The Mavic Cosmic Pro gloves are about as minimalist as you can get, with absolutely no padding, but they still offer plenty of comfort for those who like the ultimate in handlebar feel. You can get cheaper, though, so are you paying more for less?

• Pros: Great cut and fit, easy to get on and off
• Cons: Pricier than many competitors

If you are just after a pair of mitts that offer protection in a fall then these Cosmic Pro should definitely be on your wish list.

> Find your nearest dealer here

First up, Mavic says that they offer an ergonomic cut to shape to the hand when wrapped around the handlebar, and they certainly are comfortable gloves. You don't get any bunching of material on the palm and the amount of stretch afforded by the Lycra upper means that they fit snuggly and don't require any Velcro or anything at the wrist to keep them in place.

mavic_cosmic_pro_glove_-_top.jpg

The synthetic palm is made up of three pieces with the stitching well placed to avoid any discomfort, plus there is a small Lycra section near the thumb which keeps the fit close without restriction of movement. The fabric is soft to the touch and is standing up well to abrasion. I had a bit of an off on a gravel track, sliding on my right hand for a bit, and the palm suffered nothing more than a bit of dirt.

mavic_cosmic_pro_glove_-_palm.jpg

The thinness of the palm allows for great feel as if you aren't wearing gloves at all.

It's good to see a towelling thumb section for wiping sweat and snot.

Getting them on and off is easy thanks to an extended tab at the rear of the palm, with the same at the end of each finger. Even with sweaty hands it's no bother.

> Read more road.cc reviews of cycling mitts here

In a bid to avoid those sweaty hands, Mavic has added venting holes to the fingers and thumb. How well they work is hard to gauge, but even when the temperatures were high I never really felt my hands get too hot. The fabric has PF30 sun protection too.

At £35 the Cosmics are quite pricey against the competitors who also offer minimalist gloves. These Giro Zero CS mitts, for instance, are just £29.99. The Mavics are very well made, though, and are certainly durable so when you compare their price to the likes of the Assos Summergloves S7 at £40 or the Prologo CPC gloves for £49.99, things don't look too bad.

Verdict

Very comfortable gloves considering their lack of padding, great for those who like to feel everything

Mavic's Cosmic Pro Carbon SL UST wheels make tubeless technology truly nothing to fear, with all the benefits attached. Sure, it's now a whopping £449 more expensive than the equivalent (old) clinchers, but they're still very capable performance all-rounders.

• Pros: Fast, stable, stiff, good braking, easy-to-install tubeless system
• Cons: Expensive, lack of ceramic bearings

When you look at Mavic's range, the Cosmic Pro Carbon SL wheelset has been at the top of the range in terms of a performance all-round wheelset for two and a half years now. Our own Mat Brett rated the original clincher versions 9/10 back in the summer of 2016 – high praise indeed.

> Find your nearest dealer here

Of course, even before these wheels were tested, tubeless technology was already making its way onto the wheels of rival brands – so although we were mightily impressed with them, they were already beginning to look like they might be yesterday's wheels.

No longer. Almost immediately after the launch of the Pro Carbon SL Cs, Mavic began working on a tubeless evolution of the rim that could meet this emerging demand, and in partnership with tyre partner Hutchinson, has brought us this new UST (Universal Standard Tubeless) model.

mavic_cosmic_pro_carbon_sl_ust_-_rim_and_tyre.jpg

The notable changes are a re-engineered, deeper rim bed with additional lip to create a secure tubeless seal, and specially designed Yksion Pro tyres to fit this new design, as well as meet the demands of tubeless running.

mavic_cosmic_pro_carbon_sl_ust_-_spoke_nipple.jpg

The main thing to take away from it is that it's just about as easy to remove and install as any snug-fitting clincher setup I've come across, while producing the same benefits – namely, better road transmission and less rolling resistance – as any other half-decent tubeless setup.

> How to fit a tubeless tyre

Obviously, Mavic can't magic away the potential mess that comes with using the sealant (they come supplied without it installed to save it drying out in shops, according to Mavic), but you can remove and seat the tyre with three levers no problem. I suspect those with stronger fingers than mine – spidery things, they are – could get away with two.

New tubeless tyres and specs

The tyres themselves – after all, they come as part of the deal, so are incredibly important to the overall experience as your contact patch – are a real upgrade. The new compound developed with Hutchinson is now grippier, more supple and emits less roar (rolling energy loss) than the old clincher WTS (wheel tyre system) – featuring Yksion Powerlink and Griplink tyres – while also seeming to be more resilient to cuts and nicks.

mavic_cosmic_pro_carbon_sl_ust_-_tyre.jpg

I've owned a few WTS wheelsets in the past, and have always felt the need (as opposed to desire) to upgrade to other tyres – Continental GP4000 IIs or Michelin Competition tyres being my choices – but there really is no need to think about upgrading here. They fit perfectly to the 25mm wide rim, and genuinely produce Schwalbe Pro One-worrying performance in the real world.

You still might want to swap if you're a Schwalbe devotee, of course, and I suspect that Schwalbe's headline tyre still has the slight edge in most areas. However, it's close; close enough that you'd seriously need to question the wisdom of spending the £119.99 (rrp) for a set. And, compared to the two Schwalbe Pro One sets I've tried, I've noticed much less air leakage with the UST system, to the point that I no longer felt the need to re-inflate tyres each and every morning.

> Buyer's Guide: Tubeless tyres – all your options

Under the new tyre and internal rim design, it's pretty much as you were with the Cosmic Pro Carbon SL USTs. I've mentioned the external 25mm rim width already, and the internal diameter sticks to 17mm too. Rim depth is 40mm both front and rear, with a NACA-inspired profile, and the rim still makes use of the excellent iTgMax laser brake track treatment.

mavic_cosmic_pro_carbon_sl_ust_-_rim.jpg

You get Mavic's bladed steel spokes laced radially up front (18 of them) and 24 crossed-over at the rear, connected to an Instant Drive 360 freehub. That features sealed cartridge bearings that make a satisfyingly deep and dull noise when you stop pedalling.

mavic_cosmic_pro_carbon_sl_ust_-_rear_hub.jpg

They're smooth and quick to engage, although with the price having increased to £1,899 from £1,450 back when we first reviewed them, I couldn't help but hope for some form of ceramic bearings to appear – just as they did in some limited edition models last year.

mavic_cosmic_pro_carbon_sl_ust_-_front_hub.jpg

Price hike

Despite this £449 hike in price – ostensibly just for the tubeless design and attached tyres, plus some market variation – I'm still very impressed with the Cosmic Pro Carbon SL UST wheelset. I took them out to Annecy on my holiday to test them in the mountains as well as back here at home, and they excel in pretty much any conditions you can throw at them – including the gusty conditions we've had of late, where they stay remarkably stable.

