cleon

Just curious what thoughts you have?

Newb guess is 25-33% in the wheels?

bonz50

another newb guess, 1/2 frame, 1/4 group & 1/4 wheels... would make for a pretty nice bike overall I'd think

laserfj

Group seems low...

tagaproject6

100% of your budget should be for a complete bike. Do not try to start making up rules on how much money should be spent on a wheelset. Set a budget, stick with it. If you want a wheelset, will that rule prevent you from buying it because it is worth more than 25%-33% of the bike? Ridiculous!

urbanknight

I'm with Taga. I never put any thought into what percentage of my budget goes into what. I look for good deals on what I want (or something close to it), and if I can afford it, I go for it.

ColinL

Same here. And there is no question that complete bikes are better than any deal you can get piecing together your own solution. In fact, complete bikes on eBay that are demo models or barely ridden (a ton of those out there) can be really, really good deals provided that you actually know what you need.

Buying parts & pieces is sensible for piecemeal upgrades, but if you're talking wholesale changes time to re-think a complete bike.

My new Litespeed M1 Rival was $1849, which consisted of $667 for the frame (36%), $580 for the wheels (Ksyrium Elite, 31%) and the majority of the rest was the full Rival gruppo since the seat, bars etc are really cheap.

Drew Eckhardt 

You want to buy a set of hand-made wheels with readily replaced rims, butted spokes (enough so that the wheel can be made ridden with a slight bend that unloads one - I like 32), and decent bearings (Campagnolo Record or Shimano Ultegra cup-and-cone bearings last pretty much indefinitely provided you keep them adjusted and lubricated). They won't go out of true until crashed or break spokes for the first few hundred thousand miles, and when you do bend one you can put a new rim on for $50 - $80 without waiting months for factory service or being out of luck because your proprietary rim is no longer fashionable and available.

Might be 50% of the cost of an inexpensive built-up bike once you sell the factory wheels. Might be 10% of an expensive custom build price tag.

rbart4506

Buy complete bike...

Contact psimet and get some customs...

Keep existing wheels as backup

UCIMBZ

What is your total budget? At higher end you most likley going to be fairly equal percentages between frame, wheels and the rest( group, cockpit,...). At the lower end you want to get the best frame for your budget so that will eat up most of your money, then wheels and components last.

EdIsMe

I've seen wheelsets go for as much and even up to double what I paid for my complete bike. I have no plans on upgrading any time soon and I do plan on racing this next season.

cleon

Thanks all. Good feedback. Partially I was just curious, and partially I wanted a sanity check on my wheelset upgrade. By way of context I have a 2005 Trek 1500 that I enjoy riding but wanted to tune a bit, to see how much of a difference a few upgrades would make. I think I paid somewhere between $1-1.2k for it at the time. I did manage to find a sweet deal on an Ultegra 6700 wheelset and am putting those on, and plan on buying a complete new bike when/if I go full carbon in a few years, whereas I'll keep these new wheels as a backup set. Hopefully that makes sense.

ColinL

You can get Mavic and Easton wheels all day long on ebay. Used and new, the EA70/EA90 and the various Ksyriums are out there... Cheap.

cleon

Good to know. Thanks!

tagaproject6

Are you one of those "audiophiles" by any chance?

cleon

Lol.no..just ignorant.