Sonder Alpha wheels?

Considering a Camino and remember last time I looked the sales bloke recommending upgrading to the Alpha wheels from the Nova. Any real world feedback, are they decent wheels, worth the money or just buy something else later and keep the Nova for now?

I’ve just bought a Camino (grx1x) and upgraded the wheels to the Alpha.
I’ve not ridden it yet so can’t really comment but the Alpha wheels were quite a bit lighter when comparing specs so it seemed like a worthwhile upgrade to me.

I upgraded to Alpha wheels on the camino… they’ve been great. Don’t have the Nova for comparison, but they feel fast, stayed true, nice width etc.

I’ve been running a set of the 27.5 650b+ wheels for a couple of years, mostly as it transpires, on a lightly used e-mtb, and they’ve been fine. The freehub’s quite loud, but they’ve stayed true despite some hammer, the spokes survived an incident when the rear mech was dragged into the wheel – don’t ask. And the rims work easily tubeless even with a couple of dings. Mostly they’ve just worked tbh and feel like good value.

We upgraded to Alphas on MrsCFSB Camino. Great wheels, but we struggled with them running the supplied Panaracer Gravel King tyres tubeless as set up by Sonder. She suffered tyres blowing off rims 3 times in her first four rides, riding nothing more than lanes and muddy bridleway. She’s not an aggressive rider and weighs around 65kg
Now set up tubed and working fine.

I upgraded to the alphas on my Colibri last year, so far they have been spot on…

Light, comfortable and I love the loud clicking on the rear hub….

Thanks all, sounds good. Now to decide if I should just get the AXS or Di2 version as they come with Alfa’s as standard! How much do they charge to upgrade btw?

@chestrockwell – you can play about with the customisation options on the website when you ‘buy’ the bike.
Choose the build spec you want, select buy now & you can then choose ‘view customise options’.
I think the wheel upgrade was £170 over the Nova wheels – you can also choose whether to go for 650b or 700c wheels. You can swap from 700c Nova wheels to the 650b Nova wheels for no cost.

My ‘upgrades’ were as follows:
wheel upgrade to Alpha
swapped the saddle to the Kura as it looked more like the normal saddles I find comfortable.
Tubeless prep & upgrade

and I also swapped the FSA crank that comes as standard on the GRX1 build, to a SRAM Rival (I did this by e-mail). I am not sure if this was strictly necessary, but looking about it seemed like there were more options for aftermarket chainrings with the SRAM option.

I have to say, it wouldn’t have been that much more expensive to go for the AXS XPLR build and I did consider going for that. One of the things that put me off though, was that replacement 12-speed cassettes seem to be a lot more expensive than 11-speed. I’ll probably regret that, but was trying to be sensible.
As you mention – it comes with the Alpha wheels, so if you are upgrading those anyway you are already reducing any cost difference by £170.

Cheers mate. Yeah, that’s my thinking, if I upgrade the wheels I may as well get the 105 or ASX….. Going to pop over to the shop this aft.

they are light and hubs sound good, Ive dinged the rear rim a few times, and some how it stays repairable..
still runs true.
been eyeing these up but no real world reviews

https://www.ribblecycles.co.uk/650b-gravel-db-sport-carbon-clincher-wheelset/