On climbs they're stiff as you like, while the added transmission you get from the lack of a tube (plus the improved tyre compound) pays off when attacking descents and leaning into corners. Show them flatter roads and they'll slice through valley headwinds, and sail in tailwinds, just as their predecessors did.

mavic_cosmic_pro_carbon_sl_ust_-_set.jpg

All-in, they weigh 2,120g including those very competent tyres; Mavic claims that they weigh 1,490g without (665g and 825g apiece). Their clincher predecessors tipped the scales at 601g and 808g respectively, highlighting the penalty you take with heavier tubeless rubber plus the re-engineered rim. That said, I never felt held down by them in any scenario, although they can't quite live up to the overall standards set by the two-grand Bontrager Aeolus XXX 4 TLR wheelset.

> Tubeless wheelsets – 203 choices

Performance-wise, you can also find direct rivals in the competitively priced £1,550 Giant SLR 0 42mm wheels, as well as the impressively cheap £1,250 Fast Forward F4R FCC wheelset, although neither of these can boast the ease of the UST tubeless system, nor the excellent iTgMax brake track, which is still up there with the very best in all conditions.

Although not quite the performance-value proposition they used to be back when they were clinchers, Mavic's Cosmic Pro Carbon SL USTs are still competitive at this increased price point, while boasting arguably the easiest-to-install tubeless interface around.

Verdict

Still very good high-spec all-rounders, now with an excellent tubeless system, but the value isn't what it once was

The Ksyrium range from Mavic has always had a good reputation for offering decent performance whatever your type of riding: a true set of all-rounders. These aluminium alloy Pro UST Disc models further confirm this with a solid build quality and plenty of stiffness, all at a decent weight.

• Pros: Well built set of wheels for road and light off-road use, easy tubeless setup
• Cons: Entering 'carbon' money at this price

I love the feel of the Pro Disc wheels. They give a firm ride while managing to keep things just on the good side of harsh, almost carbon fibre like.

> Find your nearest dealer here

With 24 spokes front and rear, the build certainly feels stiff. Climbing out of the saddle or fast cornering doesn't see anything in the way of flex. The two-cross spoking pattern on the front wheel handles the high braking forces from the disc, while at the rear you get two-cross for the drive side but because of the lower braking forces here, Mavic has gone for radial spoking on the non-drive side.

For the rim, Mavic uses Maxtal, its own specification of aluminium alloy, which it says gives a higher strength to weight ratio than the more commonly used 6061 grade. This keeps the weight down too, to just 1,650g without tyres and valves, which is pretty good for a wheel of this type and strength, if not exceptional for the money. The £459 Miche Syntium DX wheels, for instance, are the same weight but almost half the price.

At 2,260g on our scales, with tyres included, the Mavics do still feel light in use, and you don't feel hampered at all when you get out of the saddle for a quick sprint or to tackle a short, sharp hill.

The 22mm rim depth suits a lot of different terrain and conditions, with only those seeking any form of aero advantage going to be left wanting.

The 19mm internal width stretches the tyres out a little from their nominal size, with the fitted 25s sitting closer to 26.5mm. Most disc brake-equipped bikes have plenty of tyre clearance but it's worth bearing in mind when speccing tyres on wider wheels.

> Why you need to switch to wider tyres

I didn't just use these wheels on the road as I took a few diversions onto gravel bridleways, towpaths and other rough tracks and they can take a kicking. Rocks and potholes have done little to affect the trueness of the rims, and everything still feels as tight and smooth as when I first started riding them.

With just nine degrees of rotation between the engagement points on the freehub, the wheels respond straight away when asked and if you are a track stander at the lights you won't feel any of that 'float' when you are rocking the bike backwards and forwards.

The freehub body itself looks to be plenty strong enough to cope with hard accelerations or any efforts that see a high amount of power going through the cassette. I can easily gouge softer alloy options, with the cassette splines digging into the body, but the Ksyriums are barely showing a mark.

As standard, the freehub comes in a Shimano/SRAM setup but there are options to change to Campagnolo or SRAM's XD Road.

Included in the box are quick release adaptors if you aren't running thru-axles (the Ksyriums are set up for 12mm as standard, but you can adapt the front to 15mm) plus the tubeless sealant, syringe, valves and the various tools to keep the wheels running smooth.

Yksion tyres

You get the tyres too: Mavic's own Yksion Pro UST. You may have seen UST appearing on a lot of Mavic's wheels lately and it's the move across to tubeless setups for its higher end models.

Mavic has offered wheel/tyre combinations for quite a while now, which allows the company to keep tight tolerances on both. I wasn't a massive fan of the non-UST tyres, which I found lacked grip and punctured frequently, but the new models are a marked improvement.

These are the same tyres I've been running on my wet weather bike, fitted to Ksyrium UST Elite rim-braked wheels.

I've yet to pick up a simple puncture or nick on those, and I haven't on this set either. The only downside to that is that I can't tell you how good the Mavic branded sealant works...

Grip in the wet and dry is pretty consistent and they offer decent rolling resistance and braking performance.

As you'd expect, fitment to the wheels is seamless and very easy, and initial inflation after adding the sealant was faultless even with just a standard track pump.

> How to fit tubeless tyres

When we look at value, £899 might seem pretty pricey for a set of aluminium alloy wheels when you can get excellent carbon fibre rims and lighter weight from the likes of Just Riding Along's excellent Gecko wheels for £850. They are very impressive and a solid build, too, just like the Ksyriums.

You are getting the tyres in the Mavic package, mind; if you had to buy them separately online they would set you back about £90, plus you've got to take sealant into account, so you could say the Ksyriums are around £800.

Still, I called those Miche Syntium DX wheels up top pricey against the opposition at £459, and while the Mavics are a much better wheel all round, there are plenty of cheaper alternatives.

To sum up, the Ksyriums are really well built, they ride really well, and in my opinion look really smart, but I think I'd pull up short of buying them at full rrp. Find them with a decent discount and I'd definitely recommend them.

