2nd wheelset?
 

I have an entry-level gravel bike, a CAADx. It has WTB Riddler 37mm stock tires and stock rims. This is my do it all bike. My local rides are 50% pavement, 50% gravel- sometimes in the same ride. However, I also frequently ride on 100% pavement. I love the stock tires on gravel, but I’ve found that I struggle to keep up with a group, for example on a fondo ride, even a slow group on pavement. I tried switching to a slickish tires, Panaracer 32 mm, and these were great for the pavement rides, but unfortunately too squirrelly on the gravel roads and I didn’t enjoy those rides as much anymore, and they are really my favorite rides.

I tried switching the tires back and forth, but that has been tedious. I basically tried not to have to do it. A second bike is not an option. A second wheelset has been suggested, but my LBS says my bike is too inexpensive to bother as a second wheelset decked out with rotors and cassette will approach the cost of the bike itself.

I still like the idea of the second wheelset and have been surfing around for a cheaper way to do this. I don’t need high end wheels- just the same average components I already have. For example, I found a set of takeoff wheels from a CAAD 13 that maybe would work. But not sure how to be certain they would actually fit my bike and swap well.

Any advice or opinions on any of this would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Maybe some Compass/RH slick tires in 38 would work well? You would have the size for gravel and they reportedly roll very well for pavement. Or Panaracer GravelKing slick in 38. Even Panaracer GravelKing SS could be an option(I have this model in 43mm and am fine on the pavement that connects my house with gravel. Mine are solo rides so I dont have to chase anyone and eek out every watt to keep up, but at the same time I dont get frustrated with how they feel on pavement compared to my road bike tires.


If you want another wheelset, then get another wheelset. You can pick up a quality aluminum wheelset plus rotors and cassette for $450-600. I view a quality aluminum wheelset as weighing about 1700g, having double butted spokes, rims that are 23mm or so, etc. There are multiple options within this range. No idea if that is what you want to spend though.

All good advice. Also, there is another thread with the same question that was started today as well...some decent suggestions in there for quality wheelsets with carbon rims that come in under $700 (if that's in your budget).

The idea that you and your "too inexpensive" CAADX are somehow not worthy of an upgraded wheelset is total nonsense and smacks of the general elitism that pervades the bike industry. You don't need your LBS's permission to buy a second wheelset, and their advice on this is frankly terrible.

The CAADX is a great bike, very capable. A new wheelset (even a cheap one) will likely be lighter than the stock wheels and as you've already concluded - a second set would make swapping between different tires much easier. This gets especially amplified if you want to run tubeless tires.

My suggestion: Shop for a quality aluminum wheelset in the neighborhood of $400-$700. A new cassette will run you around $50-$75 and new rotors around $100. Assuming you already own tires, this is a total investment of $575-$875.

From the other thread linked above:
Shimano GRX wheelset: $420/1650g/21.6mm internal width
HED Emporia GA Performance: $700/1670g/25mm internal width
HED Ardennes RA Performance Disc: $650/1575g/21mm internal width.

Other suggestions of DT Swiss and Light Bicycle Carbon are valid as well.

I think I could spend $500-$600. Trouble is that the specs I need are pretty limiting. The current wheelset is QR100/QR135, with 6-bolt disc brakes and an 11-speed Shimano cassette. Most of the decent inexpensive wheelsets I’m finding are 100/142 thru axle (including the Shimano GRX). I’ve found a couple with the hubs I need, but the brakes are set up for CL. I’m assuming that would result in having to do some tinkering when I switch wheels.

I’m also not opposed to trying a different tire- sounds like going wider on slicker tires might be a happier compromise. And maybe set them up tubeless?

go to prowheelbuilder.com or call them. they have bitex disc hubs in QR and you can pair them to a few different rims with butted spokes and brass nipples for about $450.
other hubs also can convert from QR to TA, but Ive never kept up on all the ones that can or cant.

What model year is this bike? I didn't know Cannondale ever sold a disc version of the CAADX with quick release.

You will likely need a custom wheelset. No one is selling off-the-rack disc wheels with quick release these days. I agree with Mstateglfr that Prowheelbuilder.com is a good option for this.
I'd target something like:

Bitex MTF hubs (compatible with QR 100mm and 135mm spacing)
DT Swiss R470 rims
28 CX-Ray spokes

$556.52/1620 grams

There are lots of different rim options that could work, so there might be a better option than the DT Swiss R470.

I purchased an inexpensive wheel set from Bicycle Wheel Warehouse, house rims on 105 hubs with 32 DT double butted spokes. I think I paid about $440 shipped. I added a 12-25 11 spd cassette ($55 or so) and had some Conti Grand Prix 28mm tires, that actually are 32 mm on these rims. These are my pavement rims though can do packed dirt paths and such. My OEM wheels have a set of Gravel King tires in 43mm (actually 40) that I use when I know I'm predominantly not on pavement (though they roll pretty well on asphalt). The gravel wheels have the 11-34 cassette the bike came with (Cannondale Topstone), so is a better wheel set for hills.

I do find that the 22-1/2 lbs of the Topstone with the road wheels, is a bit slower in roadie group rides, thus my first thought was " get a road bike" for the group rides. A gravel bike with gravel tires is easily 5+ lbs more than a carbon road bike and you'll notice the difference. But 2nd wheels are a good less expensive route to take till you reach the point of wanting a lightweight carbon racing bike.

I noticed a sufficient difference with the 32mm slicks on my stock rims, so the second wheelset would probably hold me over awhile!

It’s a 2018.

