engstrom

So I have over 1,500 miles on my first roadbike and am starting to think about upgrading the stock Bontrager Race (1920 g) wheelset. I'm looking for a good everyday wheelset.

So my first question is should I bother? I haven't had any problems with the stock wheels but they are heavy and not having anything else to compare them to I don't know if I'll even notice the difference in weight and stiffness compared to another wheelset. I've only been riding a year so maybe I need a little more experience to notice the difference?

Second question - living in a mostly flat area of the country and being primarily concerned with increasing speed and distance (rather than improving climbing...at least right now) should I be looking at something with a deeper rim profile? To give you an idea, yesterday's ride was 50 miles at 15.8 MPH - https://connect.garmin.com/activity/91991130

I realize the most important thing to work on is riding more and pushing to go faster, but if the wheels would make a difference I wouldn't mind adding those to the workouts and rides as another arrow in the quiver.

Psimet2001 

Full disclosure - yes I sell wheels - not answering in order to drum up business. Just want to answer your questions...

In general, yes a wheel upgrade is one of the easiest things one can do to their frame and make it ride very differently. Does that translate directly into speed gains? Some say yes. In general though I like to concentrate on how wheels effect the feel of the ride.

Heavy Bonty OEM wheels that comes as standard issue on new Trek bicycles are discarded often by riders as they begin to put more and more miles on. You can get lighter more responsive wheels for a nominal outlay of cash.

You hit the nail on the head when you said that the most important thing is simply riding more. There is no way around that and in the end that's the reason we ride. So - what will changing wheels do for you? Only you can say. Would you find that you enjoy new wheels - I would lay odds that you would. Would riding on new wheels make riding more enjoyable - MAKING you get yourself on the bike more? Who knows. If it does that would be great.

Depending on your weight I would tend to steer you towards something that is a little higher spoke count but with a nice compliant rim and high quality hub. That would result in a set that you could put a lot of miles on and still keep around as backups or training wheels if you upgrade further in the future.

patrickgm60

If you're riding for fitness and improvement, rather than racing, I don't see the need, myself. Your stock wheels are decent+. If you're averaging 16mph on flat rides, the weight and aero advantages of better wheels will be negligible, compared to simply riding more and getting stronger.

DScott

Why not both? Stronger + better gear = faster.

Full of win.

curiouskid55

Only time I noticed a dramatic difference between wheel performance was going from Mavic clinchers to carbon tubulars. The ride quality of tubulars is astounding. But the hassles of riding tubulars everyday is not for most cyclists.

timeforheroes

haha

i bought some tubulars around april. yes.. i noticed a difference. I actually did a 7 mile hill climb and a flat 20 mile course in the same day and set PR's on both!

however... like curiouskid says.... the everyday hassle isnt the most ideal. i keep them stowed away unless im racing and even then... sometimes i still just use my stock wheels (shimano rs10).

in hindsite... i enjoy the purchase... but i dont even use them for training... so meh... take that for what you will=)

cyclezen

another option might be tubeless...
guy I ride with just got a new bike with tubeless Campy wheels...
he's amazed by the speed and comfort - he runs the tubeless at 90 lbs (i'd guess he's round about low 150's weight) and says they feel just as quick as his upper end Mavics, but way more compliant on the road, like a good pair of tubulars...
Having a tire/wheel bouncing around on the road surface, because of very high pressures, has been shown to be as power robbing and 'slow' as too low a pressure.
If I was spending big bucks on a topline wheelset, I'd wanna try them or something similar before buyin.
and with tires, just because they might be expensive doesn't make then good.

valleycyclist

I built a set of 32 spoke wheels with DT Swiss RR465 rims, Ultegra hubs, and 14/15G spokes for someone who wanted to do light touring and had cracks in his Bontrager Race rims. He said the new wheels felt like they spun up faster and the total weight is not much different than the Bontrager Race wheels. So you can definitely improve over your current wheels. If it is worth investing money into new equiptment is a different story. If it makes you enjoy riding more then I think it would be worth it.

Since you ride mostly on flat courses you may want to try a deeper rim. 27mm Kinlin XR-270 rims are nice rims. You can even go with bladed CX-Ray spokes if you want. Just keep in mind that most speed gains will come with more riding. Getting more aerodynamic wheels may give you 0.1-0.2MPH max.

You may also want to consider getting a professional bike fitting as you start to add more miles. The last thing that you want is an overuse injury.

Val23708

Nice handbuilt wheels with a good number of spokes (28+ each) and serviceable hubs should do you good for years.

engstrom

Thanks to all for taking the time to answer. Looks like the bottom line is continue to ride more and get stronger. If I want new wheels then great but don't expect to go noticeably faster just because of the wheels.

Oh, and I like the convenience and ease of clinchers rather than tubulars - maybe in a few years I'll end up with tubulars but for now I'm gonna stick with clinchers.

valleycyclist

The tubeless recommendations mentioned earlier are different than tubular. It is using a special tubeless tire (looks like a clincher) without an inner tube. You may be able to use them on your current wheels if you use a special rim tape, tubeless tires, and put some sealant in the tires.

engstrom

Cool, I'll look into that. Thanks for the information.

captnfantastic

stop spending so much time on forums and bike review sites, go ride your bike instead. "If it aint broke, dont fix it"

I rarely upgrade anything for no GOOD reason. If something breaks I get excited to upgrade it, but that rarely happens.

You are in your infant stages of cycling. When you reach a point where you legitimately feel that your equipment is limiting your performance, then by all means upgrade. Until then I suggest you ride and if you plan on racing save your money for gas, race entries, ect. You will need it.

jamesdak 

Well I started riding just last year for fitness also. Started off with a Cf framed Trek and the heavy Bontrager wheels. Picked up a couple of "backup" steel framed bikes which both came with lighter wheels. Noticed a bit of difference in ride quality and ease to spin up. Was also able to set PRs for all my set routine routes on the LeMond with the "aero" Rolf wheels.

Finally picked up a pair of lighter aero wheels for the Trek when I started doing a lot of climbing. The lighter wheels do make a difference for that kind of riding for certain. Don't know if they make me quicker while I climb but I do feel like I expend less energy and can react faster. Hence I'm looking for an even lighter climbing set now. Oh and like others say, lots of riding and lose weight if needed.

Then biggest gain from my riding is my 70 lbs of weight loss and the miles on the bike. This helped a lot more than any wheel upgrade did.

patrickgm60

Wow; 70#; great job, jamesdak! I'm down 25# since last June, due to cycling. Between the weight loss and strengthening, I now climb hills (without weaving) that I could not climb last Fall. I'd say the improvement is roughly 60% strengthening, 30% weight loss, and 10% due to my new, lighter road bike.

ilike3bikes

I have two sets of Williams' wheels. The Williams wheels are very fast and inexpensive. I also have DT Swiss 1250s; the DT Swiss set is very expensive and very fast. A mid price wheel would be the Envy 46cm set. I don't have this set, but the reviews I have read are impressive.

joe_5700

It really depends on how much lighter of a rim you go to. If you get a rim that is 100-200 grams lighter, you are probably not going to notice much difference in acceleration. I recently changed out the Alex DC19 rims that came stock on my Jamis with a set of Shimano RS10's. I replaced the rims, because they had a lot of miles, wear indicators were worn, wouldn't stay true and I replaced many spokes. The RS10's are over 200 grams lighter, have aero bladed spokes but I really cannot tell a difference in performance.