Verdict

True all-rounders with a solid build quality but you do have to pay for it

The Mavic Ksyrium Pro Thermo gloves offer plenty of protection from cold winds and freezing temperatures thanks to decent insulation which also keeps the rain out for a bit too. The inner pulling out because of sweaty hands can make putting them back on a bit of a faff, though.

• Pros: Soft fabric, very warm
• Cons: Sweaty hands can pull the liner out of position, no real need for the elastic wrist loops

The Ksyrium Pros incorporate Primaloft Sport insulation which uses fine fibres to create tiny air pockets that trap body heat and keep the cold out. I've used plenty of products with it in over the years and it offers pretty impressive performance.

> Find your nearest dealer here

I've been wearing these whenever I've got up to find ice on the car windows, and I've found their warmth very impressive when the temperature has dropped a couple of degrees below freezing.

No matter what speed you are riding at, no feeling of wind flow gets through and even taking them off after a three-hour ride with the temperature not getting above 3°C, I still had warm hands – to the point that they were a little bit sweaty.

The liner is very soft to the touch and the Mavics feel lovely when you put them on, all helping with the warm feeling you get from the insulation. The only issue that brings is that if your hands do get wet then it is easy for the liner to get pulled down the fingers, almost inside out, and can then be a bit of a pain to push back in. You just need to remember to hold the tips of your fingers and thumb as you remove the gloves.

The interwoven fibres of the Primaloft also offer some water resistance after it has made it through the outer fabric. The fabric will stand up to a short, heavy shower or a good hour in heavy drizzle, but even if it does let the water through your hands remain warm so it's not a major issue. They are definitely more of a dry weather glove, though, rather than something you can use in all winter conditions.

To judge sizing you need to measure around your knuckles and I found the size chart to be pretty spot on. Finger length was absolutely fine but I have quite chunky digits so they were snug width-wise. It's a good idea to have a bit of room inside gloves in the winter to let warm air circulate, but I didn't really have any issues.

The long cuff is the perfect length for tucking up inside a winter jacket's sleeve and you can control how tight you want it with the Velcro tab.

The Ksyriums have elasticated cuff straps that you can slip your wrist through, so if you stop and remove your glove you won't drop it as it'll still be attached to you. I can understand the need for this if you are skiing or you don't want your toddler to lose their mittens, but I found that here they just get in the way. I'd definitely be snipping them off if I bought them.

When it comes to the pad, the fabric is covered in little silicone dots for grip, plus the index finger and thumb tips get a smooth, touchscreen-compatible finish.

The joint between the index finger and thumb is reinforced to stop wear and tear from gripping the hoods, and you get a snot wipe on top of the thumb.

A lot of winter gloves are often thick enough to not need padding but Mavic has gone with 2mm-thick Ortholite foam sections for beneath your fingers and the two bottom 'corners' of your wrist. It does a pretty decent job of stopping road vibration without making the gloves feel overly bulky.

At £70, the Mavics are well into Rapha territory, matching the Pro Team gloves. They are also just 1p more than the excellent Giro 100 Proof gloves, which really impressed when riding in very cold conditions.

> Buyer's Guide: 21 of the best winter cycling gloves

There is also a lot of competition for a lot less money: Santini's very good Deep Double Layer Winter gloves will set you back just £39.99, for instance, or Madison offers its fully waterproof Avalanche gloves for just £32.99.

The Mavics are some of the most comfortable gloves I have worn and are very well made, but whereas I was fully sold on the Giro 100 Proofs I'm not sure I'd pay full whack for these. That said, the Giros' finger layout takes some getting used to and if you prefer traditional style gloves then these are well worth a look – especially if you can find them discounted.

Verdict

Comfortable, well made and very warm winter gloves, but they come at a cost

Mavic's Essential Thermo gloves are impressive winter warmers, which manage to provide great protection and a comfortable, low-profile fit for anything but the very coldest weather.

• Pros: Good dexterity, water resistant and windproof, quite warm, comfortable
• Cons: Thermal lining required in near-freezing temperatures

There's always a balance to be struck with winter gloves, and inevitably there's a trade-off involved. You can go for thicker, chunkier, insulated gloves that arguably offer more protection from the cold but sacrifice feel and dexterity in the fingers, or go down the softshell route which can yield a more supple glove, but with a little less protection.

> Find your nearest dealer here

The Essential Thermo gloves are of the second type, but don't let that sway you into thinking they're going to come unstuck at the first sign of cold easterly winds or rainfall.

The windproof fabric Mavic has used here is seriously impressive at keeping out penetrating winds, while it's well backed up by the quality of the stitching, which has seemingly been cleverly positioned away from direct wind when sat either on the hoods or the drops.

Another key to warmth is circulation, and the fit and flexibility of the fabric is very much tailored to avoid any cutting into your hand webbing or restriction. Moreover, the 'Ergo Pad Ortholite' padding on the palms helps to reduce pressure points there, so blood supply is left unaffected.

I tend not to need to wear gloves for this purpose when riding, and its effectiveness will be dependent on the individual (a bit like saddles, to be honest), but the strategic placing of the 2mm-thick foam padding covers the three key areas of the hand traditionally subject to excess pressure.

This leads to a glove that is very comfortable to wear, made even more so by the fleece interior that runs right to the ends of the fingers. That adds a level of warmth that had me comfortable in temperatures reaching around an ambient 5-6°C (plus windchill), but it's not quite enough when a frost hits and you're dealing with stuff approaching zero. You can't have everything, though.

They aren't fully waterproof either, but in showery weather they're well up to the task with a DWR treatment that can handle light to moderate showers. Once again, heavier weather calls for slightly hardier gloves, but in anything that I'm likely to be willing to ride in this winter (voluntarily, anyway), they're absolutely fine.

Naturally, to preserve this treatment you're better off washing them with your techy outer garments, but the good news here at least is that the cuffs don't have Velcro, but a little stretchable insert that gives enough space to get your hand in, then produces a reasonable fit around your wrist (and jacket cuff) to keep out draughts.

The thumb and fore and middle fingers feature grippy nodules to provide extra grip, which is good when your shifters are wet, but these don't make the gloves touchscreen operable. To be honest, I'm over touchscreen pads in gloves now – even if you can operate it, I find you don't have the fidelity of touch to write a text anyway, so I'm not all that fussed by this omission.

