Wheelbuilding / Wheel Building / Wheel build help

Can you give me your alternatives please?

I am just getting my bearings replaced at Royce, their OLNs are proprietary and it costs £50 -odd + pp. per wheel.

I wouldn't buy them again. Esp as the prices doubled a while back, nice hubs for pros not the likes of me.

Can you give me your alternatives please?

To what use do you plan to put the wheels? What spoke count are you planning to use?

Weekend best, 50 - 80 miles a week max. I won't be going out in the rain on these , was thinking 28h rear 24h front but could be convinced otherwise.

I'm 78 - 80kg and just ride for fun.

Liked the idea of Royce for the nostalgic British value and they look lovely and as a bonus I work in the bike trade.

Derailleur or fixed?

28h rear 24h front but could be convinced otherwise.

Which rims?

Any hubs I should avoid or ones that stand out as an obvious choice that I'm missing?

Derailleur and not sure of rims. Archetype, pacenti or hed Belgium......

hed Belgium

Well, if you're just trying to throw away money, I hear Chris King are OK :-)

I know this is going to sound a bit broken record, but if a 23mm by 24mm deep rim is what you're after (and there's no reason it shouldn't be for a Sunday café bike), I find it really hard to understand why anybody would look past the DT R24*. For the price of Hed Belgiums laced to Royce hubs, you could buy 5 or 6 pairs of the DT wheels.

*General note: whenever I'm banging on about the cheap DT Spline wheels, feel free to insert equivalent Fulcrum, Mavic or Shimano factory built wheels, the differences are marginal for the most part.

I'm setting up my MTB wishlist for 2016...which means upgrading my stock wheels!

What I'm considering is a set of light-bicycle rims with Hope hubs (27.5 rim). I'll probably be going tubeless.

What other alternatives should I be investigating? Are there any other carbon rims I should be considering? Alloy alternatives (Stans?)

Use is mainly XC with a little mild downhill (Giant Anthem 27.5)

Thanks for your input. Very useful. My wallet thanks you.
Do you have thoughts on the da 9000 c24's seems like a lot of wheel for £500

Hed Belgium

This.

If you are going to go spendy with Royce hubs for Sunday best then I would definitely recommend Hed Belgiums. If you don't want to go spendy then the DT Swiss R460 can be a good alternative. But in all respects of weight, finish, and bling factor the Hed Belgium has it over the Archetype, R460, and the SL23. Also, I have huge bother fitting tyres to SL23s, much more difficult than the other rims I mentioned.

Seems like a lot of money for a minor weight saving over the RS81?

Is this a reasonable stand?

rosebikes.co.uk/article/rose-­centering-set-ii/aid:17131

I have no experience using them but it looks like it would do fine for home wheelbuilding as it seems to be very similar to the Minoura one and that is decent.
Really the main concern with so called "professional" workshop stands as opposed to home mechanic versions is that the workshop grade ones are generally made of more robust materials to handle the sheer volume of wheels trued and built day after day after day after day....

Perhaps most importantly the spoke key that comes with that stand is four-sided which is very important. Helps a lot with not rounding spoke nipples.

Hed Belgium is quoted 460 grams, Archetype 470?

Do you have thoughts on the da 9000 c24

Too skinny.

If you are going to go spendy

Aye, and there's the rub. What are you actually gaining by spending £700 on Belgium/Royce over £150 DT R24s?

The weight saving on your wallet is considerable...

I suspect anyone looking at these has already moved to plastic anyway (hmm, I wonder if there would be a market for Carbon Fibre bank cards? Or maybe TI?), so no real saving there either

/snark

Marginal performance gains, if any, mostly related to weight saving. You might save between 125-150g (if my sums are right) based on a 28/24 Royce Venus/Hed Belgium 25+ build using Sapim CXRays or a similar type spoke.
Many claims are made that Royce hubs are the best constructed in the world and bearing life is amazing but these are claims I can't verify personally.
I agree that a spend of an extra £550 would not be justified for such marginal gains unless you have money to burn. In the end you're buying a luxury item mostly justified only by that criteria: luxury.
If I had money to burn I would snap up a Royce Venus/HED Belgim 25+ build in an instant.
But I don't, so...

