Why don't you take the Bontrager wheels off, remove the tires and cassette, and weigh them?

Or, perhaps I'm capable of identifying them and believe the cost benefit far outweighs the potential shortfalls.

They're Vuelta hubs. I've seen nothing but praise for their wheels here on BF. They are highly regarded as an excellent value. Maybe no one wants to buy those used wheels because they're so inexpensive to buy new, why bother with a used set you don't know the history of.

They say "Vuelta" on the hubs

What's wrong with them?

A Google search for "vuelta hubs" brings up 278,000 results. I'm not going to read through them all though...

For me, they just go so nicely with my Sora setup that everyone says is not enough. So why get wheels better than the rest of the bike?

To me 2014 Sora is great and for my talents at this time, the Vuelta Corsa SLR fit my needs well.

Do you know of any chinese carbon wheels with aluminum braking surfaces? I dont ride a lot of hills, so the pricepoint and supposed-average quality of the chinese carbon appeal to me. Also the weight savings would be immense.

I don't know if this speaks to the quality of the rims or the experience of the rider.

Well I'm definitely not fat, but I do weigh about 195 because I'm 6'3". That may be a concern for some of these lighter wheelsets.

Go ahead. Let's compare. You start. What do you know about the DA wheels that suggests they are better than the Vuelta?

Not that I know of... not many carbon with alu braking surface wheels out there. I went looking for exactly that recently. Zipp 30, Zipp 60, Dura Ace C24, Dura Ace C35, Dura Ace C50... that's all I can remember. I went with the DA C35's.

I already said... the thousands of posts online about people fascinated with the hubs.

How does that make them better than Vuelta? People love to talk about Shimano hubs, and they are very fine. But what do you know about them being better than Vuelta or Bike Hub Store or Formula or ...?

Apparently over 278,000 people are fascinated with the vuelta hubs too. What's your point?

It may come as a shock to some folks to read this, but (IMO) one doesn't always need the very best of everything. Quite often the moderately good product is exactly what fits someone's needs. I frequently find myself buying "up the product line", not to get the best, but only to acquire features. If the features I want are available at a lower price point, I will generally stop right there.

I don't ride Vuelta wheels, not because I don't think they are good enough, but simply because I build my own lighter ones for very similar money. If I bought ready-made, it would be Vuelta.

And then "forever" durability doesn't excite me. Good, immediate value does. I like having new and getting it inexpensively. Having to keep a wheel set for 20 years to get my money out of it has no appeal for me, even if the wheels would MAYBE last that long. That is a game I have no desire to play.

+1

Also, it's pretty easy to destroy a wheel; only takes a moment of inattentiveness and hitting a sharp pothole, or catching a large nail that punches through the rim, or many other possibilities. They're one of the more vulnerable components on a bike. It would be silly, IMHO, to spend more than necessary on wheels.

well one thing is the use of cup/cone bearings which are user serviceable compared to cartridges. Another is the titanium freehub which doesn't get eaten up like aluminum freehubs on the vuelta

So that's "better"? Cartridge bearings aren't meant to be serviced, you just replace the entire cartridge bearing (I guess you could argue that the tools required to replace cartridge bearings are more prohibitive than the tools needed for cup/cone bearings, but either way you still need tools). Also, there are plenty of "higher end" hubs with aluminum freehub bodies that likewise get chewed up.

Would something like this be far superior to the SLRs?

Shimano RS81 C24 Carbon Road Wheelset | Chain Reaction Cycles

They are still what many people would consider advantages. Nothing wrong with either and my current wheelset on my roadbike has cartridge bearings and an aluminum freehub. But my rainy day bike has cup/cone bearings which I can service because of the PNW weather, where I've had cartridge bearings fail prematurely. A wheelset and its components are a balance of a variety of factors.

I wouldn't say FAR superior. Weight is about the same and everything else is a list of tradeoffs.

Shimano RS81 C24 pros/cons:
- Typical Shimano build quality (a.k.a great)
- More serviceable bearings
- Steel freehub body (eliminates gouging from cassette)
- Costs more
- Low spoke count/high spoke tension (if you break a spoke, the wheel will most likely be unrideable)
- Shimano spokes and nipples are typically proprietary and it may be hard to obtain replacements

Vuelta SLR pros/cons:
- Good value for the money
- Higher spoke count
- Spokes/nipples can most likely be replaced with off the shelf parts
- Cartridge bearings are harder to service/replace
- Aluminum freehub body prone to gouging from cassette
- Less brand "reputation"

The word Vuelta appearing in a post 278,000 times is not the same thing as "I've had my Dura Ace hubs for 20 freaking years and they're still perfect". Appearance is not the same thing as praise.

Higher spoke count isn't always a good thing. I'd rather have fewer higher quality spokes than a ton of junk spokes. Shimano uses a special steel blend for their spokes that makes them stronger, allowing them to use fewer spokes (lighter) and maintain stiffness and durability. The warranty speaks for itself. Dura Ace wheel warranty is TRIPLE that of Vuelta.

I'm not debating the quality of Shimano's spokes, nor product quality or warranty in general. They're all excellent.

The truth of the matter is, with a higher spoke count you will most likely still have a rideable wheel to get you home, should you break a spoke. Not the case with a low spoke count/high tension wheel. I broke a spoke on a set of RS10s (which were pretty good wheels despite its undeserved reputation for being crap) and could not continue. Luckily I was only a few blocks from home. Then came the matter of replacing the spoke. My shop didn't have the Shimano proprietary spoke and nipples available nor was it worth dealing with warranty on a set of RS10s (might be different for higher-end Shimano wheels) but they eventually found a suitable replacement.

Some people might not care but who really wants to deal with warranty just to replace a broken spoke? With the Vuelta wheels and other wheelsets, you can probably be in and out of a shop in 20 minutes.

And have you read all of the posts about the DA to know that they're all praise?