You get soft nose-wipe panels on the backs of the thumbs, while the outside three fingers also feature reflective nodules on the tops for a little added visibility in tandem with the yellow Mavic branding. It's a slight shame that the big black branding couldn't have had some form of reflectivity to it too, but it's hardly the end of the world – to be honest, the gloves look sleek and smart and match nicely to whatever other kit I've been testing this autumn/winter season so far.

Coming in at £39, they're not all that expensive either for the performance they provide. Gore's comparable M Gore Windstoppers are three quid more, although Madison's excellent Avalanche gloves are £32.99. Mavic's own Ksyrium Pro Thermo gloves are designed to offer more protection, with a price tag of £70 reflecting that.

> Buyer's Guide: 21 of the best winter cycling gloves

These are the first mid-weight gloves that I've personally rated this highly since the Gore Element Urban Windstoppers that I reviewed almost three years ago. Those were £54.99 at time of writing too, which goes to show just how much ability Mavic has squeezed in here.

Verdict

For everything but the coldest weather, the Essential Thermo Gloves will see you through in comfort

If you want to change the wheels on your disc brake road bike, we have 12 pairs here ranging from under £300 to over £2,000.

Your stock wheels might have worn out, perhaps you want a second pair of wheels/tyres setup for a different kind of road surface, or maybe you just fancy an upgrade. The wheels shown here are the ones that have impressed road.cc reviewers most over the past couple of years. They've all scored at least eight out of 10 in testing so you can be sure that they're the real deal. 

Read everything you need to know about disc brakes 

If you're interested in any particular wheelset, we've included a link to our original review where you'll find all the details you need to make your buying decision. We've also included a link to help you find a local dealer for each brand, while clicking on the product name will take you direct to an online retailer.

Axle compatibility

Most rim brake wheels attach to your bike with quick release skewers, but things are more complicated in the disc brake world. Some disc brake bikes use quick releases and traditional-style open-ended dropouts, but others use thru axles. This is where the dropouts are closed, an axle passing into a hole on one side of the frame/fork, through the wheel hub and screwing into a threaded hole (usually) on the other side of the frame/fork.

Most of today's road bikes that use thru axles take 12x100mm at the front (the diameter is 12mm, the length is 100mm) and 12x142mm at the rear. However, some disc brake bikes take 15mm thru axles (or even 9mm thru axles) and some have a 135mm rear spacing, although this is uncommon. 

The same wheels can usually be made to fit different bikes through the use of axle adaptors. The Hunt Superdura Dynamo Disc Wheelset (below), for example, will work with both quick release skewers and 12mm thru axles (and less common configurations). 

Just make sure that you get the right adaptors in order to replace like with like.

Centerlock or 6-bolt?

There are two different standards for fixing disc brake rotors to wheels: Shimano's Centerlock and 6-bolt. If you have a preference for one system, make sure the wheels are compatible (or be prepared to buy an adaptor).

Shimano RX31 Wheelset £299.98

Shimano's RX31 wheelset is perfect for bikes that see a hard life, whether that be slogging along on the commute in all weathers, a bit of light touring, or even some gravel or cyclocross abuse. Our test wheelset proved to be pretty much bombproof and the bearings ran smooth and quiet no matter what we through at them. The build quality was good, the tension remaining high and even across bladed spokes, and the rims staying true. These are solid, dependable wheels at a good price.

Read our review
Find a Shimano dealer 

AlexRims CXD4 700C Disc TL Ready Centerlock Road Wheelset £339.99

The CXD4 is a mid-level alloy disc wheelset that weighs a reasonable 1,580g for its price. The rim is a tubeless-ready 23mm-deep alloy extrusion, sleeve-jointed for extra strength. Its 19mm width means you really want to be running at least a 28mm tyre, with anything up to a 50mm okay if it'll fit in your frame. The hubs have an alloy body and axle and sealed cartridge bearings: two in the front and four in the rear. 

On the road, the wheels feel stiff and solid and the bearings run smoothly. They can take a battering on rougher surfaces and still run true. They can handle a cyclocross race or a gravel event fine.

Read our review 
Find an AlexRims dealer 

Fulcrum Racing 5 Disc Brake Wheelset £349.99

The Racing 5 is a well-established general-purpose road wheelset that's a good choice for a first upgrade.

The wheels have 26mm deep rims that are 21.8mm wide, and these are now officially suitable for tubeless tyres. The hubs are quality affairs, as befits a sub-brand of Campagnolo, and the spokes are built with round, straight-pull spokes.

The Fulcrums are solidly built, reasonably stiff and generally easy to live with. Coming in at a decent weight (we weighed our review set at 1,640g), these are excellent wheels for the money.

Read our review
Find a Fulcrum dealer

Halo Evaura Uni 6D 700C Wheelset £370

These are well-made wheels that can be adapted for a variety of cycles and purposes. They work with both disc brakes and rim brakes and Halo has developed hub adapters for both conventional and offset cranks to allow any combination of axle length, chainstay length or crank offset. The rims are tubeless-ready, allowing a tubeless tyre to snap into place with a very satisfying crack. The ride quality is excellent, the weight modest and we found it impossible to provoke them into twisting or flexing.

Read our review 
Find a dealer 

BORG22 Disc Road/CX Tubular Tyre Disc Brake Wheelset £404.00

The BORG22 wheelset features 22mm-deep aluminium tubular rims and triple butted Sapim Force spokes laced onto Miche Syntium DX hubs. It's not a flashy package, but it bats well above its price tag – it's tough, fast and will suit riders looking for a brilliant road or cyclo-cross wheelset.

Although not light, these wheels are responsive while the aluminium rim and higher spoke count mean these put up a strong and robust performance. The hubs are unfussy and last very well. 

These wheels are built up to order in the UK so you can have the spoke tension tuned to suit your weight and riding requirements. 

Read our review 
Buy Borg wheels 

Hunt Superdura Dynamo Disc Wheelset £539.00

If you're looking at a dynamo system for your road bike then the SONdelux hub dynamo is pretty much the best out there for low resistance and weight, and it's renowned for great build quality which is matched by the rest of the components on these excellent Hunt tubeless ready wheels. Considering how much the dynamo costs on its own, the price is excellent too. They might be a bit much for the odd night ride, but if you rack up the miles after dark they're an investment worth considering.

These wheels put in a near-faultless performance. They're a must for your list if you're looking into dynamo power.

