nesteel 

Campagnolo 9speed Veloce hubs laced to Mavic Open Pros. For lower mid level, the hubs are pretty decent, and the freehub is suitably loud. And I built them myself. Rock solid wheels.
'97 Campagnolo Chorus 9speed hubs laced to Mavic Reflex Sups are also quite nice.
Those two are my favorite freehub sets.
For freewheel hubbed wheels, I'd have to go with the Specialized sealed bearing hubs laced to Araya hoops that currently reside on my 770.
Or the Bullseye hubs laced to concave Wienmanns that are holding up my 720

RobbieTunes

So cool. In my area, Cragars were for GM unless you had the SS wheels with rings, and Mustangs. The dark Mustangs with polished Cragars were "tits."

Keystones were all about Mopar. It was just that way around my area.

Those with less disposable dollars bought slotted alloy wheels from Farm & Fleet and KMart (when KMart did auto).

60's on the back, 70's on the front was a universal thing, too.

Old pickups had to have baby moons,on chrome standards.

Such was the fun of growing up where grown men discussed such things.

The '67 GTO with the spoked wheels was considered above bad-ass.

Road Fan

I have two favorites on my bikes, the others are just good wheels.

1. Campagnolo 2006 Record hubs in black, 32 holes, 130 mm, with Mavic GP4 tubular rims, now covered with 260 gram Gommitalia Espresso handmade latex tubulars. The lacing is interesting, Sapim CX-ray spokes 3x in the front, 3x in the rear on the non-drive side and 2x (yes, that's correct) on the drive side, all heads inward. The builder's idea was to maximize the bracing angle, perhaps to accommodate the possibility of reduced spoke hole strength in vintage-style rims. In any case, the builder designed these for me and they have been very stable over about 8 years - maybe 2000 miles? 1500 grams for the pair with original Campy skewers and without tires or cassette! Made for my 1984-ish Mondonico around 2008. I tried to get Mavic Reflex rims for the build, but they could not be sourced at that time.

2. Campagnolo Record 130 mm hubs in silver, wheels built before 2005. Also 32 holes, conventional 3x lacing with (I think) DT spokes, butted. Silver Mavic Open Pro clincher rims now wearing older 28 mm Continental Super Sport 3000 tires. I can't say how these compare to any more current top-line tires, but they are better than 28 m Gatorskins, worse than 32 mm Paselas, and worse than 30 mm Challenge Strada Bianca. They came to me on my Mondonico ELOS, where they now live.

Also great wheels: 126 mm Campy Record hubs c. 1978, 32 hole 3x butted DT stainless spokes, connecting to Wolber Alpine anodized tubular rims. On those has lived original Italian Vittoria CX tires, and now just a decent set of 23 mm Vittoria Rally. I have a decent pair of CX to put on. These were on my 1980 Masi when I bought it, and have only been ridden and maintained.

Road Fan

Ummmm, Campagnolo Elektron?

Salamandrine 

You would think so, but it isn't really, and it's not just semantics. A wheelset is not equal to a set of wheels.


Wheelsets as an engineered integrated product were introduced in the 90s with the Zipp wheels, followed by Campagnolo Shamals, Mavic Cosmics, and various others. It was a fairly major change. This was the first time you could purchase a complete high end racing wheelset made in a factory. These often had proprietary hubs and spokes and rims, and the whole thing was engineered as a system. It's a different concept than picking out the rims you like and having the LBS build them up. To this day you have to send Ksyrium wheelsets back to the factory for repair.


It's also worth noting that the wheelset concept is currently enshrined in UCI. You are actually not allowed to build up your own aero section wheels, but are restricted to the UCI approved wheelset list.


Anyway, I realize it's a bit fiddly and pedantic, but really they are not the same thing.



Cool. I have a set of 36h Archetypes I've been meaning to build up for use as heavy duty touring and possibly winter/gravel riding wheels. Even more overbuilt than yours!! I figure they'll still be light enough to ride unloaded, on days I'm not concerned about going fast....

jamesdak 

LOL, arguing over what is a wheelset....

Thought I was back on the road forum for a second there.

CV-6 

Pfffft. ET.

nesteel 

Pfft, Halibrand. For the truly fast, not us posers.

mstateglfr 

Interesting info for sure. I have considered what are wheelsets to be wheelsystems to segretate/distinguish the prebuilt semi-proprietary wheelsets from most everything else. Heck, we all called a set of wheels 'wheelsets' on our GT Performer BMX bikes in the early 90s. Ignorance is bliss for sure.
So almost none of whats listed in this thread is a wheelset. Huh.

Anyways- i have a set(pair?) of Archetype 36h hubs laced to 105 hubs on my gravel bike. They arent the lightest, but neither am i and i didnt think shaving off 40g or whatever just to have 8 less spokes was worth it for how I would use the bike. That set of wheels is certainly strong.

Salamandrine 

Funny you mention GT BMX bikes. I realized after posting that the first wheelsets were more than likely the Mongoose Motomags. They started off selling them as a set before Mongoose bikes were even a thing. I miss my nickel Mongoose even now....

