The Lightbicycle wheels are within budget and won’t melt on you on an English descent or increase braking distance compared to regular alu surfaces.
They even look good on my friends custom Pegoretti. I was surprised by their quality.
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I’ve got a 2008 Cervelo with Hunt alloy wheels on it. It’s still a great bike to ride!
I also have a 2012 steel framed Enigma (Ultegra 10 speed). That how has Cero wheels on it, again alloy. It my favourite bike (I also have a modern aero rocket ship, carbon / disk / deep section bla bla bla…).
I can’t really tell the difference, on the road, between the Hunt and Cero wheels, and the Ceros were way cheaper! Would definitely recommend.
(I’m U.K. based)
I’d skip the Mavics….too old and too narrow internal rim width. Even though you’ll never get up to “current” widths since you are sticking with rim brakes, those Mavics are (IIRC) 17mm internal.
Sorry to keep spamming links but as said this place is the closest thing to people to talk tech bikes to.
Mavic Cosmic Carbone 40 from the classic eBay which although cheeper now will undoubtedly go upwards.
My thoughts/question relate to their design age compared to a current set of Prime 50s (or 38s): do you go for a bit older but previously high spec or a modern budget spec?
I’d lean towards new budget wheels with a warranty.
Your bike is fine. Keep the entire bike as is, and do one of these two:
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Save the money, either for investing or a rainy day so you make yourself financially stronger and healthier… or for a “new bike fund” so that in another few years you can afford a whole new beautiful disc brake bike with all the trimmings.
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Or, treat your wife (or yourself if single) to a nice 2-3 day vacation. Go someplace nice, relax, spend time together, enjoy life. You’ll remember that for longer, and draw greater joy from it, than you will from new wheels or shifting bits. Life is for living.
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Bit of a thread necro but my lack of techy roadies to talk at hasn’t improved (and I’m not sure my gf has opinions on aero) so here I am!
Above link has hed wheel that looks to be nice, albeit deep for a 64kg rider. Could eBay the cassette as I already have my usual one.
I used to ride 62.5mm rims regularly (I was 61kg this morning) until I transferred the front to my TT bike and retired the rear wheel. I’d want to fully check out the rim of those wheels though.
HED Jet 6 are great wheels….as long as you are running rim brakes, those are a great option.
There is no reason to be afraid of carbon wheels in the UK. Given the size of your beautiful Bianchi, it’s unlikely you weigh all that much.
When I first got carbon rim brake wheels, I was a little concerned. Then I started experimenting where I braked hard from high speed on a good decent. I would come to a complete stop and grab my front brake track and checked the temp. It was nowhere near warm enough to begin to compromise the wheels. After doing this experiment a few times (on 95 degree days) I completely stopped thinking about having carbon wheels and rim brakes. FWIW, I weigh 83 kg.
HED Jets are an aluminum rim (the HED “Belgium” rim) with a plastic fairing bonded to the rim. In my opinion it’s misleading for that EBAY seller to call these wheels “Carbon Clinchers”.
The braking action with most any decent rim brake pad and a good caliper (Ultegra, DuraAce, etc) is very good.
I’ve been riding the same set of HED JET 6 wheels on my main road bike for about a decade. I weigh about 65 kg and no problem in normal winds. Have changed the bearings once on the front hub (two minute job).
Gratuitous aside, the HED decals are unfortunately hideous, but usually peel off easily.
With any used wheel, you want to know the condition. How much life is left in the rim and if there are any dings or dents. Bearings and free hubs are replaceable, but you don’t want any surprises. The scratches shown on the fairing in that EBAY advert are not an issue. The fairing is not structural on JET wheels. It’s just cosmetic and I’d ignore that unless there was a big crack… The decals show some black streaks which suggests to me that the wheels rubbed something. The rim sections shown are a very small percentage of the rim but show some wear and some vertical marks in addition to the normal braking marks. My $0.02, it doesn’t look like the original owner took very good care of these wheels. They appear to be dinged up more than they should be for only 5500 km total use.
Good luck
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I am having this same debate about my 2016 CAAD12 rim brake road bike with 105 mechanical and stock alloy wheels. I race cyclocross and looking to get a dedicated cyclocross bike such as the Giant TCX. They are usually 1x, so I am thinking about getting some 40-50mm lightbicycle carbon wheels to use for dry/semi-slick conditions. Then use the disc TCX for true wet conditions, even though I’d likely stay indoors during those abnormally wet days.
I just went through this rim brake thing as I bought my first rim brake bike. For me, the least expensive and best performing option was to get some new Light Bicycle or BTLOS wheels with their graphene braking surface. Use Bitex hubs and you can get a brand new 40mm tubeless carbon high performance wheelset that weighs 1400g for less than $800.
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Found some light bicycle on the 'ebay.
Thanks for the search idea! Now to work out if they’re a good option.
I wouldn’t buy Light Bicycle second hand. Their cheap (and good) enough that I’d just buy new, can also customize it to your specs a bit more