aliasfox

Building up a CAAD8 frame for fun over the next few months, keeping an eye on prices and weights as I select components. Frame came in, now trying to decide on wheels.
- Ideally, $600 or less
- Aluminium rim. Don't like the stories about carbon and rim brakes
- Being tubeless ready would be a nice to have (just to try it out), but not a deal breaker

Me? About 185lbs / 85kg, usually put in about 50-100miles per week in-season. Not a fan of riding in the cold or wet. Once completed, the bike will likely trade places with my Bianchi and live in the SF Bay Area, and do it's best impression of a mountain goat (I love riding up to Cañada Rd, and Old La Honda's great training for Coleman Valley Rd in Sonoma). Given that I'm a bit of a porker (and almost always have been), weight isn't my primary concern, though lighter wheels are definitely more fun to accelerate on.

The contenders that I've seen so far:
- DT Swiss P1800. $540 shipped. The rim's a bit shallow at 23mm deep, and it doesn't have a ratchet based hub (DT's specialty?), but otherwise I've never heard anybody say bad things about a DT Swiss product.
- Fulcrum Racing 3 C17. $650ish. Rim bed's a bit narrow at 17mm, and isn't tubeless compatible - though neither of those is a major drawback if I continue to run 25-28mm clinchers. I've heard the hubs on these are relatively quiet, which is a positive
- Vision Trimax 35. $550ish. 35mm tall rims should be aero, and they're advertised as only 60g more than the Fulcrums (~30g more than DT Swiss). But not the biggest fan of the Vision Team 30s that I have, which is coloring my opinion.
- Kinlin XR 26 laced to Boyd hubs, Sapim bladed spokes. This is an option I threw together on ProWheelBuilder.com - comes in similarly priced to the pre-built sets. I've heard the Boyd hubs are loud, though all the other options that they have seem to have that reputation, as well.
- Other custom?

Would love to hear opinions!

sw20

I have these wheels, replaced my fulcrum 77 with these, light weight and tubeless ready

https://www.cycledivision.co.uk/whee...-wheelset-2017

mstateglfr 

PWB- call em up and chat options.
H plus son Hydra rims is an option they carry and tubeless.
bitex RA hubs are what they use as default for their house wheels. I have disc and rim versions for 2-4 years now and they have been perfect, as I would expect.

SoSmellyAir

Not based on my personal experience, but I have read quite a bit of good (British) press on these:

HUNT Race Aero Wide Wheelset – Hunt Bike Wheels US

Meets all your criteria, assuming that your criteria is the opposite of the criticism you have of the listed candidates.

chaadster

aliasfox Spinergy Z-Lites are 18mm internal, 23mm deep, and tubeless compatible, with the pair weighing in at 1415g and priced at $700. Forumite franswa has a 20% off code right now which they’ve offered up, so if you snag that, you’re at $560. You can also customize spoke color, which is pretty neat.

aliasfox

Cero AR24 Evo: Never heard of them, but the price looks right. Will have to look for some reviews on them. Relatively new?

Spinergy Z-Lites: I completely forgot these guys were still around. What's the benefit to the PBO spokes?

Hunt: Forgot to put these in the poll! Availability in September is a ways off, but I don't think I plan on completing this build until early fall. I love Hunt's simple graphics, but for the cost, are the Novatec hubs up to par with the competition? I know I'm not particularly hard on my equipment relative to those of you putting out 350w for 5k miles a year, but I do tend to keep my equipment around a long time - my Bianchi's 16 years old and going strong, and I wouldn't mind if the rest of my equipment lasts a while, too.

Keep the opinions coming!

aplcr0331

I have these on my Cannondale now. I bought them from a gentleman who was giving up outdoor riding. I paid 100 pounds for them back in 2019.

Great wheel, pretty light, spin fast, the hub is loud so be aware of that. Mine are the Evo AR30 not sure what’s different. Mine have Sapim CX Ray spokes. I’m very happy with them, and they’re extremely robust too.

chaadster

The flexible Zylon PBO fibers are lighter and stronger than stainless steel, and flexible, so they are more impact resistant and damp vibration, offering a smoother riding, lighter wheel.

