Wheel upgrade

Disc or rim brake? What sort of riding do you do?

It's generally accepted wisdom that the most effective upgrade on any bike is with the wheels as most manufacturers tend to fit cheaper wheels in order to reach a certain price point.

My experience for what it's worth is that I replaced the stock wheels on my £299 RED T3 within weeks of buying it (Feb 2013) with a pair of Fulcrum 7s. They cost around £130 at the time and they transformed the bike.

In December 2014, I bought a Cinelli carbon framed Saetta which came with Shimano RS10s. I swapped these for for the Fulcrums and put the RS10s on the T3. The Fulcrums weigh about 1700 grams and the RS10s are about 200g heavier.

In August 2016 I bought a pair of Cosine 32mm alloys for the Cinelli for about £230. These weigh about 1400g and have been absolutely brilliant. Sadly they are no longer available but they transformed the handling. I was concerned about the quality at that price but they have remained true and robust. I would like to replace them with carbon wheels but these work out so much more expensive and even the cheapest are much heavier than the Cosines.

In the meantime the Fulcrums are back on the T3 which I use as a winter bike and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them. They must have done over 10k km and there is only a little rim wear.

With wheels it's all about weight and in particular reciprocating weight. Lighter wheels and rims accelerate faster and climb better but inevitably the trade off is that lighter wheels are less rugged and I suspect that manufacturers tend to prioritise strength and reliability as they have to cater for different rider weights and don't want to get a reputation for unreliability.

Agreed Chas. That's the point I was trying to make. In an ideal world wheels would weigh nothing but they have to be strong enough to cope with heavier and stronger riders and so manufacturers err on the side of strength and stiffness rather than shave off weight. Many wheels have a rider weight limit.

Personally I am a relatively feeble 69 kilos so stiffness (at least as far as bike wheels is concerned) is not an issue. I would love a set of 1,100g Meilensteins and although I come under their max rider weight of 100k I find the price of £4,748 hard to justify.

I was looking for wheels for my T3 recently, but eventually decided against it (bike is currently mothballed in the garage).

I did manage to find some places that still had new Shimano 501s (otherwise discontinued). Otherwise, it was a bit of a struggle finding reasonably priced wheels that would be suitable for 8 speed.