Anyways, I see the writing on the wall. The term for a pair of wheels is going to be wheelset from now on - whether I like it or not. I give up... It's going to be like 'clincher', which still rankles T-Mar. As you pointed out, there's really not that much practical difference. Just thought I should point out that nobody said that until ZIPP/Shamals/Cosmics/etc came out in the 90s.

squirtdad

I am not sure favorite but I do like my 6800 ultregra open pro wheelset.... and am considering a 6800 Mavic tubular wheelset to add to the collection

I am building my third wheel now, hop is driving me crazy, but I also started with old amborio rims ......and my face the the same problem with a fix/rebuild with a rear wheel with mavic gp4

ultegra open pro works with this build

eja_ bottecchia

JaccoW

It's starting to itch to build my own wheels but for now I still think Weinmann concave rims look awesome.

rocks in head 

Huh... learn something new every day. In that case, in the general lexicon it's used improperly all the time.

RobbieTunes

Heh heh. On a Ferrari

Road Fan

You mention GP4 - my custom-built wheels use GP4s. The wheelbuilder selected the two rims that were inherently the most true (between what he had in his shop and a set of 4 NOS rims I scored), laced them, and worked up the tension so it was equal all around. I probably have 1000 to 2000 miles on them, with zero alignment or stability problems. This model of rim was designed as a training rim, which means a lot of miles should be eaten up. They are not light, about 420 grams each compared to around 300 each for the GEL 280 and the Fiamme Ergal.

Peter White says something similar - if you want a stable wheel, start with a true rim and keep all the tensions even.

Result is I have a pair of wheels that weighs 1500 grams and is stable. I could have searched for Ergals or light Ambrosios and gained another 200+ grams at the rims, but I'll take the 1500 grams. The wheel builder would have been happy to make lighter wheels with lighter rims if I was a lighter road rider, but for me he recommended staying with a training rim.

I'm sure that with GP-4s you can have a really fine set of wheels.

blamester

36 hole Gp4s on lovely shiny 7 speed 600 tricolour hubs.
Respaced to130 mm and practically no dish with a silent freehub 20000 miles and still nigh on perfect.
They look better when the hard anodizing completely wears of the brake suface.

jimmuller 

Tough call.

The wheels on my Masi, FIR GL125(?) rims, Campy Record hubs, 32 spokes. Yes, I built them.
The wheels on my PFN10, Mavic GP4 rims, Mavic 501 hubs, 32 spokes. Yes, I built them.
The wheels on my Grandis, Torelli Master rims,m Campy Record hubs, 32 spokes. Yes, I built them.
The wheels on out tandem, Mavic A310, Shimano 105 front hub w/32 spokes, Original Atom drum brake hub w/36 spokes rear. I built the rear, not the front.
Come to think of it, the other bikes have functional wheels too, all generally likeable. If they didn't have two cycles, they wouldn't be bi-cycles, now would they?

El Chaba

I have a number of favorites, but there are a few standouts...first in the semi-vintage category is the Mavic Cosmic Carbone tubular...aero, fast, and an alloy brake track for real braking even when wet ....

El Chaba

Another favorite in the more vintage category is this set on my Peugeot Pro 10...Maillard/Spidel 700 hubs, Super Champion Route tubulars..light, strong, fast dependable...

RobbieTunes

This is why I like drinking with C&V people. We obviously have more fun and mellow minds.

"I did not have sex with that woman."

mstateglfr 

What? Dont give up- Rage against the dying of the light! All seriousness, its great info and why I love this genre of cycling and this forum so much! The history is so interesting. Learning when/why/how a process or trend changed is fascinating. Even something as mundane as terminology for wheels is cool to learn about from a historical perspective.
If those who experienced dont inform those of us who were too young/werent involved at the time, then a whole lot of great 1st hand info and context is lost.

Dave Mayer

Favorite wheels? Of course, front wheel can be built lighter than rear. This applies to the tire, rim, spokes and number of spokes. If you have the same rim and number of spokes front and rear, then you either have overbuilt the front, or underbuilt the rear.

Anyway components: hubs: Dura-Ace 7700. Best hubs ever made - period. Vintage: Dura-Ace 7400 freewheel hubs, or C-Record freewheel hubs. Of course, Dura-Ace 7400 series cassette hubs are to be avoided: orphaned and useless.

Spokes: DT Revolution on the front, and Champion on the back. You could put Rev's on the non-driveside.

Rims: Mavic GEL 280 on the front (28h) and GEL 330 on the rear (32h).

You can build a very robust wheelset using these components, although likely not recommended for a Clyde. Very light and responsive.

Tubulars of course. The tubular rim profile is so superior to any clincher (no matter how much you pay), that to be debating about the best clinchers is like comparing notes on your favorite model year of the Ford Fiesta. No performance overlap between clincher and tubular wheels.

The Golden Boy 

Right now my favorite wheels are the Phil/Atlas wheels I had built up from Rich at Rivendell.

Front is a Phil "Rivvy" hub and the rear is a free hub set up for 10 speed and 130; the hubs are laced to Velocity Atlas rims. These probably are a bit more than I need- but they're really, really sweet. And outrageously beautiful. .

I really love riding along- and seeing the shadow of the high flange hubs on the ground. Yet another thing about my bikes that make me smile.


IMG_0079 by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr


IMG_0091 by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr


IMG_0174 by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr


Prior to getting this wheelset, my favorite wheels were some Phil/Super Champion wheels- 40 spoke both front and rear. They still spin so ultra smooth- they're early Phil hubs. Prior to this- I had a set of Avocet hubs- I think laced to Super Champion rims- I still remember how smooth those felt. I sent those along when I sold my 86 Voyageur.

mgopack42 

I always liked this Campagnolo wheel