The best cycling wheel manufacturers?

[nightRider]

Hi All,

I thought I should create a list of the best cycling wheel manufacturers in the world and put it on my blog.

Until now I have:
Shimano
Fulcrum
DT Swiss
HED
Zipp
Bontrager
Mavic

Anyone important I forgot?

Thanks


http://www.cyclingforums.com/cyclin...-manufacturers.html#post3969595#ixzz0yV6MQzZx

 

[HJ]

Buy hubs, rims, spokes and tape, then build your own...

Or in my case get someone to build them for you...

 

[Will1985]

How can you define 'best'?

If you put Fulcrum, you should really have it as Campagnolo/Fulcrum.

The funny thing is that many of these on the list are not manufacturers when it comes to carbon wheels; just brands which have contracted a Far Eastern carbon manufacturer to supply a product. The exception is Zipp.

 

[GazK]

One for your list: the ones I built for my bikes.

Seriously, I don't know what criteria you would use to judge this. Wheels are probably the most egregiously abused element of a bike by marketing types, and thats saying something in the cycling market. Eg I read all the time "these are really stiff wheels", invariably about some radial or 1-cross fluff with bladed spokes.

There's a really good phd study for someone on the placebo effect as applied to the cycling community.

 

[Crankarm]

A hand built wheel will always be better than a factory built one. The thread you have started is pointless as hubs, spokes and rims can be from any combination of manufacturers. Then you have the skill of the wheel builder or sophistication of the machine making your wheel .

 

[Sheffield_Tiger]

A hand built wheel will always be better than a factory built one.

+ 10'000

 

[e-rider]

Many factory built wheels are hand built! Eg. Easton.

They are built by a person in a factory.

When you say hand built - are you refering to wheels built by a 16 year old on minimum wage for some online/mail order company?

 

[montage]

american classic

 

[montage]

also going to throw planet x in there now purely because of price, having seen their £399 carbon wheel which weighs nothing

 

[PpPete]

I'm in the handbuilt camp.
Although I don't have the skills/experience of low spoke count, bladed spoke, carbon rims etc. I do have absolute confidence in the basic 32 & 36 spoke 2x and 3X road wheels that I build myself - because despite being officialy NOT SMALL[sup]TM[/sup] and having a heavy steel framed bike, and done my level best to destroy them off-road, they are still in perfect order and they are a lot faster than what was on the bike in the first place.

So add Porkypete to the list !