Just a couple of days ago, James Huang over at CyclingTips reviewed the new Litespeed Watia, which Litespeed spec’d with Spinergy GXX wheels, and he described the ride as “magical.” Now he attributed a lot of that to the frame and to titanium, but needless to say, there is no ride at all without wheels, so while he said the wheels were “smooth rolling,” I think that’s a bit of understatement.

I ride Spinergy GX with 35c tires on my T-Lab, and my experience is similar; the bike is really smooth, right on par with my Breezer, which has high volume 650b x 48 rubber (on conventional spoke rims). For gravel, they’re great, but I bet the Spinergy damping effects would be even more noticeable in a narrow, high-pressure, tarmac tire application.

Most basically, though, the PBO spokes are just more proof that there’s more than one way to build a wheel, like Rolf showed with paired spokes and Corima with carbon fiber spoke wheels. Each is ostensibly better in some way, but they all work well, including conventional wheels.

Lazyass

Look at this one. They also have other models.

https://bicyclewheelwarehouse.com/Ro...Wheel-Set.html

Discount codes

https://bicyclewheelwarehouse.com/Coupons.html

BWW builds great wheels, I have a couple of sets from them. Shipping is free and I get them in less than a week. The last set of wheels I got from them was in the clearance section. Tubular rims with DT Comp spokes and Ultegra 6700 hubs for less than $200.

Sy Reene

Not everyone's cup o'tea, but I went with the Hunt Sprint aero wides. Same rim, but upgraded hub. I see though that they're up by 30% in price vs a year ago.

DaveSSS 

Campy zondas are hard to beat. Similar to fulcrum racing 3.

aliasfox

Is that another vote for the Fulcrums then? Campy wheels only come with Campy freehubs, correct? In my mind, it would be a bit weird to have Campy branded wheels on what's likely to be a SRAM bike, but they do have that really cool lacing pattern. If you have Zondas/Fulcrum Racing 3s, could you comment on how much noise the freehub makes when coasting?

tomato coupe

Very quiet.

matt92037

no, you can get zondas with a shimano freehub

deacon mark

H and Son Rims they are great and look great.

delbiker1 

I agree with the Zonda wheels are to hard to beat, especially in that price range. I just received another set from PBK, purchased during a sale, final cost of $368 shipped. It took about 10 days for them to get here. I was looking at Fulcrum 3 but the sale price for the Zonda was too good. PBK just had a sale on the Race 3, $489 with shipping, but they were sold out when I checked the site.

popeye

Take a look at the Boyd Altamonts.

SoSmellyAir

That is a pretty good price. It seems that Zonda has yet to follow the trend on wider internal widths, at least for the aluminum alloy models.

sw20

difference is the depth, 24mm and 30mm😉 very happy with my ar24s

aliasfox

PBK has Zondas for under $400 right now, which is quite tempting, especially as the Fulcrum Racing 3 goes for about $100 more. To top it off, they have a Fizik carbon bar for $142. Would I be right to expect that PBK could deliver to NY in a week? That’s definitely a plus over the August arrival Ceros and September Hunts.

I would’ve thought Boyd Altamonts were out of my range and out of stock?

Kimmo

I seem to recall that any Campy-branded wheelset has cup and cone hubs and the Fulcrums are all cartridge bearing... That'd tip me in favour of Campy

tomato coupe

It depends on the wheels. Zonda/Racing 3 are both cup and cone, but the cheaper Scirocco/Racing 5 have cartridge bearings.

Kimmo

Those cup and cone Campy hubs are pretty nice gear, aside from the floating cassette body...

I'd love to know why only the likes of Joytech copied Shimano's design... Alex does some flash hubs but only their cheaper stuff are Shimano copies... Maybe rebranded Joytech since the nice Alex hub I have appears to be rebranded American Classic.

aliasfox

Can you expand upon what you said re: floating cassette body?

Koyote

I have a pair of their Hydra rims, laced 32h/3x to some DT Swiss hubs, and have thrashed the hell out of them. Last weekend, in a gravel race, I hit a pothole so hard and fast that it burped most of the air out of my rear tire -- but the the wheel is still perfectly true.