Read our review
Buy Hunt wheels 

Edco Optima Roches Disc Brake, Tubeless Ready Wheelset £550

Edco's Optima Roches are a tough set of wheels that are tubeless ready and compatible with SRAM, Campag 10/11 and Shimano 10/11-speed (yes, all of them). These wheels are built around Edco's own SuperG hubs, which are handmade in Edco's Swiss factory and guaranteed for a whopping eight years.

These are about as tough as they come, which is no mean feat for a pair of wheels that weigh 1,725g, have a low spoke count and spin up fast enough to enjoy sprints. Like a good wheel, they are stiff without rattling the fillings, making them perfect for any kind of riding that requires a fast wheel that will take a battering.

Read our review 
Find an Edco dealer 

Just Riding Along Gecko Carbon Wheelset £850.00

Just Riding Along's Gecko Carbon Wheels are impressive hoops that take on the constant knocks and vibrations the roughest gravel tracks can throw at them, while still being so light that they won't hamper your performance on the road. With a 1,400g weight (with the tubeless rim tape and valves fitted) and all the strength you could need, it's also pretty amazing that they come in at well under a grand.

Read our review
Buy Just Riding Along wheels 

Mavic Ksyrium Pro UST Disc £899

Mavic's Ksyrium range has always had a good reputation for offering decent performance whatever your type of riding, and these aluminium alloy Pro UST Disc models further confirm this with a solid build quality and plenty of stiffness, all at a decent weight.

We haven't just used these wheels on the road, we've taken them onto gravel bridleways, towpaths and other rough tracks and they can take a kicking without their trueness being affected. 

You can run the wheels tubeless with Mavic's own Yksion Pro UST tyres that come as part of the package. 

Read our review
Find a Mavic dealer 

Token Prime Ventous Carbon Disc Road Wheelset £1,099.99

This is an excellent full-carbon clincher wheelset. The build quality is high, they look great, perform really well and are pretty good value too. 

Smooth and quiet, they gain speed quickly and continue at pace whatever the gradient. The buttery bearings and stiff construction make for controlled descending, but the Tokens are at their best on flatter, faster rides when the aero profile helps you bowl along at a good speed. Rough sections of tarmac are dealt with easily too, the wheels absorbing a reasonable amount of buzz and feeling composed,

Tubeless rim tape is already installed if you want to run them with the appropriate tyres.

Read our review 
Find a Token dealer

Roval CLX 50 Disc Wheelset £1,850 

Fast, light and wide, these tubeless carbon wheels offer excellent performance. They're superbly fast in a straight line and maintain excellent momentum when you're really pushing hard on the pedals. The rounded rim profile provides exceptionally good stability with little sign of buffeting even in the strongest gusts.

They're also tough and dependable, easily shrugging off bad road surfaces. We smashed into potholes and rode them along gravel tracks during testing and they took all the punishment with no sign of loose spokes or going out of true.

Read our review 
Find a Roval dealer 

DT Swiss ERC 1100 Dicut DB Wheelset £2,069.98

These tubeless-ready carbon-fibre wheels are aimed at meeting the demands of endurance bikes, combining speed with stability and comfort.

A disc brake specific 47mm deep clincher rim is optimised for 25 to 28mm tyres with hubs based on DT's proven 240 design, but wrapped in a new aero shell and rolling on ceramic bearings.

These wheels aren't cheap but they do provide a fantastic aero performance that excels in a wide range of conditions with the durability you'd expect at this price.

Read our review 
Find a DT Swiss dealer 

Tubeless wheelsets have become way more common recently, particularly since more tubeless tyre options arrived on the scene, and here are some of the very best that we've reviewed for under a grand.

A tubeless system is basically a clincher tyre inflated onto a rim with no inner tube. Instead of an inner tube holding the air pressure, an airtight chamber is created with a tubeless-specific tyre, developed with a special (commonly carbon) bead, and a compatible rim. 

Check out our guide to the best tubeless tyres 

The main advantage is the substantially reduced risk of puncturing if you use liquid sealant inside the tyre. This sloshes around inside and reacts with air if the tyre casing is punctured, and plugs the hole. It can seal most small holes caused by flint or thorns and while you might suffer a small drop in pressure, you can continue riding.

Find out more reasons why you should consider switching to tubeless

If you want to go tubeless you need the right wheels, and here are 10 of the best, some for rim brakes and some for discs.

Clicking on the heading of each wheelset will take you to a dealer.

AlexRims CXD4 700C Disc TL Ready Centerlock Road £339.99 

The CXD4 is an excellent mid-level alloy disc wheelset that's available in 6-bolt or Centerlock configurations. Weighing in at a very reasonable 1,580g, it's a chunk lighter than stock wheels you'll find on most bikes under about £2,000.

The rim is a tubeless-ready 23mm alloy extrusion, sleeve-jointed for extra strength. The rim shape is asymmetric to better balance the spoke forces, with the same rim being used front and rear. At the front the spoke holes are offset away from the disc side, and at the rear they're offset towards it, as the freehub moves the hub flange in more than the disc does.

Both front and rear are built up with 24 round stainless steel spokes in a two-cross pattern. The hubs have an alloy body and axle and sealed cartridge bearings.

We had these wheels set up with 30mm Schwalbe G-One Speed tyres for the duration of testing. Getting them to seal wasn't a problem and we had no issues with the tyres losing air more than normal.

On the road the wheels feel nice and stiff, with no obvious flex either from sprint efforts or heavy cornering. The bearings run smoothly, and whipping the cassette off showed that there's not very much notching on the alloy freehub body.

Read our review
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Fulcrum Racing 5 Disc £349.99 

The Racing 5 is a well-established wheelset, available in both disc and rim brake (£299.99) configurations. It is a decent choice for a first upgrade.

Within the Racing range, the 5 is the general-purpose road wheelset. They're a reasonable weight for the money – we weighed them at 1,640g compared to a claimed 1,610g – which makes them competitive with similar-priced wheels from Hunt and Kinesis, and usefully lighter than Mavic's Ksyrium Disc wheelset.

The rims are asymmetric, which Fulcrum claims "improves rim tension, balancing the forces from brakes and sprocket cassette". If you're after more aero benefits, the similar-priced Racing 4 has a deeper rim, while the Racing 7 is now targeted at all-road use, with a wider rim profile and a higher weight.

