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Wheel to bike spend ratio
What's your wheel to bike spend ratio? I "need" new wheels and I just want to get an ideal of optimal spend...
E.g. £500 bike : £100 wheels (both!) = 5:1
If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.
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8 comments
yep best you can get. i run a caad10with some handbuilt velo-smith wheels (royce/cx ray/38mm tubulars) under 2kg including tyres/tubes(tubs) skewers and cassette. brings the whole bike down to 6.5kg and it fucking flies!! wheels technically cost more than the standard spec bike but so so worth it. even won an e123 crit race on them
Yep, wouldn't really look at it in those terms. Buy the best you can afford, use the old ones in crappy weather and the rims will still be good when you upgrade your bike, assuming that's your intention. If you don't intend to upgrade your current bike it will be loads better on a nice light set of wheels with smooth spinning hubs
I was 600-500. Wheels are crucial, don't skimp.
The optimum is finding a wheelset you really want priced significantly less than RRP/everyone else. A nice wheelset improves any the ride quality with any frame.
There's no ratio, no formula, no rule. It's merely the Law of Diminishing Returns, as already stated (which apples to everything - frames, groupsets, wheels etc).
What bike do you have and what type of riding will it be?
Most of my wheel sets are about half the cost of frame set, but it varies. Really apart from my tt bike I struggle to spend more than 1k on wheels. Diminishing returns and all that.
I work on matching it to the cost of the frameset. £500 frameset deserves roughly a £500 wheelset.
Rob
'bout fifty fifty