I did a similar build on prowheelbuilder- same rims and hub and got down to $400/1692g. Not sure why so much lower in cost than your configuration.

You may have this problem with two 6 bolt hubs as well. You can buy shims one of your wheelsets to match the rotor position of the other.

My extra set of wheels are 6 bolt and the main ones are CL. I don't have to do anything to the brakes when swapping between them, although I understand that's not always the case. The disc is supposed to be in the same place no matter how it's mounted to the hub.

6 bolt or centerlock shouldn't matter. The design of centerlocks seems more simple to me, and in a perfect world both wheelsets would have the same rotor design so you could have some redundancy in parts if needed, but I wouldn't let this get in the way of buying a particular wheelset.

As far as shimming rotors - I would only do this if something was way off. Otherwise it only takes a few seconds to loosen up a caliper, squeeze the lever and re-tighten on the new rotors to get them aligned. When I had an older MTB with QR discs, I had to do this even if I just took the wheel off and then re-installed it.

This was my experience as well, though I understand that having thru-axle means tighter tolerances, more likely to not see issues that with a QR.

Is it tighter tolerances, or the ability to put the axle into the same place in the dropouts repeatedly? I’ve always understood the reason that there can be issues with discs on QR comes from the ability to get the wheel into the frame, and the QR closed without the axle being seated fully into the dropouts, this is a non issue with TA. Also, TA is generally stiffer than QR with larger axle diameters.

I’ve done some looking and found a few options:

Wheelbuilder
Bitex MTF hubs (compatible with QR 100mm and 135mm spacing), DT Swiss R470 rims (20mm ID), 1620-1690g about $450-$500 shipped

Bicycle Wheel Warehouse
House hub, house clincher (16mm ID), 1700g, $255 shipped
House hub, house tubeless ready (19mm ID) 1700-1800g, $336-360 shipped
House hub, house tubeless ready (21mm ID) 1750-1800g, $400 -$430 shipped

Colorado Cyclist
DT Swiss 500db (22mm ID) Hope RS4 hub, $430 shipped ($520 shipped with 160mm rotors installed)

where I have given ranges it’s because the price and weight depends on the nipple and apple selection

another option appears to be Hunt Wheels, 19-20mm ID rims in 1600-1700g range for $460-500, wait time for some options is July.

These Hunts are expected to ship week 2 in May - $500 under 1600g

I'm in the process of piecemeal'ing a cheap Shimano WH-RX010 wheel set which is QR100/QR135. I picked up this wheel set from Bike Tires Direct for under $160 open box. It's centerlock, but you can pick up a 2-pack Shimano centerlock rotor set from Ebay for under $30 shipped and I'd just shop around for the cassette of your choice. I found my Shimano 10 speed cassette for $40 (using it on a Shimano GRX 400 groupset). The wheels aren't the lightest (coming in at 2,159g for the pair), but so far they seem to be of decent quality and spin smoothly. I figure for the $240 I spend, I'll just do more weight training and cardio to make up the difference in added weight! Plus I clock in at 150 lbs. and my weight can drop to 140 lbs. when riding, so I'm not that heavy to begin with.

Tire-wise I'm also looking at maybe going with Panaracer Paselas in 700 x 38c. From reading around, they seem to offer the best compromise of price, durability and ride quality for road and light off-road.

Hope that helps!

Thanks!

Another option I found is Fulcrum Racing DB7 (i19) at about 1710g for $264 shipped. They get some good reviews. The main limitation (and part of the reason for the low price) is that they can only run tubeless with one specific Schwalbe tire model. I can run them with tubes as my pavement tires with the Panaracer 32 slicks that I already own.

I realized that I don’t even need a cassette- I have an extra cassette that I run on my Kickr Core trainer in winter, but during outdoor riding season, I throw an old hybrid on the Kickr Core that uses a completely different cassette.

So besides the wheelset, I only need to buy a set of rotors.

Griffin,

I have a set of wheels I removed from my Caadx when I purchased it. They have never been ridden. I would be willing to sell cheap.

I might be interested if they came off 2018 CAADx... I don’t have enough posts to PM you...

I just found a set of RD2.0 wheels that came off of a 2017 Cannondale Synapse. They have less than 500 miles of use because the owner switched to carbon wheels early on. They are actually in my town so I can go look at them. As far as I can tell, these are the same hub as my bike, but a different rim, same ID. Looks like the weight will be about the same as my current wheelset. The owner is asking $175. Does that seem like a good enough deal?

I’d save 0.5lb - 0.75 buying new lighter wheels, but not sure that is worth an additional $200-250 on a 23 lb bike.

I don't know about good deal, but for that price, you aren't going backwards, and you have a second wheelset which opens up options. I don't work on imperial measurements on bikes, but that sounds like a minor weight savings (rough math says 225-350g) for rotating mass. It'll definitely help in terms of responsiveness especially when accelerating, but it's not huge. I'd go with what looks more cool or what fits your budget.

I’d expect some rotor rub and possibly needing some derailleur adjustment between the two wheel sets. I’ve done the two wheelset thing with a couple different bikes. Neither were drop, swap and go but now that used bikes are so pricey it’s probably your best option.

Maybe. Regardless, you’re talking about 5 minutes or less of fiddling. That little bit of adjustment is not, in my opinion, a reason to forgo a second wheel set. Unless the OP is uncomfortable doing basic bike maintenance.

I highly recommend BWW. The wheels are built bulletproof and they ship quick. Did you see their discount codes?

https://bicyclewheelwarehouse.com/Coupons.html