Cycling UK Forum

Looking for some advice on replacement wheels for my road bike as existing wheels/hubs are worn out

I need 700c road bike wheels with shimano/sram freehub for 10speed, and would prefer 32 spokes and sealed cartridge bearings, not on a budget but don't want to overspend

Mavic Aksium One, at £150 get good reviews but are only 20 spokes per wheel (can't find any reports of people having actual problems with this)

Mavic Open Pro with Formula hubs at £130 meet my criteria but I can't find any other info on the hubs, I think they might be an OEM item

There seem to be a reasonable choice of wheels with Shimano Hubs, but I believe these are all cup and cone which I want to avoid

I would be prepared to spend a bit more for hand built if they met my requirements. Any suggestions will be gratefully received.

when I first started riding I expected to be able to buy a 'sustainable' set of wheels in which I would be able to replace the rims in the event of damage or wear. You can still do this, and for practical riding purposes it is arguably still the best way. But it isn't the only way; there are other choices. And the part of the market where you have the greatest choice is with vaguely racey 700C sized wheels meant for unladen riding, training etc.

In this part of the market the wheels can be almost disposable. Honestly; you can easily spend more on a decent set of tyres. A friend of mine recent had some Shimano R500 wheels from wiggle and they were something like £68 delivered for the pair. And they came with skewers and rim tapes....

Now here it arguably doesn't matter what hubs you have, all they have to do is outlast the rims. When the rims wear out they are usually not readily available as spare parts and anyway is it worth rebuilding such a wheel? Probably not.

In all fairness I don't really like such wheels because I don't think they are as strong as they need to be for daily use, and when you break a spoke the wheel instantly becomes pretty much unrideable. I'd argue that the bearing adjustment of the R500s I saw was well off; but I'd also argue that they would most likely need adjusting properly just once when they were new, and then the hubs would most likely outlast the rims.

I can understand if you have had a bad experience with a set of hubs in the past that you might gravitate towards a set with cartridge bearings in, but there is a reason why shimano and others stick with cup and cone bearings and it is because they are ultimately more serviceable than cartridge bearing hubs. If they are setup and lubricated properly they will outlast many sets of rims.

You know the proverb about giving a man a fish vs teaching him how to fish? Well IMHO similarly 'give a man a set of cartridge bearings and he'll ride for a while, but teach him how to use cone spanners and he'll ride for a lifetime' might be about right.

One of my chums bought a new Trek a few years ago and much to his annoyance (because they were never set right in the first place) the OEM hubs started to wear early on, after less than six months. I set up the (similar, inexpensive) hubs properly on the replacement wheels and they have done over two years of commuting (about 8000 miles and several sets of tyres) without having to be touched since then. Shimano hubs would be better than that.

So as ever there is more than one way of skinning a cat here and maybe there are no really bad choices, just different ones that suit some folk better than others.

cheers