I’ve decided i’d like to get my first set of carbon road wheels. I’ve fallen into analysis paralysis with all the content surrounding the topic. There seem to be two main camps:
Inexpensive Asian brand wheels with varying levels of post sale support
Mainstream western brands at a comparatively insane price point.
Superteam, Elite, CRW, Lun, etc. fall into bucket 1 and can have me with nearly any depth carbon wheel for under $1000 USD
Zipp, Enve, Vision will cost nearly twice as much and guarantee i’m supported in the future.
Specs can be comparable and Aero specs are quite difficult to compare unless the wheels have been part of a bulk wind tunnel analysis. Even then, the tire I run on the frame I own could drastically impact how that wheel performs compared to it standalone. I’m of the opinion they are all ‘good enough’ when it comes to aero figures.
My main decision points are safety, cost, and ‘specs’ in that order. I’m leaning towards these Asian companies now that they have existed long enough to iron out quality issues. Is there a compelling argument the other direction?
Nothing has changed for me, not in many years since going carbon. Spendy stuff is possibly marginally better, and super spendy is just boutique.
Long-time user of LightBicycle. Have sets fully built by LB, but most are rim-only orders finished locally. Have a local wheel builder who is happy to accept parts. This ticks off the safety piece of mind for me along with the benefit of being able to get hubs rebuilt—though I do also trust the set built solely by LB.
…and have just realised I’ve now accumulated 4x sets from LB and a full disc, one for each discpline.
I’ve owned super cheap carbon wheels, medium cheap carbon wheels, and expensive Roval wheels. I would say the main difference that I experienced was with the super cheap wheels I had spokes break constantly to the point where I eventually just tossed them because it became more expensive to keep having spokes replaced than to just get a better set of wheels. The medium set I got were Prime Wheels which were manufactured in China but quality controlled by Chain Reaction/Wiggle and those I have had for somewhere around 5-6 years now with no issues at all. Obviously the Specialized Roval wheels are excellent and have had no issues with those. So, based on my experience I wouldn’t have an issue buying another set from a brand that at least has some skin in the game reputation wise but wouldn’t go ultra cheap Aliexpress/DH Gate again.
Times have changed for the consumer market with carbon wheels. There is the benefit of domestic support but generally cell built wheel dies not tend to need much. I’m on my 8th pair of Chinese wheels (early ones from 15 years ago were iffy), 3 or from Lightbike (1 pair with over 40,000 mikes on them without having perform any maintenance). My most recent pair from 9Velo by all signs will be excellent. I personally don’t think there’s any significant performance gap with a western brand. To contrast the broken spoke dilemma, a friend had a set of Enve wheels with DT 240 hubs and broke 3 spokes in less than 6 months. I’ve also had a set of Zipp 404’s and at this point with what Iv’e gotten from my Chinese wheels over the years would not spend like that on wheels again. Experiences clearly vary but I can say in my own experience that wheels coming out of China can be excellent.
The carbon wheels you get really are up to you but it depends on what you want to do with them. Do you want to ride just on smooth roads or do you want to be able to ride on some gravel? Are you looking to race or just ride? If you’re looking just to ride on smooth roads and not be a hardcore racer, then I think that most of the road wheels today in the $1000 category or under will work. ENVE 45/65, Zipp 303s, LightBicycle, Hunt, or any of the major Chinese brands will work for you in that price range. If you’re looking to ride on gravel also, then you’ll want to dive into the specs on internal width to allow you to run wider tires at lower pressures, etc. If you’re looking at racing them, then you might want to expand it to not only wider internal rim width but external rim width too. Even if you are looking at broadening you’re horizon, then there are still plenty of options available in the mid to high teens to do those things (relatively) cost effectively.
Like most products, there’s wide ranges of offerings but with wheels they ultimately have nearly all the same features. Sure there’s difference in spoke types, hook vs hookless, material, weight, etc., but you can find many of the same features on the Chinese knockoffs as the $4000 set. Weight might be the biggest difference. This is much different than the differences in frame features, groupsets, etc.
If I was doing a budget build I’d probably buy wheels that align that philosophy and if I had a $20k build I wouldn’t put $500 wheels on it.
Personally, I think the sweet spot is in the $1600-$2400 range. Above that is mostly just a slight weight savings. At that price you should be able to get any feature you want, reliability, a company that stands behind their product, and a lifetime warranty.
