New lightweight disc road wheels £400 max – Thoughts please

I bought a set of Stans A400 rims on Hope ProII hubs about 3 years ago, they have done over 18000 miles, 300 mile day, commuting through winter and with me being wrong side of 100kg, and they haven’t missed a beat. Had to replace one spoke and that was due to me being clumsy and that’s it, not the most fashionable but fairly light and very dependable. Whereas my Hunt wheels, whilst they look and ride well, flex and have needed truing a few times

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njee20 – Member

I built some DT RR 411DB rims on Novatec 411/412 hubs with Competition Race spokes, 1420g actual weight, and £300.

Impressive. Where did you get the Novatec hubs from and how many spokes in each wheel?

AliExpress, 24/24. They were oddly creaky, like a loose spoke, but there wasn’t one. Guess it was rims flexing as they were plenty tight enough. Nice wheels though, built them for an Alps trip, and they were spot on.

Actually just sold them on eBay today for what I paid!

Cheers njee20, I guess that’s the trouble with lightweight rims and low-ish spoke counts. It will probably be pushing it a bit for my 85kgs.

Yes, I’m more like 70kg.

Replaced the stock Fulcrum wheels on my Caad 10 for Novatec/H PLus Son Hydras, came in a £380 from spokesman wheels.

Massive improvement in comfort and spin up nice and quickly.

Light weight is a red herring. Complete waste of time if you’re over about 70kg. Of all the places you can save weight, wheels should be somewhere last on your list.

Light bars/stem/seat post/saddle/chainset/cassette etc. etc. makes no difference to how they function really.

OTOH, light weight flexy wheels just don’t ride as well as 28/32 spoked hand builts. Granted, there’re no doubt some fancy factory built wheelsets that cost multiple thousands of pounds that’re both light and stiff, but for low budget just get 32 spoked hand builts. THey last longer and ride better.

Just a note for those who may order the prime pro disc wheels from CRC, they are listed as 6 bolt or CL but they only have CL. So when you order 6 bolt they will send you CL. They are still listed as both on their website, 48hrs after customers reported the issue. Shocking!

perhaps a bit late to the party, but i got the HUNT Aero Light Disc wheels a few months ago. Ridden a couple of times since and they’ve been OK. I got tubeless tyres installed by them for £99. At the time of purchase, I was very happy.

After a few months of weekend riding in/ around London, I’m not too happy with the build quality. They don’t seem particularly resilient and need to be trued again.