Considering recommending a pre-built factory wheelset in a wheelbuilding help thread I would not point towards a R24 here (in a seperate pre-built factory wheelset thread I might). If you want to go budget and build yourself - as regards @Bonj0ur - then I would recommend a Novatec F172/A291 combo with a DT Swiss R460 using Pillar PSRXtra spokes. The satisfaction of having built your own wheelset outweighs the cost benefit of any pre-built one, for me. :-)

Having weighed HED Belgiums myself with a Park DS-1 a HED Belgium 25+ come in at around 450g, Archetypes at around 465g.
Once again marginal differences but differences all the same.

I'd be interested to know if any other wheelbuilders have weighed these rims themselves and what results they get.

If you want to go budget and build yourself - as regards @Bonj0ur - then I would recommend a Novatec F172/A291 combo with a DT Swiss R460 using Pillar PSRXtra spokes. The satidfaction of having built your own wheelset outweighs the cost benefit of any pre-built one, for me. :-)

You obviously like wheel building more than I do, I only do it where a factory built wheel isn't suitable. Division of labour is hard to beat.

Your Novatec/R460 comes out at roughly the same price as the ready made R24s only if you apply no value to the labour. The rim is better (basically the same as you get with the much more expensive R23 wheels), doubt there's much in it between the hubs, and DT probably wins on the spokes.

If I were pointing @Bonj0ur in the direction of hand built wheels, I'd be trying to do something different from what the factory wheels provide, because a hand built which is trying to compete on the same turf nearly always comes off second best when you do a rational comparison.

On that basis, let's say we decide to spend some of his money on unnecessarily nice stuff, but go for a toughened up wheelset which he can thrown down some bridleways with confidence. Getting off the beaten path on your road bike is potentially far mare satisfying than having race wheel which let you knock the odd second off your Strava PBs :-)

On that basis, I'd probably go for whatever 23-25mm rim fits your prejudice (R460 for me, because I'm prejudiced against wasting money), 32 DT Comp/Sapim Race (or Alpine III if you're a fatty who know that 30g per wheel makes no difference) and Shimano 9000 hubs (6800 work just as well, but DuraAce for the bling factor). That lot should come to about £400 and 1700-1750g weighed the factory wheel way, i.e. without tape or skewers.

Your Novatec/R460 comes out at roughly the same price as the ready made R24s only if you apply no value to the labour. The rim is better (basically the same as you get with the much more expensive R23 wheels), doubt there's much in it between the hubs, and DT probably wins on the spokes.

Yes, I was thinking along those lines if @Bonj0ur built the wheelset himself.
As regards your point about factory built wheels vs. custom I agree. It is always difficult to justify the spend on custom considering the performance and value a good factory built wheelset can provide. I am always in favour of custom built wheels but often the selling point boils down to the customer having the cash to splash on components exactly as he or she wishes, to be set apart from the off the peg offerings.
If you're building for yourself though and buy online then you can get excellent product at bargain prices and have the satisfaction of riding wheels you made yourself, to which I think no value can be assigned.

But, DT Swiss R460 with DuraAce 9000 hubs? I can get along with that for sure. :-)

Thanks for all your help @mdcc_tester and @t_w

I'm deffo in a quandary. I'm not keen on wasting money, those R24s look spot on. But If I'm being honest, I am keen on putting together a quality & bling set of wheels for my steel frame bike.

Background; I've sold some wheels I wasn't using and have £500 burning a hole. If I don't reinvest this capital, it'll go on petrol, groceries and bills. In addition I'm currently working in a bike shop (shop floor, not mechanic) and if I'm lucky I should be able to pick up some trade rates for Royce, White Industries, HED, DT Swiss etc etc. No guarantees though, but probable.

Secondary I am looking to get into physically building my own wheels, but would probably start with less expensive parts to begin. The plan is not to stay in the industry forever so, if I can access these product and discounts now and think about building them later, should I pull the trigger on some bling, or buy something more modest and treat the missus to a holiday?

should I pull the trigger on some bling, or buy something more modest and treat the missus to a holiday?

If you have £500 to spend and want to build your first home made wheel set, then DT R460 rims to 6800 hubs leaves enough left over to buy a truing stand and take the wife out for a decent dinner, or bling out on the 9000 hubs and get her a cheeky Nandos :-)