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I've just picked up a new road bike and it came with the following wheels:
DT Swiss R460 rims on unbranded cartridge bearing hubs and unbranded 14g (I presume non-butted) spokes. They roll ok but are a tad on the heavy side.
I've had Fulcrum Racing Quattros before and now the newer ones are a bit wider and look pretty good, would these be considered a worthy upgrade? I don't have a massive budget and these pretty much fall bang on the limit
Save your money. I have the RR460 rims on 32h Ultegra hubs. Not light, but I<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;"> run them tubeless with Schwalbe Pro Ones. The tyres will make more of a difference.</span>
I have been very happy with my Prime wheels from wiggle/crc (depending on loyalty bonus/BC membership one might work out cheaper.
I've got the pro versions. Probably a novatec hub with a kinlin rim. From memory <1500g tubeless ready, with valves and a couple of spare spokes. Been very happy with mine. Used for racing and riding. Would certainly buy again, not much benefit in anything else I've seen unless you go to carbon.
Well you don’t say what te budget is and if the only issue is ‘a bit heavy’ then hard to offer advice.
how much money do you have to spend? What do you want from your new wheels other than maybe ‘a bit lighter’ (how much?)
Unless you have a particular target attribute to improve (weight/stiffness/longevity etc) and can quantify it then I’d say save your money for nice tyres and cake.
Sorry, I thought that saying the Quattros are bang on budget limits (they're £250) was sufficient.
I've already fitted a set of Vittoria Corsa G+'s with decent tubes.
Those Quattros are pretty pork at 1750g - agree that a pair of Kinlin XR26 rims, Novatec hubs and DB spokes would be below 1500g and fit them with some decent tubeless tyres.
Cero ar30 or dt swiss pr1600 32 decent bets.
With £250 to spend I would definitely just save it for tyres or keep saving while you wear the current wheels out.
Unless you either have £250 burning a hole in your pocket and just want to spend it, or have a currently broken pair of wheels then I’d say the actual tangible benefits of upgrading will be fairly tiny.
but.... just wanting some new wheels is a perfectly valid reason to get some. If you want prebuilt then the Fulcrums aren’t bad, (but then neither are options from Mavic/Prime/$other) I’ve used a few pairs over the years and they’ve been reliable but they’re not light, if that’s important to you then a Kinlin+Novatec build is going to get you least weight for your money and still be decently reliable. Know any good wheel builders locally?
You could probably pick up some lightly used Hunt Aero Wides for that much?
I bought some prime pelotons from crc for £110, as winter wheels, and they are the same weight as the quattro's. Set them up tubeless with supplied valves etc. Been a great winter/ commuter wheel.
So accordingly I also went with the 1530g pro's for the summer bike for about £170, again set up tubeless they are mint. You could get the wheels and some tubless tyres for the price of the quattro's.
I'm not too fussed about tubeless on the road if I'm honest and as I have a brand new set of Vittoria Corsa G+ tyres, it'd also be a bit of a waste of tyres.
Looks like the (non-disc) Prime alloy clinchers are out of stock on crc
Cero AR24's. Less than 1500g, well built.
The freehub is a bit noisy though!
Unfortunately on website at £249, normally £189. Must be the warm weather or something....
I did consider the AC's but as they've stopped trading , it's a no-go for me
?
Easily serviceable and re-buildable. My Race XC29's are 5yo, have been rebuilt once after a crash broke some spokes and work perfectly. I'd by them.
But anyway...
One minor issue is other than these they're all either MTB or disc on SP at the moment