The Racing 5 has a 26mm deep rim, which is 21mm wide – wider than wheels were traditionally but not as wide as some. Fulcrum says that it'll take tyres between 25mm and 50mm, making it an option for cyclo-cross too, although it is marketed primarily as a road wheelset. 

If you want to run these wheels tubeless you'll need to buy the necessary valves and rim tape because they're not included, which is a bit mean. The Racing 5s should be used only with certain Schwalbe tyres, according to Fulcrum. We can't tell you to ignore that advice... but we did and things worked out just fine. 

The hubs are quality affairs, as befits a sub-brand of Campagnolo. They've got sealed bearings and Campagnolo's signature way of reaching them, via a collar with a tiny pinch bolt. They come with various adaptors to suit different axles, from 15mm thru-axle down to a standard QR, and they can be swapped pretty easily as they're just retained with an o-ring friction fit.

The Fulcrums were solidly built, reasonably stiff and generally easy to live with. A lot of disc brake bikes around the £1,000-2,000 bracket will come with relatively heavy wheels as stock, often around 2kg; you'll see a lot of entirely serviceable but quite weighty wheels such as Mavic Aksiums, own-brand hubs with Alex rims and so on. Switching to something lighter like this can save 400-500g; that won't transform the bike, but is enough that you'll notice the difference.

Read our review
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Edco Optima Roches £400

Edco's Optima Roches are a tough set of tubeless-ready wheels that are built around Edco's own SuperG hubs. These hubs are guaranteed for a whopping eight years (the other components get a two-year guarantee), a strong hint at Edco's confidence in their durability. They use radial stainless ball bearings and are laced to the alloy rims with 20 Sapim Race double butted spokes on the front and 24 at the rear. You'll need Centerlock disc brake rotors for stopping.

That rear hub has Edco's own MultiSys cassette hub body, making it compatible with both Campagnolo and Shimano/SRAM cassettes. The hub body also has a hardened steel inlay to protect the aluminium body from being eaten by the sprockets. 

The rims are wider (24mm) than they are high (22mm), making them bang on the bigger tyres trend. Edco recommends using 25mm tyres. Although the rims are tubeless ready, we found that a bit of perseverance was needed to get them set up, 

The Optima Roches stayed perfectly true during testing, despite the fact that we loaded them up for touring over Edco's 110kg maximum weight limit.

These really are about as tough as they come, which is no mean feat for a pair of wheels that weigh 1,725g, have a low spoke count and spin up fast enough to enjoy sprints. They are stiff without rattling the fillings, making them perfect for any kind of riding that requires a fast wheel that will take a battering. Tubes and tyres come as part of the package, and the quick releases are really nice too! 

Read our review
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Mavic Ksyrium Elite UST £539.00 

The Ksyrium Elite, Mavic's highly dependable all-rounder, became tubeless in 2018 with the French company's UST system, like much of the range. The wheels are lightweight and durable and are still great to ride whether you are racing or tackling the club run, with a little bit of future proofing. 

At 1,532g without tyres the Ksyrium Elite UST wheelset is light enough to be exciting on the climbs or under acceleration, and their stiffness certainly backs that up; you won't get any flex or brake rub here.

You get Yksion Pro UST tyres as part of the package, and they offer loads of grip. Mavic claims that its road UST tubeless system is different from other tubeless systems in that the wheel and tyre are designed together and there's tight control over production variances. Inflation was smooth and simple with the Yksions sitting snuggly against the rim with just the use of a standard track pump, and there were no leaks of sealant anywhere.

If you want a set of wheels to tackle a bit of everything, then the Ksyrium Elites are hard to fault. While you can get cheaper, this is a solid package that'll give you real peace of mind.

The disc version of this wheelset is priced £585.00.

Read our review
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Ritchey Classic Zeta wheelset £569.00

Ritchey has managed to build a tough yet lightweight package with its Classic Zeta wheels and they look the part too with their highly polished silver finish. Whether on smooth tarmac, broken back lane or potholed byway, they roll quickly and aren't shy of taking a knock or two.

What you get here is a pair of 6061 aluminium alloy rims, Phantom Flange hubs connected by DT Competition j-bend spokes and an all-in weight of 1,491g.

The rims have an external width of around 22mm which makes them more suited to larger tyres like 28mm or even Ritchey's own 30mm-wide WCS Alpine JBs, which were used for a lot of the test miles.

Fitting tyres to them is simple: we tried a few brands out and none was a struggle or faff to fit.

Ritchey has specced these Zetas for road, cyclo-cross and light adventure use. Whacking a pothole is pretty much inevitable these days and we smashed through a few on the Ritcheys without issue; they still ran true. They also saw some pretty hard miles on various sizes of gravel, from the small stuff through to bigger, rockier sections. Again, not a single complaint.

Thanks to their low weight, the Zetas perform across the board. Acceleration and climbing feel great as the wheels are just so quick to spin up to speed, and once up there they roll extremely well.

They're comfortable, too, as the handbuilt setup leaves enough give in the spoke tension to keep the wheels stiff for those hard efforts without being an overly harsh ride.

Overall, the Ritcheys are a very good showcase for getting what you pay for, with a great all-round feel of quality, durability and performance. These igh-performance wheels that are just as at home on your race machine as they are on your gravel hack.

Read our review 
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Vision TriMax 30 KB £652.00

Vision's TriMax 30 KB tubeless-ready wheels are built to last, look great and stay that way thanks to a clever surface treatment. Weight-weenies might find them a shade heavy (we weighed them at 1,570g), but that's far less important than durability and reliability.

They arrived straight and true, and the spoke tension was decent, helping them stay that way. They're laterally stiff enough that we couldn't get them to rub on the brakes, even with the pads positioned close to the rim. They're unaffected by sidewinds because they'

re only 30mm deep, enough to give them a slight aero advantage over old-school square rims, but not enough to affect handling when it's windy. 

Out on the road, the TriMax 30s spin up easily and roll well, and the lateral stiffness of the wide rims – the internal width is 19mm – helps them stay on line in corners. It also bigs up your tyres. Our 25mm tyres ended up more like 27mm across, so we could run a little less pressure for more grip and better cushioning.

Braking is smooth and very powerful thanks to the machined sidewalls and oxide coating which increases friction with the brake pads. This is especially noticeable in the wet.

These are great wheels on a number of fronts: looks, build quality, stiffness, braking, durability and general practicality. They're perhaps overkill if you're a 60kg racing snake, but for those who aren't exactly svelte, the extra beef is very welcome.

