I’m going to the Alps in September, and whilst training and trying to lose some weight will be way more effective I’d rather buy some additional speed, so I’m going to throw together some cheap, light road wheels.

Going to get some Novatec hubs, but what rims? Want <400g ideally. Wheels are disc, but not particularly bothered about disc specific (as long as they come in 28h), so thinking of some Alpha 340s, there’s BOR 373 Discs, what else am I missing? Will be 25c tyres at 90-100psi, likely with tubes, but not averse to tubeless (if I got the Alphas).

Totally going to be worth it for the 3 seconds I save on the Galibier.

I have the alpha 400’s but in 32 hole and they’ve never skipped a beat, nice set up tubeless too.

Yes I’ve got a set of Alpha 400s I bought because they were the same ERD as some Bontrager RXLs and it meant I could keep the hubs, they’ve been good, heavier though.

I’m imagining 340s to be flexier. I’ve seen some built wheels using 340s without the machined brake track which look good, all black, presume that’s an OEM rim or DIY though.

Kinlin knock out some lightweight clinchers.

Dcrwheels do a 405g disc one. Welded joint, thicker spoke bed and tubeless ready. Not sure where he sources them from.

Kinlin if you want really lightweight.

DT Swiss RR411 DB (disc brake) bicycle road rim

£65.00

DT Swiss RR411 DB (disc brake) bicycle road rim

Stans 340 for the front and 400’s for the rear.

out of interest which novatech 28hole disc hubs ? Alex black dragon rims were available from rose bikes at less than £10 each! (maybe too portly for road at around 500g each but ideal for rough cx)

Was going to use the D411/412 straight pull ones. They look pimp, and are respectably light (320g) for the price (£90/pair).

Hadn’t thought of Kinlin. DT an option, slightly more portly, known quantity though. DCR wheels sounds interesting, will check them out.

Ive had a few alpha 340s and for me they are fine but I I’d don’t have huge power and weigh 60kg

The all black alphas used to be a normal stock item from stans but not looked lately

Not sure I’d go much under 400g for an aluminium rim. If I wanted lighter i’d go carbon. You can’t be that worried about weight riding a disc brake bike though 😉

Ho ho ho! No, I’m not, I’ve got a much lighter rim brake bike, which I was going to take, but if it’s wet I know lll just think “wish I’d brought the disc bike”, particularly with carbon clinchers. And I like buying stuff, I reckon sub 1400g and £250 can be done.

You don’t really seem to get much lighter carbon clinchers, and I CBA to go tubs as I may sell the wheels on in 2 months and I suspect tubs will have a much lower resale value. Obviously I’ve looked as some 250g rims is tempting!

Those DCR ones look good, probably leading the way at the mo.

I’m on 340s, I used spoke nioples in the rear as I was concerned re them being a bit weak, but they are fine. 32H and I’m 70-75kg.

Washers not nipples. The nipples pulled through the rim when I left them after a few rides on salted roads.

Crikey, not great, guess the spoke beds are very thin though.

Njee,

Did you build up a wheelset?

I have some Novatec hubs that got delivered today, I plumped for the DT rims as I’m intrigued by road tubeless, could get them easily at trade price and they’re a known quantity. Once I’ve measured up I’ll get some DT Competition Race spokes on order.

So… no, but I will have soon enough.

Also suspect that 1400g is out, but be pleased with sub 1500g. 1400g doable with Aerolites and skinnier rims.

The hubs were waiting when I got home yesterday, look good!

322g for the pair (1g less than claimed), for £102 delivered I’m chuffed.

Spent the evening measuring up the hubs for spoke lengths, remains to be seen if I got it right, never actually built SP wheels before. Hopefully have them done sometime next week. DT Spoke Calc reckons 1422g for the pair, I think that’s optimistic. Reckoning on 1475g.

but not particularly bothered about disc specific

I’m not an engineer, but aren’t disc rims designed to cope with the braking forces being transferred from the hub to the rim?

I’ve got Alpha 340 (the original fragile ones) on ebay hubs (288g/pair, think they’re novtec).

They seem to be holding up so far. Although the new speed bumps at the bottom of the hill in Windsor Park are F***ing vicious and I let a little poo out every time I hit them.
I’m 98 kg though, if I believed the weight limit on the newer/heavier ones I should be fearing for my life just in a straight line!

Stiffness wise, they’re not stiff, but I can’t get them to rub the brake pads even out of the saddle. I did wonder if that’s a sign they’re so flexy that the strain induced in the lower half isn’t transferred to the top half (as would happen with a stiff rim in a poorly built wheel).

