How many spokes do I need? I see options between 16 and 20. How do I choose and what's the benefits and drawbacks of each (obviously weight is one).
Weight, aero, aesthetics, and safety. I'm working on a long term review of the 16H/18H setup and so far they're solid. I've bombed them down mountains and hit a crack hard enough to snap the clips off my bike computer. Still straight, no broken bones. No major issues with the wheels so far. I also packed them tight in a bike box to fly them from San Francisco to Toronto and back. Held up to to baggage handling and a TSA inspection
I'm going to ride them until the end of the year until I make the proper review, but so far I'm confident in their safety for riding, not confident in the durability if you want to fly with them, or get in a crash, and don't recommend carbon spokes for long distance riding unless your fit is totally dialed
Get T1100/16H/18H/34mm if you want the best you can buy for crit racing or you just want to go fast on rougher roads. If you care about durability or value, get a lower grade carbon. You can deflect the T1100 rims by pushing the side walls with your finger. T700/T800 is much more durable
If you ride 50 miles plus, stick to steel or titanium spokes. Pick Ti if you want the very best for long distances. Pick steel if you want 99.9% of the benefit of Ti for a lot less money
Peter is great. I don't think I'd buy my next set from a western or Chinese brand for my next set. OEMs like Zara at Zen and Peter with XMCS don't seem beatable if you have better uses for $2,000 than a brand name + excellent warranty, or want better specs with good enough warranty care
- My Elitewheels de laminated, ending my 230 mile weekend ride 20 miles from the finish line. Elite told me to kick rocks, I posted about it, and now they want me to delete my story to get my warranty replacement
- A western wheel brand would have instantly replaced the whole wheel or paid to replace the rim, but that cost is built into the price alongside pricing power for branding cache. Western brands are also 5 years behind the Chinese because the actual manufacturing know how is in China, and western brands are paralyzed by litigation hell
- When @JustinFox had an issue with Peter's wheels with a custom polish finish, he immediately paid to re-true the wheels, and offered a heavily discounted replacement without polish when that didn't fix the issue. An immediate rim replacement would probably have made more sense for both parties, but the discount likely would have cost Peter around the same amount
- - The rims are only around $180 per, I'd guess they cost Peter $100 each to make, labor to lace the rims in Australia would be around $100, guessing shipping is around $75, so $375-$400. I'm guessing his discount for a new wheel set was around that much
- - When Justin posted his story, Peter replaced the whole wheel set, and presumably didn't condition it on deleting his story. A full wheelset replacement is pretty unexpected direct from an OEM considering the price point
I looked for the cheapest semi comparable option to Justin's from Zipp. Here it is:
https://www.competitivecyclist.com/b/zipp-454-nsw-carbon-disc-brake-wheel-tubeless- Zipp: $3,396.38 shipped to my door
- - Mine from Peter (T1100 50/65x34mm 16/18): $1,060 shipped to my door
- Mine were fine, but if Justin's wheels are anything to go off, Zipp could have better wheel balancing out of the factory, or Peter's could just have had too much resin polished off his rims, throwing off his wheel true-ness when a tire is inflated. I'd imagine the polished finish has been axed anyways
- 53mm - 58mm depth vs 50mm and 60mm these likely have around the same average depth
- 27.8mm max external width vs 32.9mm
- Zipp also has a wavy rim profile that should help in the crosswinds at that depth, but wider rims do a lot to reduce cross wind instability as is
- - If I could go back and buy my set again, I think I would just go 65mm front and rear. 50mm is no problem at least at a 34.25mm width, I'd guess 65mm depth is fine as well. Justin's are only 1.35mm narrower, so I'd imagine they have similar stability
- 1358g
claimed weight (
1500g actual weight (1509g weight in by Pat with valves)) vs an 1168g actual weight on Justin's.
- - Peter quoted me 1255g-1265g for T1100 50x32mm/65x34mm 20/20. I went with 18/16 spokes (-18g) but a thicker 34mm wide front rim (+10g), so I expected 1247g-1257g, but the actual weight was 1229g. That's 18g lower than the lowest estimated weight, and 23g less than the mid point estimate vs 142g
over estimate with the Zipp wheels
- - Also keep in mind that 1500g weight is while cutting out the hook bead which would add 30g, and make the wheels significantly safer
- Only steel J bend spokes in 2025 vs steel, carbon bladed at several depths, or titanium
- Cheaply made
- - Hookless trash
- - 24 spokes front and rear with the same rim and same lacing pattern. Incredibly lazy or ridiculous cost cutting on a premium wheelset
vs
- As cheap or expensive as you please
- - You can go down to T700, spoke holes, steel bearings, steel spokes, 24/24 hubs, for a few hundred dollars(Wait, I think this is just the Zipp wheel, except with a hook so you don't lose your teeth), all the way up T1100, ceramic bearings, new 16/18 hubs, bladed carbon spokes, no spoke holes, custom stickers, for 1/3 the price of the Zipp wheels, and expert advice from Peter along the way
I don't feel too bad for picking on Zipp after listening to their product manager hop on the Nero show and spend a full hour spouting off dishonesty and marketing drivel:
www.youtube dot com /watch?v=jB735qrgc5E (i did this to disable the embed)
Peter has a solid niche with a very good value proposition. I think tweaking his warranty practices to avoid any sort of purchase by the customer mid warranty would be ideal. It feels better to get a $360 of rims replaced free than to get a whole new $1100 wheelset for half off, even if you're getting a better deal when you do the math. Maybe require destruction proof when warrantying a defective rim to dissuade bogus warranty claims since there's less margin on these wheelsets
I also think proper branding on his products is an easy way to add a lot of value for many of us. I think my XMCS wheels are really cool. I paid like $50 to make some custom XMCS decals. Peter could offer nicer branding on them and it would likely cost him like $10 per set. I'd bet sexy branding could drive a couple hundred dollars of perceived value to consumers, even if it's not backed up with marketing money
I had a hard time picking between XMCS and Magene EXARs even though the specs for XMCS were better. Magene simply has better aesthetics than a plain rim and are the same price as Peter's wheels
This turned into a mini review by accident, but I've got a lot more to say about my wheels, and I still want to get some more time on them to get more of a feel for how they ride, and to see how they hold up over time. It took hundreds of miles until my ENT 2.0 showed an issue. Too many "they hold a line well, they're really smooth, I don't see any voids, use my affiliate code in the description" type of wheel reviews out there. The world doesn't need mine
