of R SYS jobbies for the Fred in a moment of madness. They popped massively (2″) out of true on the first 20% descent/heat cycle. Probably a one off but I dint get another pair.

I’ve a couple of pairs of Kinesis Crosslights which whilst good value use aluminium nipples. A couple have failed in use which sounds like a gunshot and puts the wheel immediately out of true by much too much mid ride so I would steer clear of anything with these.

Otherwise budget, brand, quick Google for reputation and what you fancy are probably the main drivers. BTW, Ksyrium’s can be had from one of the Deutsch sites for much less than the UK and if it’s a do it all road bike, I’d probably go that route for approx £300.

There is currently a set of Reynolds Dv 46 clinchers on eBay at £300, no bids and 7hrs left.

They’re a very light set of wheels (~1300g from memory) and come with DT 240s hubs. They’re 10spd but can be updated to 11 with a new freehub for £50 or so. Can also be fitted with a 54t star ratchet for more bzzzzzzzz.

Not mine, but I used to have a set and they’re a good set of wheels often overlooked.