Read our review 
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DT Swiss PR 1400 Dicut 21 OXiC £849.98 

These wheels feature a ceramic coated rim surface that provides reassuring braking performance in a range of conditions, making them ideal for year-round cycling in the UK.

We rode these wheels for several months in everything from glorious sunshine to freezing rain and everything in between, and they were excellent regardless of the weather.

Braking performance using the supplied brake blocks is very good in dry conditions and is similar to any good aluminium rim. The rims really start to make a case for themselves in rain, mud and grit-coated surfaces, the OXiC coating becoming a benefit with powerful, predictable, and consistent braking.

The other big benefit of a ceramic coating is a rim that is much more durable. Ceramic-coated rims should last for years.

The rims are laced with straight-pull DT aero comp spokes to DT's own hubs with star ratchet internals. They weigh just 1,500g – a little over the claimed 1,472g. Measuring 18mm internally and 22mm externally, they're not as wide as the widest rims currently available, but wider than traditional rims.

DT supplies the sealant and valves you need for running the wheels tubeless, and we found the setup easy. 

The hubs feature very wide flanges, intended to increase wheel stiffness, and spin on 240 internals. They are well proven and popular in many aftermarket hubs. The 36-tooth ratchet system in the rear hubs provides very swift engagement when you stamp on the pedals. 

These wheels are stiff and responsive, with no give or flex when putting the power down in a sprint or steep climb. The low weight puts many carbon wheels to shame and while they are pricey for an aluminium wheelset, they are a snip compared with most carbon wheels of comparable weight and performance.

For year-round racing, training and just riding, these are excellent wheels with highly impressive braking in all conditions. The appearance, build quality and attention to detail is first class, as is the durability.

Read our review 
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Just Riding Along Gecko Carbon £850.00 

The Just Riding Along (JRA) Gecko Carbon wheelset is very impressive, designed to take on the constant knocks and vibrations the roughest gravel tracks can throw at them, while being so light (1,400g) that they won't hamper your performance on the road. It's also pretty amazing that they come in at well under a grand.

The Geckos are solid. We couldn't detect any feeling of flex on steep, short, sharp climbs, whether on the road or when scrabbling about on loose, large gravel.

The wheels took some big knocks during testing, and while sometimes the noise could be pretty scary, on inspection they had come away completely unscathed, remaining as true as they were out of the box.

The Geckos are built to order and the spoke tension is even throughout. They are comfortable as well, even 25mm tyres pumped up hard never giving a harsh ride.

The full carbon rims have an external width of 27mm and 21mm internal, meaning that tyres tend to size up a little bigger than their sidewall suggests.

JRA has specced Bitex hubs on the Geckos and they are a lovely piece of kit, spinning smoothly and freely.

Overall, the Geckos are excellent wheels for gravel use without being too overbuilt to stop them offering a great performance on the road.

Read our review 
Buy from Just Riding Along

BORG50C Carbon Clincher wheelset £910.00 

The BORG50C carbon clincher aero wheels are a sharply priced tubeless-ready option for going fast. Handling well in crosswinds and with an industry-leading lifetime warranty, for the money these are a serious contender for Best Starter Bling Hoops Deal Going.

When the wheels arrived at road.cc they were already shod with IRC's Formula Pro RBCC Tubeless tyres, valves and sealant – that's £910 all-inclusive. The full combo weighed in at 2,520g. Borg sells the BORG50C for £800 naked, which is a very good price for the rounded weight/performance/warranty package.

Malcolm Borg builds his wheels in Suffolk with great attention to detail. Borg promises to replace anything that's failed – rim, spoke or hub – due to a manufacturing defect for the entire life of the wheelset. If you crash them, Borg will repair for the cost of parts only – the labour's free.

Borg has gone for nice Miche Primato Syntesi hubs, with a micro-adjustment ring to take up any play. The rim measures 26.1mm at the aero bulge, and with the 25mm IRC Formula Pro tubeless measuring 23.9mm, there's a definite aero profile going on front to back.

We found it difficult to get some tubeless tyres onto the rim and you need to have a good compressor setup to hand.

The usual concern around 50mm rims is buffeting, but these wheels never got out of hand even when we rode them in strong (20mph+) sidewinds.

during the review period. My rim-braked test frame is a Velocity Selene, a fairly agile responder and therefore commensurately susceptible to external influences.

All in all, for £800 plus tyres of your choice, tubeless-ready and with a best-of-breed warranty and repair service, the BORG50C wheelset is a cracking choice and should be a serious contender for your cash.

Read our review 
Buy from The Cycle Clinic 

Hunt 30 Carbon Gravel Disc Wheelset £999

The 30 Carbon Gravel wheels use a disc brake-only rim design. They're built from unidirectional T24/30 carbon and are 30mm deep and notably lighter than most wide aluminium rims at a claimed 370g. Using carbon helps, obviously, but Hunt has also saved weight thanks to the absence of a brake track and bead hooks. 

At 26.6mm externally, and 21.3mm internally, these are wide rims, as befits their intended use, and Hunt says they're suitable for use with tyres from 25mm to 50mm, making them an option for a really broad range of riding.

A healthy 24-spokes at the front and 28 spokes at the rear, laced 2-cross, makes for a really strong, stiff build. Hunt gives a rider weight limit of 115kg for these wheels, and they've shrugged off everything we threw at them, including bridleways, towpath commuting, and touring with panniers on some pretty appalling roads. 

The 30 Carbon Gravel wheels are supplied taped and with tubeless valves included. Unlike the majority of road tubeless rims, there are no pronounced bead hooks, just small ridges to keep the tyre beads locked in position. Getting the tyre over the bead hooks is normally the fiddly part of inflating a tubeless tyre, but it's easy here with no bead hooks to get in the way. Using just a track pump, they were sealed within three pump strokes, and needed only a few more strokes to get them fully seated.

The hubs are based on those used in Hunt's 4season disc wheelset with uprated shielding and sealing on the EZO bearings to cope with off-road grot and the occasional jetwash. 

It's really hard to find fault with these wheels. Light, wide, rugged and dependable, with genuinely easy tubeless setup, they're exactly what you want from a gravel wheelset. Carbon rims and disc brakes is a great combination, too. If you're in the market for a posh set of wheels for your gravel bike, these are a great option. Hunt has set a benchmark with these superb wheels.

