10-11spd clincher rim brake wheels that have stood the test of time

[tellyho]

DT Swiss to a good rim. Will last forever.

[exapkib]

It's been said, but I'll provide another data point:

I have a pair of 10-speed White Industry hubs laced to some Kinlin rims. Rock solid. Low maintenance. Absolutely perfect today--more than 15 years and tens of thousands of miles after they were built.

(Built by Rob at Psimet back in the bikeforums day. (Can I say that here?))

I have a second pair of handbuilts--Record hubs (can you tell I like shiny chrome hubs?) laced to some Mavic rims. So nice. So very nice.

[Bob Ross]

Originally Posted by tellyho

DT Swiss to a good rim. Will last forever.

^^^This.
In our house we have four sets of 10- or 11-speed handbuilt wheels made from DT Swiss hubs laced to a variety of DT Swiss rims.
Three of those wheelsets were handbuilt by Joe Young using 240s hubs, one of them was re-built by Justin Bagnatti using the hubs that came from a stock set of DT Mon Chasseral 1400 wheels...which I'm fairly certain are identical to 240s hubs.
The most recent rebuild was 6 years ago, but none of the hubs are less than 9 years old and the oldest are over 15 years old...and they are clearly all going to outlive me!

[2000m2]

I’ve had good experiences with Campagnolo & Fulcrum carbon wheels.

[GParkes]

HED Ardennes/Belgium if you're OK with alloy, they're bombproof. Or any of their carbon offerings.

[DeBike]

Even though the price is much higher than when I purchased them, and they are now out of production, Campy Zonda wheels are really good. I have a set that is 6 years old, I am guessing minimum 12,000 miles, I have never done anything other than clean them.
For higher dollars, Hed Belgium, or Ardennes, are terrific. Mavic Open Pro are still worth looking at.

[flying]

+++ on Campy Zonda's

Far & away the best deal in wheels IMHO

[caneye]

Campy Shamals. Almost 10yo now.

[majorpat]

Oldpotatoe’s wheels…just trust him

[robertbb]

I've played in this space extensively over a number of years, and tried too many combo's to mention. In my experience:

Pre-Built:

Zonda or Shamal. In that order. The CULT bearings in the Shamal provide zero meaningful difference over the excellent steel bearings in the Zonda. The slightly rounder profile of the Shamal rim offers no aero benefit over the boxier Zonda (both are just too shallow to be aero in any way, and both have raised bits around the spoke holes which are decidedly un-aero). I found while the Shamals *feel* a tiny bit more reactive in a sprint due to a slight stiffness improvement offered by the fatter aluminium spokes, those spokes seem to catch the wind more than the more standard steel spokes in the Zonda. So there's a stiffness gain but an aero loss. Weight difference in the sets I've tried have been within ~75 grams or so.

DT does make nice pre-built wheels but a set of handbuilts made with DT components (see below) will be better because the pre-built ones use straight pull spokes and tend to be more expensive. Plus you don't get to choose spoke count nor gauge with the pre-built ones either...

Hand-Built:

DT hubs, 240 or 350.

A really, really good rim is the DT411. This one's got an 18mm inner width which is very nice and will play nice with most calipers/frames. The cool thing is that this one's available in both a standard version and an offset version. The offset version helps to stiffen up the rear quite a bit, especially with DT hubs which are indeed excellent but the geometry of these is a little less than ideal on 10/11 speed rim brakes. You really want 28 spokes at the back.

I do like Easton R90SL rims, they're excellent and a more sensible inner width than the Belgiums (they come from the same factory) for rim brakes. Still the 19.5 may be a smidge too wide for rim brakes depending on your tyre/frame so you need to be sure they'll work.

On either rim: DT aerolite if you're light-ish. DT aero comp otherwise.

[jamesdak]

Originally Posted by majorpat

Oldpotatoe’s wheels…just trust him

Yep, one of my used wheelsets was built by him and those wheels many, many years later are still in use by me with absolutely no problems.

I finally had him build me a set last year for a NOS 1982 steel beauty I was building up. The wheels came to me in perfect condition and I fully expect them to give me years and years of service.

I also had Roland Zinn build me a 1400 gram set of wheels back around 2010 and those are still going strongly without ever being touched. I've ridden those babies well north of the rider weight I specc'd them at.

[Mr steel]

Originally Posted by cgolvin

Second the Campy Shamal recommendations, and while I have no direct experience I'd expect the same of the Zondas. I had a Nucleon front wheel and have never encountered such difficulty in mounting tires, would not recommend.

Also second the handbuilt recommendation. My first set were H Plus Son Archetypes with White Industry (T11?) hubs, good but I wasn't happy with the durability of the hub bearings. Current set is DT laced to HED Belgium Plus, would definitely recommend these, completely bombproof. Mine are 180s but suspect that 240 or 350 are just as good.

Weird, I had no issues mounting new 25mm conti gp5000 on my nucleonand those tires have been kinda of a pain to mount on two other rims.I have (cosine and some mavic ones).

[Erikg]

Originally Posted by Faucet

I've had a pair of H Plus Son archetypes with CK hubs for maybe 10 years now. I've never thought about getting another wheelset

+1 on the archetypes. Easy to build with. Velomine also has a good selection.

[ColonelJLloyd]

Originally Posted by thwart

well assembled handbuilt wheels are notoriously reliable.

And no proprietary parts, so easy replacement if there’s a crash or something does fail.

+1

[saab2000]

I know these are the opposite of sexy brand name wheels, but my Boyd Altamont Lite wheels have been rock solid now going on five or more years of daily abuse. Never touched a single spoke. Just reliable wheels which never bring attention to themselves, which is the whole point I think. I wanted a clincher wheel which would replace my beloved Campagnolo Nucleon tubular wheels and these have done it.

I’d buy Boyd aluminum clinchers rim brake wheels again in a second. Zero drama at a very affordable price.