I think they weigh about 1250g and I’m commuting on them, mostly to get some use out of them before I bite the bullet and have to build some 11s wheels.

I’m not an engineer, but aren’t disc rims designed to cope with the braking forces being transferred from the hub to the rim?

More likely the other way around, a rim brake rim has to resist the crushing force, the force from a disk brake wouldn’t be vastly outside what you’d expect the spokes to experience normally, it just redistributes it from even spoke tension to greater tensioning the ‘pushing’ spokes. Disk rims are usually much lighter, e.g. Stans Crest MTB rim is much lighter than most road rims.

Njee, where did you get your hubs? I’m looking at some point for new wheels but will be using normal spokes. I’ve been impressed so far by my novatec on my full suss

I’m not an engineer, but aren’t disc rims designed to cope with the braking forces being transferred from the hub to the rim?

I’m very ‘meh’ on all of that, but as per TINAS’s comment I suspect a rim brake rim is likely to be tougher. Moot point as I went with the DT disc specific ones anyway, which do look better.

Njee, where did you get your hubs?

From AliExpress, seller was called DeerCycleCarbonWheels, they only listed 24h, but may have others if you want more. I paid £5 extra for postage and they arrived impressively quickly.

Found Bike24 were doing Schwalbe Pro One Tubeless tyres for €33 each too, seemed rude not to give them a go.

I’ve got some almost new Aksiums I’ll be Ebaying next week.

Ahh yes, those 2kg ‘lightweight’ wheels… 😕

Cheers njee, I’ll have a look

Specifically, here. The Centerlock ones were harder to come by (if you’re bothered by such things), loads of sellers doing the 6-bolt ones, many advertise them as 15x100mm front (I wanted 12x100mm), I did message another seller who said they could supply a pair of 6 bolt 28h ones as 12×100 even though that wasn’t advertised.

Kinlin rims:

I’ve got some Kinlin XR 200 rims with CX Ray spokes and Bitex hubs (20h front, 24h rear). I think they weigh around 1250-1300g for the pair (no skewers)

However, they are total guff – the spokes snap, the wheels go out of true all the time. Same with two sets of spokes now. (under my vast 65kg bulk I should add).

CX rays are good so there is a problem somewhere related to the hub or rim, or some sort of combination issue.

A glowing review indeed! I’ll consider those a bullet dodged.

Have you tried rebuilding them?

My 340’s were horrible the first time I rode them. Took them apart and rebuilt them, still horrible, 3rd time I really took my time, brought them upto tension 1/4 turn at a time keeping them true the whole way from nothing and they’ve been faultless ever since.

The first two were still perfectly true, and had even tension, but clearly something was wrong somewhere.

I should have said I didn’t build them. They came with Pillar spokes which kept on breaking – so I took them to a good wheel builder who rebuilt with with the CX rays – and the exact same thing is/was happening: Quickly out of true and then a spoke snaps (n.b. no big hits etc.)

I had thought about a rebuild but given that it’s not clear what was actually wrong with them I bought some 2nd hand R-SYS instead.

Find a new wheel builder next time?

(20h front, 24h rear)

That’s a seriously low spoke count for such a shallow section lightweight rim

Pretty normal on road wheels though. Be a bit odd to get super light rims and then build with 32 spokes!

Both my rim braked road bikes are 20/24.

I guess with discs you won’t hear the brake track rubbing on the blocks when it flexes under MAX POWER riding up them Alps 😉

Where did you get the rims from?

Let me know what they are like to build.

Thanks

Not much risk of me flexing any wheels given my current fitness!

Got the rims from my LBS, they look good. They include the squorx nipples which I won’t be using, got normal 12mm alu in stock.

intrigued by road tubeless,

As was I. However trying to get the bloody tyre to seat is driving me insane. Currently got a tube in there and will leave it for a few days and see if it helps.

However trying to get the bloody tyre to seat is driving me insane.

Have you had a go at “another wrap of tape and try again”? Works for me 9/10 times if a tyre won’t seat, even with an Airshot. I find that old tape sits down in the well of the rim and the bead snags on it. A new layer of tape seems to facilitate the bead popping over to the rim and locking in there.

Hmm might give that a go. Rims came pre taped. Bead just seems to sit in the well and won’t budge even with loads of soapiness.

Are they a tight fit? (Sorry OP to hiijack!)