There’s not a component on my mosaic that I can think of that I could have bought a higher quality. The exception being wheels and pedals. After tons of research I found the Reserve 40/44 GR to be a perfect blend of every feature I wanted. Spending more would’ve only garnered a little less weight and better hubs, although my DT Swiss 350 hubs score excellent in reliability and that was a focus of my build. I’ll soon get a second wheelset for road duties and backup race wheels and will likely end up with like a zipp 303 or maybe even the non-GR version of the wheels I have.
I vacillate between 230 and 260 (eek) and have ridden Superteam Carbon wheels from Amazon for the past 5 years. Only one broken spoke…and that’s in about 7,000 miles between two different sets between two different bikes.
I’ve had great experience with direct from China rims from the more established companies. In fact the only issue I’ve ever had with a carbon rim was an ibis mtb rim (and ibis replaced the rim immediately, it was a manufacturing error).
Buy the rims, have them built here with quality hubs and spokes and I think you have a better product than a zipp or low end enve.
I’ve had (and have) a range of carbon wheels across road and MTB. The Chinese ones have always been excellent - but I’ve bought rims and had them built up to my hubs. I’d happily buy a wheelset through, especially now the DT ratchet patent is up so you’re able to get own label DT facsimiles. Save the $$.
I have a set of Vel wheels shipped to the US from Sigma Sports in the UK for less than a similar LightBicycle build. I am sure they are some open mold design, but it was hard to argue with DT240’s at that price point. Biggest downside is the rim profile is dated and optimized for 25mm tires.
I’ve had a set of Farsports wheels since 2018 - rock solid and generally bulletproof. In 2018 I could get these wheels with CX-Ray spokes and DTSwiss 350S hubs for $550 shipped to my door. Back then these wheels were like 1/4th the cost of comparable wheels.
FWIW, Farsports oems a lot of rims. 9Velo wheels are rebadged Farsports.
Also had great experience using the well established Chinese manufacturers. In fact, using one of their rims with quality hubs and spokes is my recommendation. Definitely going to be better than entry level Zipp or Enve. I think the only thing you are giving up is the cache of a name brand, and perhaps an extended warranty. But most of the reputable builders also offer that for a few dollars extra. And with most things, if the the defect doesn’t surface itself in the first year, you are likely fine.
Support with wheels is interesting topic because the realistic expectation is that if you race and train on a wheel within 1 year you are guaranteed to give it a knock which will require service. Once you start servicing a wheel I have never had a shop be able to restore it to perfectly true OR get the freehub body to have 0 play like at factory.
So realistically wheels are a consumable commodity to racers and this is why when you listen to chris horner’s stories about going off the belgium to race as a junior, he is there with 1 bike and 4 pairs of wheels. It’s just not realistic to expect to be able to service 1 pair once it has seen 20,000km a year of use.
It comes from racing, and from hitting potholes in training when riding to power
I tried a pair of winspace hyper full ceramic bearing carbon spokes, I believe they weigh 1400g for the 67mm deep pair. and they retailed for about 1200USD. They are an excellent wheel but are more importantly replaceable which is as I said above essential with wheels. They are not repairable after a certain point.
Honestly right now the thing that is blowing people away is how much better your bike can perform when the rim internal width is larger. Companies that have made these even wider sets in late 2024 are just staggeringly desirable for someone buying a brand new pair.
No need to over-dramatize things. Plenty of people race for years with no issues. Sure, a crash at some point is inevitable, but the idea that you are going to have such a crash within a year is just silly.
I went to a total no name pair from Amazon needing QR, disc. My issues are not entirely with the wheels but the seller. Asked several times are they Tubeless, yes. They weren’t. Got shipping notices that got changed/deleted. Turned out they hadn’t even been made yet. I probably should have returned them but it was too much hassle and It needed a wheelset. My review got the attention of Amazon apparently as the seller messaged me to say they were warned with delisting. Boo hoo, you lied to me and didn’t offer any compensation.
Wheels themselves, aside from not being TL, were decent Novatec hubs, bladed spokes and have held up over two season of 75/25 gravel road split with no issues. I kept my expectations low and they have performed.
As I recall they mentioned a site called Pando Podium that do a lot of Asian wheels and you can check there to see what the top sellers are: Wheelsets – Panda Podium
(disclaimer I’ve never used Pando Podium, have no idea what it’s like and haven’t used carbon wheels from Asia).
I’ve never used Pando Podium, have no idea what it’s like and haven’t used carbon wheels from Asia).