VintageSteelEU

Whenever I look for rankings / reviews for wheelsets or rims, I tend to get either things that are obviously marketing or mentioning wheelsets costing a kidney or two. So I was wondering if anyone has experience with budget rims out there. I will be building a new wheelset for my 1979 Motobecane, lacing new rims to two Shimano 105 32 hole hubs I have. Initially I was thinking about using vintage rims, but there's zero chance for finding them new these days and I'd rather build with something that didn't have decades of abuse. The set I currently use is simple Mach 1 CFX 700c rims with no name hubs. These, however, are to go onto a bicycle I will be selling. I quite like the rims on them, they are simple and look OK with a vintage bike. But these rims have 36 holes version only, so I won't be able to purchase them and build new wheels with the hubs I have. Looking at Mach 1 website, they have Omega rims which seem alright and come in 32 hole variant. Looking at Rigida / Ryde website, they have Ryde DP 16. Which I quite like the look of, though they don't have silver finish. The tyres to go on the new wheels will be 25, nothing wider is really an option (clearances between the tyres and chainstays are already quite tight, 28 might fit, or might not). Does anyone have experience using / building wheels with these two rims? Any opinion, success /horror story would be appreciated. Or maybe there is something else out there, similar in price but somehow better?

Iride01 

Unless you already have all the spokes and stuff you need, I've always found better deals on already built wheelsets. I've had really good results with Mavic Open Pro and Mavic Open Elite laced to Shimano 105 5800 and Ultegra hubs. I have less than 350 bucks invested in the two wheel sets because I was patient and waited for a deal at BikeNashbar and Jenson USA. Though admittedly those days might be gone for a time.

oldbobcat

My favorite for inexpensive road is the Sun Ringle CR-18. They're easy to build up and true, rugged, and reasonably lightweight.

VintageSteelEU

The problem with ready-built wheelsets is that they tend to come with more sprockets than I need (I need 7 or fewer gears on the rear wheel). They are also more expensive than building my own (unless I go for some rare / exotic hubs). Spokes and nipples are relatively cheap and I have some hubs (vintage 105s).

VintageSteelEU

They look nice. Couldn't find them in the UK though. Similar option here would be Ryde Sputnik I guess, though they take tyres from 28

Iride01 

So you need a wheel that uses a freewheel? From your username I'm imagining you reside in Europe somewhere. So I can't say anything for price and market availability there. Here, I can find wheels already built with hubs for freewheels that are new.

Here is an offer from a seller on Amazon for a wheel I will think is decent enough. https://www.amazon.com/Sta-Tru-Silve...s%2C204&sr=8-5
But I don't know if they ship international.

I'd recommend you go ahead and replace the freewheel too at this time. If the other is good still, just put it on the shelf for dust collection.

Have you ask at some bike shops? It's been a little over ten years, but my LBS put two wheels on a bike I used to own for the price of that one wheel on Amazon.

And if you have big box discount stores over there like Walmarts, Targets and Dicks here, you can just buy a cheapo bike, keep the wheels and throw the bike in the re-cycle bin. Even the cheapo bikes have wheels that are generally good enough. Though if you ride quite a bit of miles (kilometers), then I'd agree you need better.

VintageSteelEU

My current wheels use a freewheel, but the ones I want to build are going to use Shimano 105 hubs and the rear one has a 7 speed cassette. So that is taken care of. I will be also building it. Mostly because I can and have the tools to do that. But also because it allows me greater control in terms of choosing the components. The set (excluding the hubs, rim tape, tubes & tyres, which I have) is going to cost me £70 or so and I believe it will be of a better quality than whatever pre-built set I can buy for that money. Also, I find wheel building rather relaxing Where's the fun in just buying a ready-made wheelset? The reason why I'm asking about people's opinion on budget rims is that they might be some rims that are a nightmare to build on and true or really poor quality. At the moment all info I have is some photos and dry technical specs.

Iride01 

Okay... in the past when on more than one occasion I looked at building my own wheels, I didn't find the cost of good name brand rims very expensive. Certainly not enough to have made me look for a budget rim. It was spokes and nipples that took the price of the wheels I would have built outside the price I paid for what essentially were wheels with the same rims and hubs. Mavic rims with Shimano hubs.

I'm not saying that trying to talk you out of building your own wheels. The gist of that is that the price difference between budget rims and name brand decent rims isn't going to save that much money.

At least it didn't last time I looked.

VintageSteelEU

Decided to try Ryde DP16. Probably the next time I will go with something more expensive, right now I have another bicycle waiting to be rebuilt. As for spokes, previously I was paying something like £8 for a set of no name 36 spokes and nipples and also got a whole bag of Sapim nipples laying about. This time I got Sapim Leader spokes, 65 of them, £25 with delivery. This puts the price of the wheelset in the £100 ballpark. Of course, if I had to buy new hubs, went for higher end rims and spokes the price would be significantly higher and closer to a prebuild set. But the thing is that I actually like building my own wheels, though previously I've been always doing that with second hand rims, spokes, hubs etc. So I treat this also as education / training. And it's also fun

VintageSteelEU

I thought I will report some progress, even though it was ages ago. I chose Rigida DP16 in the end(around £30 for both), Sapim Leader spokes (straight gauge J-bend, £29 for 64) and Sapim Brass Polyax Nipples (£6.40 for 64). Hubs are worth about £30 both. So the cost of building both wheels (excluding my time) is around £100. I think it's an attractive price for a good, strong wheelset (excluding casette, tubes, tyres etc, but I had those). If I went for more expensive (better?) rims and double butted spokes, the rims would cost me around,£100 (Mavic) and spokes would cost me around £60, so the total cost would double. So in a way you are correct, you can buy a decent set of wheels probably cheaper than that (I've seen Mavic Open Elite + Shimano 105 wheelsets for less than £150). Going for budget rims and straight gauge spokes does save me some money though and then I don't really want to have any modern hubs. I'm happy with 7 speed casette / freewheel in the back.
Anyhow, the wheels turned out very nice, actually. In hindsight, I would go with black spokes for thiese particular hubs. The rims are quite alright when it comes to building. So if someone is looking into building a good set of commuting wheels for up to 32 width tyres on the budget, I feel these rims fit the bill. Not ultralight, but with 32 spokes 3x1 in both wheels they seem quite sturdy. In the end they ended up in my storage unused for the time being and I built another set, this time using Exal XR2 (saving 200g in weight, but also prefer brighter silver / grey finish), again Sapim Leader spokes, Sapim Brass nipples and Shimano 6400 rear hub and Exage (for now) front one. Great rim to build with (and double eyeleted for very little money). A massive pain in the backside to put tyres on, I'd advise anyone building wheels with these to equip themselves with old fashioned, simple, metal tyre levers. You can forget about nylon / plastic ones, too thick and too bendy.

Rigida Ryde DP16:

Rigida Ryde DP16 rear

Rigida Ryde DP16 front

And Exal XR2:


Exal XR2 Front

Exar XR2 Rear