Originally Posted by
Nate998
I am a bit weirded out by the numerous articles on the topic of lightweight wheels/ wheelsets. I am currently planning on building a rear wheel for my road bike but no matter what I do, I cannot seem to find products that would render a sub-1 kg wheel. So from what point is a wheel heavy?
My build is going to be made out of a Prime RO30 rear wheel (339 gr. without QR), DT Swiss RR 511 rim (530 gr.) and Sapim Leader spokes, double butted (approx. 150 gr.) and this would get me a wheel that is a bit over 1000 gr. heavy. Other rims I've found from DT Swiss or Mavic do not go under 450 gr. so I wouldn't save a bunch of weight by getting those.
Any opinions and/ or advice?
Thanks in advance.
If you want to avoid building a porky set of wheels, you have to look at everything. It's about making a lot of little but smart choices that add up.
Sapim Leaders are straight-gauge spokes. If you've been looking at weights for them, you'll be pleasantly surprised if you look up the weight savings for Races or D-Lights. Dan's Comp has Sapim Races for 40 cents each.
The DT Swiss 511 is probably light for what it is, but you'll have to decide whether the 32mm depth is worth the weight penalty. I'm eyeing the Pacenti Forza (480g) for my next 700C rear wheel build -- 50 grams lighter.
339g is exactly what one of my old Shimano Tricolor rear hubs weighs without skewer. Not enough to bother me, but that's with a steel freehub body and everything. You should be able to do much better.
And I've read that aluminum nipples have improved a lot recently. Haven't bothered with them yet, but they're an option for shaving grams. Perhaps you could trying using them just on the left side, where the tensions won't be as high anyway.
P.S. Back to your main question, no, I don't think a ~1000g rear wheel is unreasonably heavy, but it's not hard to get a wheel build to come in under that.