Wheels
Gipiemme Carbon H5.5 Speed
Gipiemme's Carbon H5.5 Speed clinchers aren't particularly lightweight but they're stiff and aero and they've stood up well to abuse.
The rims are made from 6082 T6 alloy with a 55mm deep carbon-fibre section bonded to the inside. The carbon fibre is structural rather than just a faring, and it provides the housing for the spoke nipples.
Hope Hoops Pro 3 RS-Sp5.0 Carbon Clincher Wheels
Hope Pro 3 RS-SP5.0 Carbon Clincher Wheelset
£900
Weight: 936g (front), 1079g (rear) (Claimed - Front: 933g, Rear: 1083g)
The catchily named Pro 3 RS-SP5.0's sit at the top of the Hope road wheel trio. These have a day-to-day cyclist friendly alloy clincher braking surface built into the 50mm deep-section 3K carbon aero rim, with the aero section being a structural part rather than just an added-on fairing, a full-carbon tub version is also available.
Reynolds Assault C
The Reynolds Assault C is a full carbon clincher wheelset at half the price of the new Zipp 404 Firecrest. It's backed with an extensive demo programme and a crash replacement scheme. Zipp has long been considered the gold standard for racing wheels, but this year it looks like Reynolds is on the offensive...
C-4 CA 3.0 wheelset
When these C-4 CA 3.0 wheels arrived at road.cc we liked them and shared this with you straight away. Some novel claims were made for these hoops, which are well worth examining. If you're thinking ‘C who? Channel 4? Citroen?’, then check out C-4’s website.
Zipp 101 wheelset
Ever since we saw Zipp's 101s at last year's Tour de France we've been itching to get our hands on them and a few weeks back we finally did. Zipp are best known for their deep-section carbon fibre wheels but these aluminium clinchers bring a lot of the same technology in a more affordable package. Well, slightly more affordable. It’s all relative.
Pro-Lite Gavia wheelset
Pro-Lite are a name that have been around for a few years now associated with a top end range of frames, wheels and components to include bars, stems and chainsets, always lightweight, lots of carbon fibre composites, titanium and ultra lightweight alloys. Their Gavia wheels have 50mm deep section carbon fibre rims for tubular tyres and flat black blade type spokes with CNC machined Bolzano hubs designed so that the spokes enter the edge of a broad flange rather than the traditional hole in the side method.
Rolf Prima P-Town wheelset
Rolf's Prima P-Towns are a high performance wheelset that perform as good as they look…and they really look good. A lightweight set of hoops for your fixie or single speed that are aerodynamic and stiff enough to take to the track and shiny enough to take to the streets of Kensington.
Shimano RS10 wheelset
At first glance, the Shimano RS10s look really good. Semi-aero rims, oval-section spokes - just 16 (radial) in the front wheel, and 20 (2-cross) in the rear – and chunky hubs with a slightly larger flange in the rear wheel to take the straight-pull spokes. In fact they are a reasonably priced, nice riding, and reliable set of wheels and those looks can't hurt either, one thing they're not though is light.
Sonic C-Max wheelset
These lightweight C-Max wheels from Sonic offer very good value for money. Okay, £700 is hardly cheap, but you get a lot of performance for your cash here.
Reynolds RZR 46T wheelset
Holy moly, Reynolds’ new super-light RZR wheels – they’re claiming the world’s lightest – are fast! Really fast. Like, so fast it’s mental! And for the kind of money that would get you a pro-level complete bike, so they should be we'd have to say.
Singletrack MTB mag
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