Lightweight wheelset recommendatons

[Conway Bennett]

I have been wanting a lighter wheelset than the Velocity built Atlas wheelset on my BMC Monstercross--riding a fast and relatively light bike was a tried and liked in 2024.  

I've been most interested in the Pacenti Forza Classico, but I just got hip to the Mavic Ksyrium heritage wheelset.  What are folks recommendations?

Thanks in advance!

[Bill Lindsay]

I'd recommend having a look at the HED Ardennes wheels.  They are respectably light and have a nice wide rim.  I'm running that rim on a number of wheel sets across my stable, and have a couple sets of HED full wheel sets.  They are i21 rims which is a hair wider than the i20 of the Pacenti Forza Classico.  They are about the same weight and start at $800 for the Ardennes RA Pro.  Comparing the HED Ardennes RA Pro to the Pacenti Forza Classico, the most compelling differentiator may just be silver vs black.  

Let me know if you want to borrow/rent/buy an Ardennes RA BLACK wheelset from me.  I bought them as an experiment for their very unique rim treatment, and at the moment they don't have a home in my stable.  Throw them on your BMC for a few months and see if you like them.  I would apply my "rule" that anything used should be half-retail.  Retail is $1300 for that wheelset and I'd sell them for $650 plus shipping.  For you, Conway, I'd loan them to you or whatever to try.  

Bill Lindsay

El Cerrito, CA

[Conway Bennett]

Thanks, Bill.  A year ago I was seriously looking at the hed Belgium r.  I'm also curious about the Astral solstice.  

The bmc monstercross feels so fast(fun) relative to my hunqapillar and lightning bolt that I keep pushing to see how relatively light I can get it.  It's been a proving ground for some modern technology.  By modern, I mean things riv does advocate for that I'm late to the party on but has merit.

I'm seriously considering buying the next run of the model zero to dabble in disc brakes and entertain the notion of 1 bike with  2 wheelsets.

Fair winds,

Captain Conway Bennett
239.877.4119

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[Patrick Moore]

I’m at least distantly interested in this question myself, as I might one day want to put lighter wheels on the Roadeo, if it becomes a “regular ride.” With the Rich-build Velocity wheels it feels lovely, but I do miss the “lighter” feel of the very light (for bog standard parts and 32 spokes) 559 wheels of the gofast.

I’ll watch this thread with interest.

Patrick Moore, just back from a nice out ’n’ back on the gofast (and thinking that it might now be time to gear down a tooth or so from the 75” main gear).

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Patrick Moore

Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum

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[Mike K.]

Oh I'm interested in this thread as well. I have an Austro Daimler Inter10 I use as my road bike. Currently running 32h Ultegra to Mavic SUP rims. They're nice, but I briefly had some Shimano C24 WH-9000's, and while I don't know if the weight made a difference, the engagement in the freehub certainly did. Those wheels took off as soon as I pedaled, and I loved riding them. Sold them because I do some mixed riding, and those were road wheels through and through, but I've always kept my eyes open for some newer, all-silver wheels with a better freehub than what I'm using now. Finding the right combination of strength, weight, and fast 'feeling' is so tricky.

I've been curious about the Ritchey Zeta classics for a while, as they seem pretty robust in a classy, 20/24 lacing package. 

[Conway Bennett]

This seems like a great deal right now:

Mavic Ksyrium SL RB QR Wheelset - Bike https://share.google/d916NVjBBcWcXDfC7

It's not all silver, but neither is the build it's going on.

Fair winds,

Captain Conway Bennett
239.877.4119

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[Will Boericke]

I'm not a fan of mavic wheels - too many proprietary parts means they're hard to repair.  Any combination of a decnt hubset and modern 25ish mm depth 450ish gram rim is going to get you a decently light wheelset.  In my stable, this is often a set of DT swiss hubs or Bitex, with the DT Swiss 460 rim (cheap, quality, pretty light).  

For those who want to buy wheels pre-made (but who would want to do that?), VeloMine often offers some great deals.  In fact, I've bought several sets from there even though I prefer to build.  There's a set of Shimano to A23s on there that's not too bad (1800ish grams - a little heavy).

Will

[Garth]

The appearance of the Mavic Heritage wheels is great, and when I saw them I too thought they'd be great to ride. That paused however after buying a set of Aksium wheels as they were much too out of true and round, and they are claimed to be hand made. I expect new hand built wheels to be very true and round. For the heck of it I put the wheels in my truing stand and found the combo of steel nipples, no lubricant, and bladed spokes, rather difficult(even w/bladed spoke holder) to budge, and no way I'd want to mess with 40 of them, so I returned the wheels. From my perspective, yes Mavic wheels are proprietary(who isn't ?) but they do a very good job of making parts available for even older models. Plus from the videos I've seen of some of their complete hub tear downs it was wasn't as difficult as many others and doable for myself with an investement in a blind bearing puller and hub bearing press. I find Mavic hub design mechanically excellent, and that's why I had tried the Aksium wheels. Though that particlar set was not up to my standards, that wouldn't stop me me from trying one of their better wheelsets. So I say try the Ksryiums and by from a retailer that has a return policy you can live with. I bought mine from Backcounty/Competitive Cyclist also and paid for the $25 label to return them. That kinda sucked but I really didn't think the wheels would be so out of true brand new. Hopefully the better wheels are perfect. 

[Patrick Moore]

I’ll be interested in others opinions of the Ksyrium. Didn’t this first appear about 2000? I seem to recall comparing my conventional 32-spoke (but Revelations) 559 Sun M14A + Ultegra (+ Velox!) wheels with the Ksyriums back when I first built up the 2003 Curt and finding them close at ~1,550 f+r with Velox.

If the Ksysyrium model is 20 or 25 years old, might one suppose that it has been tested and tried and proved reliable?

Also, from the website: "[pair] 1480g, [front] 645g, [rear] 835g"

I suppose to that one should routinely add 10% to published weights?

If under 1600 grams and under $600, that doesn’t sound bad at all, if they’re reliable; the last pair of customs I had built cost me over $700 and that was with me supplying the hubs.

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[Will Boericke]

I'm sure the Ksyriums would probably be fine for a long time, possibly as long as you needed them to be.  I do think Mavic has worked the kinks out - I have a Ksyrium rear wheel that I picked up by the LBS dumpster a couple years ago that had a seized proprietary nipple (no holes in the spoke bed - nipples screw into the rim with a special tool).  I was going to fix it, but I haven't gotten to it.  I relubed the freehub of an older set of aksiums and found only two pawls in that freehub body - completely insuficient in my book.  I was shocked.  But these were much older iterations of the wheel.

Nonetheless, I am never going to buy a wheelset that I cannot easily replace parts for.  Nor am I going to pay $700 for a wheelset.

Will

[Nick Payne]

When I wanted a pair of "light" wheels for my Riv custom, I built some using White Industries MI5 32-hole hubs, DT Swiss RR411 rims (asymmetric rear) and DT Swiss Aerolite spokes. I haven't actually weighed them, but when I used the DT Swiss online spoke calculator to get the spoke lengths, and put in the weights of the hubs (the calculator already knows the weight of their own brand components), they were supposed to weigh 1595g.

Nick Payne