DDU Vs DDP shipping

Ah of course, I thought they meant DPD which is a shipping company and didn’t get it.

So ‘shite’ in your book is anything not quite as good as a hub you have arbitrarily decided was the ‘non shite’ standard then?

In which case I hate to point out that given you have bought the cheapest, unbranded carbon rims available, would you agree that by your own definition, you have bought ‘shite’ rims..?

Fyi..I have 2 sets of prime wheels, and 2 sets with dt350. And there is no difference whatsoever. Take it from a man who as actually used both, rather than just read about them.

Wrong, it’s not arbitrary, DT hubs generally don’t blow up, Novatec etc do and there are plenty of cases. Similar designs, worse material quality it seems. Maybe yours are better quality as I was generalizing, but reviews on CR indicates they aren’t great. That you have both doesn’t prove much beyond that the hubs can work just fine – if you grease them up properly like Finbar had to :p

Carbon rims are different, like people have commented, as long as they’re not made too light or used with rim brakes they’re generally fine. Carbon Speed Cycle has an excellent reputation, you can see this from their 3000+ vendor reviews on ebay plus other user experiences on the webz. Cheap doesn’t need to equate to shite here.

Hats off to the op for actually buying something (did anyone win the sweepstake?) and continuing with his quest which seems one of the most pointless I have ever seen.

Nearly pointless from a strictly utilitarian pov (e.g. saving 30 watts with aero wheels), but that’s true for 90% of posts here. For me it’s about fun.

BTW, CSC lets you pay them $60-80 to avoid VAT and customs fees in some magical way.. lol

@joebristol yep that makes sense – talked to the seller, first they said skipping cogs without skipping gears simply was impossible, very German.

He conceded that it could be the h limit screw or derailleur cable being too tight, and if not that a bent hanger. I loosened the h limit screw 1/2 turn and looks like the derailleur moved a tiny bit, also loosened the cable slightly. Seems to be fine now, but will do some more mashing later to confirm – at least I’ll be clipped in :S

@kerley the thought did occur to me, if the chain falls off at some point i might need to convert to ss ;p

I just don’t want to waste time since i don’t have a hanger alignment tool. It’s fine, i’ll take it to my LBS which this thread has convinced me is the way to go.

Most hubs are “shite” compared to DT350 hubs – based myself on the reviews about the RR wheels on chainreaction ”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 similar cheap hubs that have been known to break under power. Shite is a relative term though, they might be decent.

s for value..depends how much you value your teeth I guess. I’m sure they might be ok but I wouldn’t be buying them.

WTF are you on about.

Hmm, maybe best to leave it with a shop and send the bill to the seller?

No, I was basing myself off this wheelset: https://www.carbonspeedcycle.com/csc-60mm-tubular-clincher-carbon-bicycle-racing-road-wheels-dt350-sapim-cx-ray-23mm-25mm-u-shape.html

The final wheel weight would go up a bit requesting center lock disc hubs. If you specced brass nipples weight goes up more, the point is that the rims are about 550grams.

I’m curious about the comparison to the HUNT entry level aero wheelset, https://www.huntbikewheels.com/collections/aero-wheelsets/products/hunt-50carbon-aero-disc-road-wheelset-1438g-50deep-27wide-24spoke-1099#techspecs T700 carbon and under 500 gram rims?

DT350s are about 420g a set, spokes will be about 250-300g a set (depends on type, number and length) nipples will be either 20g or 50g (aluminium vs brass) so your weight without rims is 670-770g. So your rims are between 450g and 500g for 60mm. That’s quite light for 60mm rim made of T700, but what’s the width? Is it narrow?

Spokes Mac Aero 424 4.5g x 44 = 198g
Alu nipples 14g
DT350 road front rear (non disc in ad) 374g

Rim weight 552 for 60 mm, external width 25 mm.

25 mm external

Would take it back but the bike was shipped here.

Chain wrap looked fine too, can post pictures tomorrow!

Thanks a lot for the input, makes sense to me, now the wheels I’m looking at aren’t super light nor am I primarily looking for lightness and instead deep rims. The ones from CSC are 1690g+/-30g/pair for 25mm Width 60mm Clincher with T700 carbon fiber DT350s hubs, ring any alarm bells to you?

Daffy, indeed, but materials costs in china at scale are less than what you’ll have access to and labor is $3.6/hour.

