Hello Everyone,

I am looking for a light weight wheelset and I wonder if anyone can recommend me anything, I can look through web sites all day but would like some real experiences please.

The wheelset is for a 26″ bike that I will be using mainly on the road, (I already have a good off road MTB) so they will be taking very little abuse just the odd kerb or two, disk not V’s. My budget is up to £350 but I don’t have to spend that mush.
Hope you can help,
Mark.

A2Z hubs, Stan’s Alpha 340 rims, Revolution spokes. That gives you 700c rims so you can run proper road tyres at proper pressures.

However… I’d be inclined to put in an extra £100 or so and get a road bike.

Most important place to save weight is at the rim – go for stans.

Then get a trick light front hub, and choose your choice of shimano or hope at the back. Revolution spokes or similar, forget alloy nips though.

I think the above approach often gets you the lightest wheelset for your money if you self build, but I don’t know much about the factory stuff, I think JRA do American Classic eetc.

The ZTR Olympic rims with Sun Ringle Dirty Flea hubs that are being sold on Ebay are a great deal – brand new for £199 (reduced from £400)!!!

I had that exact wheel/rim combo on my Giant Anthem and they were excellent. I can’t think of another 1500g wheelset you could buy for £200.

I liked the suggestion of Neninja, so done so digging on the Sun Ringle hubs, seems there are a lot of mixed reviews on there reliability. to open this thread even wider, anyone use these hubs?

A friend had a sun ringle brand new rear,the free hub developed some play almost straight away,its still at the menders,apparently its quite a common fault.

The only weakness was the original hub bearings which lasted about 8 months. The issues have been related to the original bearing quality. Kaesae on here provided a full set of ina and skf replacements for something like £30

Don’t really understand why you’d pay so much for 26 inch wheels for the road. But, if you must, it’d be hard to beat the Roval Controles that Cyclestore is selling off, for £360.

I don’t want to spend that much it’s just a limit? But as I already have a good frame and carbon forks I would like to do them justice with a light wheelset.
Thanks for your advice I will look into them.

But if they’re for the road why are you going for 26″?

My recommendation would be 1300g, £300, and would allow you to use proper road tyres. If you really want 26″ then I’d sub Alpines, they’d be very slightly lighter, but Stan’s rims aren’t great if you’re wanting to run very high pressures.

I was unaware that I could, I just thought that I would have to buy a specific frame for 700cc wheels. Is this not the case?

Not if you use 23c (or 25c) tyres, they’ll fit in an MTB frame.

That makes my choice even harder now.

njee20 has proved it’s easier.

I had that exact wheel/rim combo on my Giant Anthem and they were excellent. I can’t think of another 1500g wheelset you could buy for £200.

You could buy my Pronghorn 1490 XC wheelset for £200 posted. Very strong and 1490g for the pair. Only selling cos my new forks are 15mm axle only.

Strong’s not really an issue, and they’re still not 700c!

Open Pro rims would bring over all cost nearer to £250, but add 100g.

Check out Specialized’s Roval Control EL currently at £360 (that’s 40% off). I bought the slightly lighter SL yesterday for the same price from the Specialized store in Covent Garden and fitted them last night, 20% lighter than the Hope/Mavic combo they’ve replaced – you’ll really REALLY notice the difference!

I still don’t get why you want to spend all that money on wheels to use on the road, when it’s a mountain bike. Find a cheap second hand road bike for that money and it’ll be faster and more efficient than your mountain bike.

Check out Specialized’s Roval Control EL currently at £360 (that’s 40% off). I bought the slightly lighter SL yesterday for the same price from the Specialized store in Covent Garden and fitted them last night

Why would you not recommend the SLs for the same price then 😕

Agree with Traildog on the road bike, particularly as you get to the upper end of your budget. As I said in my first post 🙂

I recently bought a 9 year old road bike from the classifieds that would have cost about £1.5k IIRC in excellent condition for a bit over £200. I think you’d be silly to spend that money on a set of road wheels for your mtb.

Ummm… perhaps I should rethink my strategy. It does seam a shame not to use my frame and forks though. Back to the classifieds to see what’s what.

Thank for all your advice.
Cheers,
Mark.

Why? Keep the MTB for off road, and buy a more appropriate tool for the road. I’ve got a very nice MTB, despite being FS it’s lighter than my winter road bike, but I’d never choose the MTB for a road ride!

I already have a Evil Sovereign that is by far the best off roader that I have ever had, so there is no need for another off roader. I just want something light to ride on the road and hopefully (may be) to commute on.

I see, in that case, definitely sell it and just buy a road bike, it’ll be a far better tool. I assumed you were looking at a second set for your existing bike.

>>Why would you not recommend the SLs for the same price then

Because I bought the last pair 🙂

I agree with above, but I have to say . . There was a good article in a magazine this month.