Now that I have the BMC Teammachine it’s time to get those Aero wheels and replace the 2100g Shimano RC-170 wheels that came with it. Would be open to pay £200 more to get DT350 hubs (ideally straight pull), as I’ve read reports of Novatec hubs disintegrating under power, but one could always rebuild the wheels with better hubs later. Allegedly Bitex are a bit better than Novatec.

Needs
25 mm outer width
22-28 spokes (ideally aero)
Brand name center lock hubs, Bitex > Novatec? Can pay more for DT350, a new pair costs £150 Prefer straight pull.
12×100 front 12×142 rear through axle
Tubeless ready
50-60mm front, 60-88 mm deep rear (ideally disc rear, but don’t think that would fit the budget and it’s a bit ridiculous even for me)

Want
High engagement hubs (DT350 54t would be ideal)
Noise freewheeling brzzzzzzzzz
Not much more than 1800 grams for the set

Undecided
Matte or glossy carbon (bike is matte black but I hear glossy is easier to clean)?
3k or no-weave AKA UD?

Any good Ebay vendors to contact? CSC wheels? Kingbike888? Any non-ebay options at this price point?

Example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/700C-50mm-Disc-Brake-Carbon-Wheels-Road-Bike-Clincher-Bicycle-Carbon-Wheelset/273925873744?hash=item3fc7412050:m:mIANiRRWBe72RwSa-Z65N0Q (would need to ask to get a different weave, a deeper rear wheel and center lock hubs).

If you want to use DT350’s with decent spokes and rims you’re looking nearer £700 than £300.

Are you sure you want such deep rims? The Team Machine is a aero road bike, not a TT bike. I’d not want more than 40-50mm in front for day to day stuff. That would save a bunch of weight too.

Why? A Pair of new DT350 center lock hubs costs £150, so it really shouldn’t cost more than £150 on top of the £300 to get those or are people getting fleeced?

Show me a link to a pair of £150 centrelock straight pull DT 350 hubs…

In for the £150 350s link! 😀

Adds up to £140 actually from r2-bike.

Are you sure you want such deep rims? The Team Machine is a aero road bike, not a TT bike. I’d not want more than 40-50mm in front for day to day stuff. That would save a bunch of weight too.

Ride on flat terrain only so weight is not a big factor, weigh 90+ kg to not too worried about crosswinds. Reckon 50mm front and 88 mm rear would be fine and fast.

Nearer £180 for the hubs maybe, 50 decent quality spokes = min £50, £100 if you want CX ray for aero. Rims £160ea, building, import duty, VAT.

Nearer £180 for the hubs maybe, 50 decent quality spokes = min £50, £100 if you want CX ray for aero. Rims £160ea, building, import duty, VAT.

As you can see €165 = £140, but perhaps they’re more expensive in China. The idea is to ask the ebay vendor to customize the wheelset.

The £300 wheels you can get already have aero spokes, so it shouldn’t cost moret han £200 extra to get DT350 hubs (say £170 for the hubs -£20 for the novatecs +£50 for the customization = £190).

Minimal or no VAT on these it seems according to the sellers..

Are they in the UK then? Duty and VAT will apply if coming from China, unless the fraudulently mark it down of course.

I bought a pair from light bicycle last year 350s CX-ray spokes 24h straight pull on UD rims that cost £685 all in delivered. Having said that the USD-GBP might be better now slightly.

I still think £500 for anything good quality is optimistic.

Last ebay vendor I used for Chinese carbon was this outfit:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/carbonspeedcycle

No problems at all and keen prices. That was for a tubular rim on novatecs, though, which is impossible to mess up. For a tubeless rim I might be a bit more particular as I’d need to be certain there were no issues with running a robust set up.

Are they in the UK then? Duty and VAT will apply if coming from China, unless the fraudulently mark it down of course.

Seems like many do the latter by default, marking them at $50.

I still think £500 for anything good quality is optimistic.

People are happy with the rims and there are youtube long term reviews of them showing no issues esp when used with disc brakes, but I’ve read several reports of Novatec and similar hubs breaking, either the pawls or the “serrated” rings in the hubs. Seems like they’re functional hope clones with poor steel quality. Bitex has a better reputation.

Garry: yes CSC seems to be the biggest ebay vendor 🙂

I went through all this before settling on Hunt for my bike. At £300 something is going to be missing, and it won’t be profit for the manufacturer. Let us know what you find! I’d really like set of Summer wheels for my bike.

