forusenet01

2001 Lemond Nevada city

I bought his steel bike around 2006. It is in good shape and is a joy to ride (not that i know how it feels to ride anything more modern)
Components are mostly all 105 from early 2000s. Minor updates i have done recently are

• Ultegra SPD pedals installed
• Continental GP tires to replace the gatorskins (on it's way)

Next thing i want is to get some better wheels. Bike has a 9 speed cassette and most rear wheels i look at are for 10 and 11 speeds.

SHIMANO 105 Clincher 30 mm Rear Wheel - is something i thought was decent, but it again says it's for 10/11 speed. Are these compatible. If not, how do i find rear wheels for a 9 speed rear?

PS. Looks like i cant post a picture of my cassette since i'm new to the forum.

Ogsarg

You should be able to put a spacer on to allow for use with the 9 speed cassette.

HTupolev

8/9/10-speed Shimano freehub bodies are all the same; 7-speed are narrower and 11-speed are wider.

Unless you somehow dig up an ancient uniglide cassette, any Shimano road cassette can fit on any Shimano road freehub as long as it's wide enough. So 7-speed cassettes can be placed on 11-speed freehub bodies, but not vise versa. Some 11-speed cassettes can be stuck onto 8/9/10-speed freehub bodies as well, but not all.
When the freehub body is wider than the cassette, you need to put an appropriate spacer inboard of the cassette to take up the unused room on the freehub body.

A 9-speed road cassette will likely seat fine on an 8/9/10-speed hub without any spacers. If you put a 9-speed cassette on an 11-speed road hub, it will probably require a 1.85mm spacer inboard of the big cog.

forusenet01

How would i know what spacer to use? Bring the 11 speed wheel home, measure what space is left with the cassette on and then get a spacer for that measurement?

forusenet01

Thank you. i found this on Amazon "Shimano 11-Speed 1.85mm Low Spacer" Is that what you are talking about?

alcjphil

Most 11 speed compatible wheels are supplied with the 1.85mm spacer needed for 8,9,10 speed cassettes included

HTupolev

Yes. 11-speed wheels often come with the 1.85mm spacer, since it's a very commonly-required spacer. If your wheel doesn't come with the spacer, they're easy to find.

(By contrast, 11-speed wheels usually don't come with the huge spacer required to stick a 7-speed cassette on the wheel, since almost nobody does that.)

forusenet01

Thank you

Iride01 

What are better wheels to you? Weight? Aero? Pretty?

forusenet01

A bit of lighter wheels would be nice, but considering the bike is 23lbs now, it probably won't make any difference.

The main reason i want to upgrade is the friction in the hub. I tried to take it apart and grease it, but it's hard for me to handle the bearings in these wheels since my eyesight isn't what it used to be.

I want to get a rear wheel with rim brakes that uses tubes. I see tubeless is what most people are riding with but i'm just not comfortable using something new. I intend to go fancy when i get a newer modern bike sometime in future.

I tried to lookup Shimano website for 105 wheels with rim brakes and supports tubes. They all seem discontinued and not available online.

If you have a rear wheel recommendation for something around $200 with these specs, please let me know.

Iride01 

BikeNashbar and JensonUSA are two places I've bought some good but inexpensive wheel sets from in the past. The wheels I bought from them are very much the same as these from Merlin Cycles in the UK. But they are 10/11 speed freehubs. I've always found a good deal on bike parts in the domestic market when I was buying so I've never gotten bicycle parts from overseas vendors. Others have.

As you've found, it's hard to find a decent selection of wheels that even have rim brakes. And tubeless/tubeless ready adds layer of suspense for using tubed tires.

If there isn't any other reason than your issue with the wheel bearings, I'd get a shop to take a look. For 200 bucks, you aren't going to find a wheel that is much better than what you have. For much less the shop might be able to do something with the problem hub.

Oh.... since you are used to Shimano hubs, be warned that others can be quite noisy. I'm shocked at how loud the DT swiss hub on my new bike is when coasting. Thank goodness I don't coast very much.

forusenet01

These wheels are 20 years old, i am sure they have other truing issues as well.

I see this from this link you provided. Looks like a good deal https://www.jensonusa.com/Shimano-WH...-Road-Wheelset and i could get a new front wheel as well for $290

Since i already have some good tire and tube i recently bought which i can put on this wheel, would you happen to know if these wheels would work well with tubes (they are advertised tubeless)

HTupolev

Installing an inner tube is always fine.

There are a few tubeless wheels that explicitly warn to only use tubeless-ready tires, whether you're using tubes or not. These are certain carbon models that are molded without bead hooks, like the Zipp 303 S.
Inner tubes and bead hooks both aid in tire retention, to prevent blowoffs. Because tubeless tires need to avoid blowing off a rim even when used without an inner tube, they have to be made with very stiff and precisely-sized beads. Zipp doesn't want anyone using non-tubeless tires on their hookless rims because, without the hooks, the bead tolerances of a non-tubeless tire might not be good enough to avoid blowoffs.

Bead hooks are much easier to manufacture on aluminum rims than carbon, so aluminum rim almost always have them. Using non-tubeless tires on the wheels that you're looking at is just fine.