New to forum and new to taking riding more seriously than fun/fitness
 

Hello all, my name is Neeley and I'm fairly new to the forum. Ive been riding road and mtn bikes recreationally for about 5 years now and have decided that my interests have sparked me to take road more seriously. Rode BMX for most of my life (32yo) and while that makes me not new to bikes, I'm not going to pretend that knowledge will transfer to serious road riding.

For the last 5 years I have been riding a mostly stock Trek 1500 SL-R in 56". I say "mostly stock" because all I have upgraded is a wider set of bars and a slightly longer set of cranks that I got on a closeout deal at my LBC and since I do a decent amount of climbing. I thought they would help a little, they did.

As far as an updated ride, my LBC had a 58" 2010 Trek Madone 5.5 H2 on closeout for $800+ below MSRP so I decided to go ahead and jump on it. It felt noticeably more comfortable under me, not sure if its the extra 2" or the fact that the geometry is more comfortable for me. Regardless, it felt noticeably better.

My only concern is the wheels, Bonetrager race lights, but that may be unfounded. Im about 5'11" and 210ish and dropping. But I'm not a small guy, even when I'm very lean I will still bottom out 185ish. My local riding environment involves a lot of climbing, mostly at Oak Mtn state park here in Birmingham, AL. The wheels that came on my 1500 are still rolling fine with my occasional checking tension and truing, but at my current rate of riding I will have more miles on this new bike in 5mo than I put on my older bike in 5 years.


Now I'm not made of money but if these wheels are not going to hold up to reasonable abuse by someone my size doing a lot of climbing, I dont mind replacing them with something a little more substantial like a set with mavic cxp 33, Nobium cadence aero or comparable rim from a builder like Spinlite or prowheel builder. This is a reasonable option for me especially since I have a friend who already offered to throw me a couple hundred for my take offs to use as trainers on his new tri bike. I do plan on entering into some local road and tri races with this setup.

Any advice is appreciated and I'm glad to have joined the forum, it has already been a valuable information resource.

Thanks,
Neeley

Hi Neely, welcome to the forum!

You can do a search for wheels in the Road forum. The Manufacturer, Retailer, Survey and Consumer Feedback forum also has a several threads on different types of wheels. If you're worried about wheels holding your weight, check out the Clydesdale & Athena forum.

If you can't find the answers you're looking for, feel free to start a new thread.

Thank you sir, I tried a regular search and did not find it, but in the consolidated sticky on the clydesdale I found most of my answers about rim and hub questions.

Now if only I can find a thread that explains the real world difference between the different shimano hubs (105, ultegra and DA) besides more than weight, hole choices and colors (and the fact that DA only takes DA 10sp cassettes). Ill drop the extra $$ on a DA cassette if I'm getting more than weight reduction (even if it is quite a bit over the others). I have found several threads but no definitive comparisons. I may just be suffering a case of weak google-fu technique this evening.

Never mind, found what I needed. Being a member of this forum has already saved me ~$250 and probably put me on a better, longer lasting set of wheels than I would have set up previously.

Howdy and welcome to the forums! Glad you were able to get your questions answered.

Welcome to the forums Neeley!

Neeley's a good guy... He's drug me over here as well! :D