I am taking care by (probably) buying from the largest ebay vendor (CSC) after reading through their reviews for evidence of catastrophic failures. There are also plenty anecdotal reports about their wheels and so far they’ve been positive, they aren’t the cheapest wheels you can get either so you’re paying a little extra for the brand/trust, but far less than you do with e.g. HUNT without any of the pseudoscientific marketing jizz.

Would never buy from a random ebay vendor with a few hundred reviews and no website, regardless of reviews.

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

Heavier wheelset with shite hubs compared to lighter wheelset with DT350 hubs at the same price, yes, that makes it poor value.

Nobody is comparing anything to Zipps, that’s like saying a purse 1/3 the price of a diamond embroidered £5000 gucci one is “good value” for its comparable ability to carry Chihuahuas.

I’m genuinely looking forward to the “which carbon aero drop bars” and “which carbon stem” threads, because having not searched for either before on Amazon, there are many that undercut PX on the bars front by ~50% and I’m curious if anyone here has fitted any to still be around to tell the tale. 😀

Sorry to disappoint you, but it ends with the wheels. Already ordered a non-aero Thomson stem today. I wouldn’t use carbon handlebars or stems due to safety concerns. Carbon wheelsets from reputable vendors used with disc brakes such as CSC, Hunt (blergh), RR etc seem much safer generally speaking.

Gotcha, although for £50 less you could have gotten a deeper section 32 mm wheel with DT350 hubs (162 grams more) which I’d get over hunts any day.

Are people falling for their marketing speak or is it the trendy minimal logos? Do people really think that some guys ordering rebranded parts from taiwan with minor modifications make better wheels than DT?

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.

Nevermind, bought a new stem :p

Maybe I should just buy a new stem that comes with black bolts and save some money :p

This is £15

The jaeger ones are listed as 8.5mm

They have -S designated ones that are 7.9mm wide, anything over 8 mm will not fit my stem unfortunately. 8.5 mm is the standard width.

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

Ordered the Fiziks for £105, see how they fit!

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.

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)

@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.

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

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).

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

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 :)

Seems like the Cylinder and Terra X5 are fairly similar and the choice comes down to fit, color and availability, albeit I’ve seen more positive reviews of the Terra’s which can be had for around £100 now.

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..

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.

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?

Interesting, full carbon sole, replaceable rubber, but no weight spec or reviews – seen any reviews?

Good point, I have fairly narrow feet so should be fine in the Fiziks, think I’d size up from 45.5 to 46 though.

Fizik Terra X5 seems like the best deal to me as I’m looking for a cycling shoe you can walk in and not a walking shoe you can cycle in.

Gets glowing reviews, features durable TPU rubber, carbon composite shank, BOA L6, lightweight 282g/shoe, reasonably all-season compatible – anything better out there for £100 or less?

I mean can walk in like can walk without sliding around on store tiles, so a SPD shoe with some rubber underneath, can be full carbon, but don’t think you’ll find that for under £100 anyhoo.

https://www.rabe-bike.de/de/giro-terraduro-3di-black/?fee=3&fep=4028&gclid=CjwKCAiAgqDxBRBTEiwA59eENzpRyQSMNXyfVT8Tj3RpoMxLHa_vbdYrm-GTANLcdN90V-MuSlBWLRoC-dcQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds Seems like a cheaper version, £42, not sure they ship to uk

Ghill: 1 they are aero compared to my regular shoes and 2. aero shoes only save 3-4 watts at 250w which you can get by using shoe covers if you’re after all the marginal gainz/competing.

Seems to confirm what I said, what matters is the “size of the hole” and not much else, at least if not climbing.

I’m riding at 35 kph now, so aim to just go faster 40+ kph. My rides are short (less than 30 min) and intense (for me), will get a used crank arm powermeter too.

Suggestion

Giro Terraduro as suggested £40

Shoes Shimano SH-RT5 aka RT500 trekking shoes (can walk in em) £40

Shimano PD-ES600 (shimanos lightest SPD pedal with a bit of platform) £45

Shimano PD-EH500 (similar to Xt trekking bit cheaper lighter) £40

Turns out, you can! All you have to donis ride a lot faster. Turns out that at the manufacrurers favourite speed of 40km/h it is about 30W between some horrible looking OEM wheels and three and a half grands worth of 808’s.

Bet that 82mm $300 Chinese wheelsets give you 95% of the savings, whether you want to ride 82 mm wheels is another question. The major caveat seems to be hubs that implode

Actually there’s a new thread looming about Chinese carbon wheels.. but maybe I should try it as-is first ;p

I did get some tighter winter clothing.