What Wheels? Fulcrum 7 V Mavic Aksium V R500's?

Hi,

Another set of wheels, but which ones? Very light rider, son is 5 stone racing snake, but is strong and is doing well in his races. They are for road use or spares for CX. R500 are cheapest at £90 ish, and the other two are around the £130 mark if you search around. I can not see the point in buying cheaper and wanting to upgrade straight away. Any advice please.

Cheers

Paul.

I would get some hand-built ones from Ribble: I got some Mavic Open Pro rims on Ultegra hubs from them for about £160. When I asked on here about opinions, alot of people said that the factory built wheelsets aren't easily serviceable.

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Got some little used handbuilts in the classifieds a week or two back

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They're all good enough wheels although apparently the Mavic wheels tend to go out of true quite rapidly at first. Thats only hearsay though, not from personal experience.
I have Shimano 105s on mine which are lovely but 'heavy'

Have you considered upping the price a little and aiming for some second handfulcrum 3/5s or something slightly pricier?

Or, a blatant plug, this guy is from my club and builds very ncie wheels. Give him a bell and he might be able to do you a good deal:
http://www.penkethcycles.co.uk/

Thanks for the replies so far.

Price wise I don't want to spend any more really as I have just paid out for his new Columbus X Wing from Paul Milne Cycles. Great bike.

Paul.

I would go for Mavic or Fulcrum which have sealed cartridge bearings in the hubs for durability if you get a pitted race in a hub with cup and cones ie shimano the hubs knackered with cartridge bearings you punch it out and punch a new one back in and its like new, as for fears about the availability of parts for factory wheels that depends on the shop, any decent shop should stock spares for the wheels they sell.

I'd just look at getting some light wheels built up with reasonable hubs, light rims and good spokes. For the money they'll almost certainly be lighter. Why not just go to your LBS and ask there for what they could do for you at the budget you give them.