Farsports got some decent discounts at present for their Chinese New Year sale.

from all my previous chinese wheelsets they always end up more expensive than first thought. There are ways of avoiding taxes, but usually cost around $70 to ship a wheelset. I’d never buy a complete wheelset again as their wheelbuilding skills are usually quite poor, maybe light bicycle are better now but last pair i had weren’t dished properly, if you you LB a rim is minimum you will pay is $150ea.

Don’t get me wrong i’m about to get 2 more chinese carbon rims, but i expect to pay decent money, else they are bound to be sh@t and not worth building up. my first rims came from LB in 2013, i still have them, but because they were built up properly. Plus, would avoid bitex hubs as made of cheese, novatech better but still fairly cheddar, right to go for dt 350 but avoid straightpull

Why not straightpull?? The £300 figure is incl shipping btw.

I went through all this before settling on Hunt for my bike

So Hunts are £800, and for that you get rebranded Novatec hubs with slightly lighter rims (200 grams saving for the wheelset perhaps) and a guaranteed solid build. That’s not worth more than £100 extra to me.

If you’re comfortable with wheelbuilding you can go the DIY route

DT swiss hubs €165
Carbon rims €200 delivered
48 CX Ray Bladed spokes + brass nipples washers €100
465€ or 390£ total incl shipping (and maybe VAT).

The £300 wheels you can get already have aero spokes

Bear in mind that flat spokes aren’t aerodynamic, there’s an article somewhere that pretty much showed that most flat spokes were barely, if any improvement over standard 2.0/1.5/2.0 round spokes. It’s only when you get to the point where they’re actually forged into an aerodynamic shape (not just a flatteneed round spoke) that you get the benefit, And then you’re looking at £2/spoke.

That’s not worth more than £100 extra to me.

Depends how long the wheel lasts. A knackered Chinese wheel has cost you £300 plus the cost of replacement, so let’s say £600+.

Why not straightpull??

Just a hunch, but I suspect that straighpulls might be less aero as you end up with a flange ~1/2″ wide with multiple faces pushing through the air, whereas a conventional hub flange is flat and straight and thin. How much difference it makes, no idea, but if I was spending decent money on wheels for marginal gains, I’d want all those margins!

So Hunts are £800, and for that you get rebranded Novatec hubs with slightly lighter rims (200 grams saving for the wheelset perhaps) and a guaranteed solid build. That’s not worth more than £100 extra to me.

So you don’t want to pay more for a well built, significantly lighter wheelset? On you go 🙂

Some people seem to ask questions, but already know best.

If you can get a set of carbon rimmed wheels with dt swiss hubs delivered for 300 quid I’ll eat my hat. You have no hope of that..none…unless fake hubs and junk rims.

You can however get prime 50mm wheels from crc for 430 quid and they are ace wheels.

Bear in mind that flat spokes aren’t aerodynamic, there’s an article somewhere that pretty much showed that most flat spokes were barely, if any improvement over standard 2.0/1.5/2.0 round spokes.

Yep, looks like 1 watt at 30 mph, worth it for £50? Not for me. Bladed is good for straight pull hubs though as it’s easier to avoid spokes twisting during building or truing https://novemberbicycles.com/blogs/blog/from-the-vault-spoke-aerodynamics

Depends how long the wheel lasts. A knackered Chinese wheel has cost you £300 plus the cost of replacement, so let’s say £600+.

Not mine, but I’ve seen Novatec and no-name Chinese rear hubs failing. A new rear hub equivalent to the hunt one is £100 and then the work is £50? So the Chinese wheelset has a £150-200 penalty over the Hunt wheels IF the rear hub blows up which let’s say there’s a 10% chance of over 3 yrs making the cost penalty a lot less on avg.

Just a hunch, but I suspect that straighpulls might be less aero as you end up with a flange ~1/2″ wide with multiple faces pushing through the air, whereas a conventional hub flange is flat and straight and thin

Lol, getting deep into the marginal gains land, can’t even find any discussion about this, so let’s say 1 watt +/- at 40 kph :p

So you don’t want to pay more for a well built, significantly lighter wheelset? On you go 🙂

Yes, I’d pay £100 more. The £300 wheels are also generally built just fine and there’s no climbing here so 250 grams weight diff is naff. 250 grams might however be worth £500 to you if you say do hillclimb racing for a living.

