ah... wheels. sigh.

feel free to disagree, i'm no pro racer or anything, but i've ridden a lot of wheels and i will ramble cause i don't feel like working yet...

for starters, anyone who automatically dismisses all pre-built wheels does not know what they're talking about. pre-built wheels are the way of the future and hand-builts are going away. plain and simple.

the hubs on the american classics are supposedly much improved this year over last, but i have no first hand experience with them.

i know lots of people who have dealt with speeddream and gotten nice wheels, but again, i've never ridden them.

ksyriums SSC SLs are awesome, fast wheels. yes, they are a little more "harsh" than some others and they wouldn't be my first choice for a 150 mile ride on rough pavement with an aluminum frame, but anyone who dismisses them totally because they are "pre-built" has never ridden them. the spokes are replaceable, the hubs are super easy to service, and they are fairly bulletproof.

my experiences thus far with the k elites leaves a little to be desired, but overall, not bad.

bontrager wheels are often left out of the discussion for some reason. "if they're good enough for lance & usps" is a pretty strong argument. i've ridden the race x lites quite a bit now and think they feel pretty nice. smooth ride, fast spin up, solid cornering, replaceable spokes, etc. i'd be confident with these on my bike, me thinks. the price is right, too.

also, the race xxx-lites look super sweet. i haven't had them under me, but i'd imagine they give many of the higher priced campy, reynolds and zipp wheels some competition at a much lower price. (and i'm all for dropping some money on a nice set of wheels, but who buys $3k campy wheels to begin with?!?)

the new rolfs, i have no first hand experience with. but... they have an extraordinary amount of trash talked about them by those who have ridden them. on that basis alone, i wouldn't buy them.

i don't necessarily automatically subscribe to "the pros know best" theory, but when someone does this for a living and can have whatever they want, it's worth paying some attention to. why do you see things like big old sofa saddles (like the selle rolls) on lots of bikes? why do you see heavy wheels like the mavic cosmos on so many (non tt) bikes? cause they are awesome products and sometimes it's not about just getting the newest, glossiest component you can find.

so where are the rolfs? nowhere. are they in div ii or iii even? nope. are they in amateur races? nope. framebuilder friends tell me the company is a real pain to deal with, and from the lack of the rolfs on the road, i believe it.

i rode topolinos for the first time not long ago. just for 25 miles or so, but they were great. very smooth, very fast wheel, but as cool as they look and nice as they ride, i would be hesitant to buy them because of their construction. it's not that i doubt their strength (and they do feel fantastically strong and light in person), but if you break a single spoke, you've gotta replace half of the spokes on the wheel. since they are such a small company, who knows how long it would take to get a replacement, or if they'll be around in a year.

spinergys - never buy these. period.

that said, for handbuilts, i think the ultimate all-around strong but light enough to race on handbuilt wheel would be chris king hubs mated to ritchey wcs protocol rims, built with the trick new sapim cx ray spokes, which are expensive, but receiving great reviews.

king hubs are great. much lighter than phils, shimano or campys, easy to maintain, cool looking, (very loud), etc. my second choice in rims would be ceramic open pros.