I think a lot of people have their minds set on mavics, zipp...etc or other mass produced wheels. I did when I was first looking. until I came on BF, I didn't know about other brands from great wheelmakers like Boyd, Soul, november...etc. I purchased a set of Boyd Vitesse 30mm clincher wheels. $525 shipped to my house, weighing in at 1470g. This is my first custom wheelset so my experience with light responsive wheels is minor. To be honest I dont know if it was worth the money. I can tell a small bit of difference in performance, flats are faster and maintain speed easier, hills climbing is a tad easier. Mainly the biggest difference to me is asthetics. They look sexy as heck, but i dont know if the minor difference in benefit and asthetics was worth the money for someone with a minimal amount of expendable cash. now that I have them...eh oh well, I will keep them and ride the creap out of them. but not sure if I will blow a large amount of a set of wheels in the future.(When I say large amount, I mean large for me. I know $500 for wheels is entry level and easily scaughed at from serious cyclist or those that have more money.)