If you can get a set of carbon rimmed wheels with dt swiss hubs delivered for 300 quid I’ll eat my hat. You have no hope of that..none…unless fake hubs and junk rims.

£500 perhaps, I’ll ask the ebay vendors

Some people seem to ask questions, but already know best.

xoxo

Bladed is good for straight pull hubs though as it’s easier to avoid spokes twisting during building or truing

It so isn’t.

Bear in mind that flat spokes aren’t aerodynamic, there’s an article somewhere that pretty much showed that most flat spokes were barely, if any improvement over standard 2.0/1.5/2.0 round spokes. It’s only when you get to the point where they’re actually forged into an aerodynamic shape (not just a flatteneed round spoke) that you get the benefit, And then you’re looking at £2/spoke.

Plus if they’re not all facing forward they’re actually un-aero

The £300 wheels are also generally built just fine

If you know that, then why ask? Just buy them and tell us we’re wrong in ~2000miles time.

Personally I’d not trust a £75 carbon rim. Which TBH is weird as I trust a £100 carbon fork on my fat bike which probably has a similar £/g cost (i.e. the amount of materials used) and a rim look like it should be a simpler product to make. I’d rather pay the extra ~£150 for light bicycle rims on novatec hubs than unknown rims on nice hubs. If a hub fails you tend to come to a stop with a wobbly wheel, if a rim fails……………..

I’ve got novatecs on my CX bike (so lots of high torque stop/start riding) and they’re fine, and some “Sokin” branded chinese (powerway?) hubs on my road bike (so lots of miles), not had a problem with either.

I’ve cracked a hope hub (but then, so has anyone who’s been riding hope stuff long enough).

@thisisnotaspoon

Carbon rims don’t just fail these days esp when used with disc brakes, or am I wrong? From what I’ve read if anything fails it’s the rear hub. Good point about hub failure.

Novatec makes a range of hubs, know which ones you have? How’s engagement and noise? If they sound good (loud like hope, gets people out of the way) and have decent engagement then maybe they’re the way to go. Could also possibly ask to pay extra for the best-in-line ones.

I’ve asked CSC and kingbike on ebay if they can customize their wheels with DT350 hubs for £450.

Carbon rims don’t just fail these days esp when used with disc brakes, or am I wrong?

Carbon anything don’t just fail these days.

Cynic-Al off this forum on the other hand bought some ebay carbon bars and managed to crush them in is hands! I would be very wary of extrapolating from known brands to some of the stuff available on ebay.

Novatec also makes a range of hubs, know which ones you have? How’s the engagement and noise?

791/792, fast enough that I’ve never noticed and subtly clicky.

They make a bewildering range of hubs, but when you look closer there’s only a few for any particular usage so there’s only one lightweight rear hub in 135/142mm. The rest have steel axles, or steel freehubs, or cup and cone bearings, or some other spec.

I would be very wary of extrapolating from known brands to some of the stuff available on ebay.

Agreed, but CSC Carbon Speed Cycle is the biggest ebay carbon wheelset vendor AFAIK, so fairly reputable. On their website they even have nearly what I’m asking for for £440 incl shipping I just found, at a decent 1690 grams too! Just ask them if they can give me a 50 mm front 88 mm rear and convert to through axle (would need a new front hub I believe)

Bear in mind that flat spokes aren’t aerodynamic….

Plus if they’re not all facing forward they’re actually un-aero

On my commute, which is circular (I go the interesting way in the morning and the short way in the evening) I’ve setup the bladed spokes to allow for the average orientation of the wheel.

It’s only a few degrees of twist, but it saves at least 0.5W.

On days where I go the “wrong” way, I flip my front wheel before heading home/to work, another of the many advantages of rim brakes.

but it saves at least 0.5W

What do you do with all the spare time? You must have seconds and seconds stacked up over the course of a year. You could have a set of wheels for every day of the week tweaked to be course specific.

Agreed, but CSC Carbon Speed Cycle is the biggest ebay carbon wheelset vendor AFAIK, so fairly reputable.

Not sure that proves anything, other than an ability list lots of stuff.

On their website

The first thing on their website is a presumably fake argon18 tt frame.

The second thing i found was a set of 60/80 wheels like you were asking for. The size options include 27.5 in sizes 16 to 21 and 29 in 16 to 21 (i.e. its a table from a frame).

