Also looking at a second set of wheels
 

So you could say things are getting serious. I've got DT R23s that have been serving me well with 28mm tires on pavement and some light gravel. Now I want a second set to set up with beefier tubeless for off road/pavement. Budget under $1000 USD. I ride 50/50 road/off road. Two ways of thinking keep popping in my head:

1. Inexpensive Carbon wheels like Hunt or nicer aluminum with some good hubs like HED Ardennes?

2. Use the DT R23s for pavement and new wheels for off road or vice versa? I'm leaning towards the idea that nicer aero wheels might have a bigger impact on pavement.

Thanks in advance for your experience and opinions.

The Hunt wheels I'm not a fan of. For $1100USD I expect more than (rebranded) Bitex hubs.

Yea they're cartridge bearing--but that is about all there is to say about them. I think ProWheelbuilder offers a CF house-rim laced to Bitex at that pricepoint as well...but when Whites at PWB are $1300 or you can get DTSwiss/Industry9/Onyx at LightBicycles for $1200, there's no appeal to the Bitex.


How you use them is up to you and how the wheels are built. My Onyx/46mm build is heavier (nature of Onyx hubs), so I keep the lighter tires on those hoops...and come winter the studded wire beaded boat-anchors (800g each) go on my alloy rims

I have the nicer wheels for pavement. The lighter wheels and lighter tires are a nice contrast to bigger gravel/mtb tires. I had Brett at mill city https://www.facebook.com/millcitycycle/ build me a nice carbon set for around $1000. He does a lot of gravel riding, so he knows what we need.

I did the same thing, also going through Mill City, but for the lightest and cheapest aluminum wheelset solely for road use. They ended up ~$450, and have been super solid.

Like chas said, Brett has a lot of experience and can iterate depending on your price/need!

The new DT Swiss gravel wheelset is really hard to beat at a little over $700 for a really tough 25mm internal width aluminum wheelset with very proven and reliable DT Swwiss hubs. They are pretty new but we have bot them in several recent builds at our shop and they are very hard to beat! about 1600 grams I believe. Any carbon wheelset at your price range is going to be inferior to an aluminum wheelset at the same price.

Wow, 25mm internal? At that point 29" XC mountain bike wheels are worth a look.

I got some hand build DT350+DT RR481s for $475 from colorado cyclist. Real solid wheelset for the buck. I weigh 220lbs, commute on them, and take on them gravel and light trails.