They seem about as reputable as as……..

Its your bargepole, if your sure they’ll be reliable, buy them. You can be the guy who got in before they became popular and the prices went up. Just not sure why you asked anyone’s oppinion if you already knew.

Bleh, there was already one guy in this thread who said CSC was good, search around the internet and you’ll find more of the same.

Their Ebay presence proves a lot, as you can go in and read reviews of the vendor plus they have a track record. No it’s not just listing a lot of stuff – they sell the most wheels on ebay. I guess they’re not able to fool as many westerners into buying overpriced wheels without a trendy logo and high-end speaker cable grade marketing lingo:

“THE ULTIMATE WIND-CHEATING ROAD DISC WHEELSET. INCREDIBLY AERO & SUPER WIDE.”

“Extra-wide 20mm internal rim bed opens out your tyre profile providing exceptional vibration reduction”..”V:Absorbe resin reduces vibration and massively improves impact resistance.”..”respond instantly to your accelerations”.

This was about the HUNT £799 wheelset which is nothing but rebranded novatec hubs with £50 worth of upgraded bearings and otherwise standard carbon rims and spokes. They don’t make any wheels themselves. Well played.

Bladed spokes will save at most, 50g per wheelset, and unless used in straightpull config are no stronger than d-lights as the spokes tend to fail at the nipple or the j-bend. Stopping them twisting during build is easy with the DT tool.

In the end, a D-light is 90p, a CX-ray is £2. so it’s £55 to save 50g. OR it’s £50 for them to look cool?

M

Thanks Daffy, didn’t know they saved weight at all. Not a big factor for me but might be worth it for some.

What do you do with all the spare time?

Spends it all reversing the front wheel.:-)

What do you do with all the spare time?

Spends it all reversing the front wheel.:-)

I’ve also just recently started grinding down the spoke nipples to reduce their drag.

It’s obviously quite tricky to do this before lacing up the wheel, but once it’s true there’s no reason not to. Just a very quick blast with a dremel on each nipple.

Again, this appears to save between 0.1W and 0.2W. Well worth it for the marginal gains on my commute.

https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/prime-rr-50-se-carbon-clincher-disc-wheelset

£140 more than the Chinese direct ones.

Warranty

Crash replacement deal

Spares available

£65’s worth of tyres includes (which actually makes them cheaper as the duty should be about £85 if you get caught in customs)

Some degree of confidence that they’ve been tested for safety and the factory has some sort of QC procedure or even ISO9001 certification (TBH I’d hope that CRC and any reputable company would make that and 14001 and 18001 a bare minimum for doing business with them but I don’t know).

Thanks for the suggestion! But are you colorblind? Ok, so the stickers can be removed 😉

Looks like OK wheels, but again poor value – heavy at 1750g for 50 mm rimdepth with crappy hubs.

CSC also includes 1 year warranty but no crash replacement (maybe you could get a discount).

Chainreaction reviews about the Prime wheels: “Decent wheels TERRIBLE warranty – Buyers beware”..”The conversion kit is never in stock.”..”Fronthub runs harshly. Rear hub sometimes makes a loud metal noise. Build is as simple as it can be. Overall both hubs have a disappointing cheap feel.” and one comments on poor build quality. All in all, you don’t really get much extra (reselling the tires only nets you £35).

I’d get a DT350 wheelset for the same price (depending on VAT) from CSC any day. The spokes are likely equivalent, but I’d get much better and lighter hubs and you could get e.g. 60 mm front 88 mm rear wheels.

So Hunts are £800, and for that you get rebranded Novatec hubs with slightly lighter rims (200 grams saving for the wheelset perhaps) and a guaranteed solid build. That’s not worth more than £100 extra to me.

I went down the Alloy light disc aero set route. £380.

Happy owner of two pairs of CSC wheels. Rim brake only though. No issues with hubs, rims fine so far although I’m not sure I’d throw them down an Alp descent. Rear 90mm is a little flexy when powering out of saddle but that’s the only complaint so far. For me it’s Hard to justify pairs that are 2,3 or more times the price.

Looks like OK wheels, but again poor value – heavy at 1750g for 50 mm rimdepth with crappy hubs

Poor value?? What on earth are you talking about. That’s about a 3rd the price of a pair of zipp at same weight.

I had a pair of the primes, hubs absolutely fine. And yes the stickers come off if you read the blurb