Read our review
Buy from Hunt 

Tubeless wheelsets have become way more popular recently, thanks especially to the growing number of tubeless tyres out there these days, and here are some of the best that we've reviewed for over a grand.

Check out 10 of the best tubeless wheelsets for under £1,000

A tubeless system is essentially a clincher tyre inflated onto a rim without an inner tube. Instead, an airtight chamber is created with a tubeless-specific tyre, developed with a special bead and a compatible rim. 

One big advantage is the substantially reduced risk of puncturing, as long as you use liquid sealant inside the tyre and keep it topped up. If the tyre is punctured, the sealant plugs the hole. The tyre might suffer a small drop in pressure if you puncture, but the sealant will deal with most small holes caused by flint and thorns, allowing you to keep riding.

If you want to go tubeless you need the right wheels, and here are 10 of the best, some for rim brakes and some for discs. They've all been awarded an overall of score of at least 8 out of 10 in road.cc reviews.

Clicking on the name of each wheelset will take you to a dealer.

Hunt 30 Carbon Dynamo Disc £1,059 

These Carbon 30 Disc Dynamo wheels are excellent. The rim is 30mm deep, made from unidirectional T24/30 carbon fibre with the spoke holes reinforced with a 3K weave. It's a reasonably wide profile, with a 27mm external width and a 21mm internal profile. 

The wheels came with tubeless rim tape fitted, and a hole for the valve. Fitting Schwalbe G-One Speeds was easy. Our review pair came tightly built and true, and they stayed that way during testing. With 28 spokes front and rear they're built for bikepacking and ultra-distance rather than fully loaded touring; Hunt recommends a 115kg limit for rider and luggage. 

The SON Delux dynamo is specifically designed for road riding. It weighs just 395g and when turned off generates just 0.4W of drag, barely more than a standard front hub. The efficiency is rated at 65%, and the dynamo outputs 3W of power at 20km/h, so to power your lights or your USB charger you can expect to be putting less than 5W into the system. We used the dynamo with a Busch & Muller IQ-X front light and a Supernova E3 rear, getting easily enough power to light the way. 

At the rear Hunt is using its 4Season Disc hub that has extra shielding for the EZO cartridge bearings inside. Both front and rear hubs use standard J-bend spokes which should be fairly easy to find a replacement for if you pop one out on tour. The wheels come with two spares of each length to take with you too, plus a spoke key, 6-bolt adaptors for the Centerlock disc mounts, tubeless rim tape (fitted) and tubeless valves.

Overall these wheels are excellent. They're light and well built, the front dynamo is as good as they come for road riding and the rear hub has been great too. They're sensibly built, come with spares, and are set up for the long haul. 

Read our review 
Buy from Hunt 

Reynolds ATR X 650B £1,105 

The original ATR rim was a chunky affair, and this design (called the ATR 2 when we reviewed it, but having since be renamed) is even wider: 23mm internally and 32mm externally, with a depth of 40mm. The bulbous profile follows the developments in aero wheel technology that are pushing towards increasingly toroidal designs, but Reynolds doesn't make any particular aero claims for this wheelset.

You get 24 spokes front and rear; that's not much for an all-purpose wheelset like this, but one of the main benefits of a carbon rim is that it's laterally stiffer for the same weight, meaning that the spoke count can be reduced.

If you're heading off to terrain that's more challenging, especially with a loaded bike, then carbon does still have advantages over alloy for its impact resistance. 

These ATR wheels were easy to set up tubeless. Ours came fitted with rim tape and were supplied with valves. The 40mm Schwalbe G-Ones went up first time; bigger tyres that were a baggier fit required a couple of extra wraps of tape to tighten things up, but we got them sealed just fine.

Our test wheels came fitted a Shimano 11-speed freehub. You can also have an XD driver if you want a wider cassette, or a Campagnolo freehub. 

The disc mount is Centerlock and these wheels come set up with 12mm axles front and rear. You can run the front as a 15mm axle; those end caps come with the wheels. If you want to run quick releases then QR end caps are available separately.

We had a very positive experience with these wheels. As a 650B wheelset, they're not necessarily overpriced considering the materials and build quality (and lifetime warranty), but you might question whether, for riding on the road with big tyres, a carbon rim has enough of a benefit over alloy to justify the inevitable price difference. It'll depend on what you're planning. If your riding takes you to genuinely technical terrain, or you're riding a loaded bike, or both, the extra stiffness and impact resistance of a carbon rim will be useful. If you're looking for more comfort on the road then the performance is great, but the price hike less justified.

Read our review
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Fast Forward F4R FCC Tubeless DT 350 £1,159.99

These Fast Forward F4R FCC Tubeless Ready wheels are seriously good for their price tag. They're stable in strong winds, quick to spin up to speed and also quick to stop. What's more, you get great hubs and high-end pads. It's a great package.

This full carbon wheelset comes in at a very respectable 1,450g. The rims are 26mm wide externally, laced to the brilliant DT Swiss 350 hubs with DT Aerolite spokes.

Those hubs are pretty bombproof. While these wheels were used in mostly dry conditions, we've had these hubs on wheels that have seen some horrendous weather; they're solid and don't require much attention. While we're on reliability, we had zero spoke tension issues even after a few big hits in races.

At 45mm deep, these strike a great balance between speed, quick acceleration and handling. They don't pick up strong winds which is probably down to the blunt profile at the leading and trailing edges. 

One of the attractions of this set of wheels is what you get for your money. They come in a well-padded double wheel bag with a zippered storage compartment containing brake pads and skewers. You also get a set of tubeless valves.

Read our review
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Giant SLR 0 42mm £1,379.48 

The Giant SLR 0 42mm wheels are an ideal all-round go-faster set of hoops. The rims are wide, feel fast and handle well. The hubs are simple to service, quiet and robust. They performed excellently during testing in my mix of hilly races, flat criteriums and general riding with good braking and stability in crosswinds. 

The 42mm-deep full-carbon rims are tubeless ready and the spokes are DT Aerolites – straight-pull with internal nipples. This gives a very clean build, although one that isn't so easy for maintenance. Not that it will matter, for a while at least, as the wheels were perfectly straight out of the box and remained that way.

The hubs are Giant branded, with DT Swiss 240 internals. This is a great balance between performance and reliability with easy maintenance.

We didn't find these wheels hard to handle in windy conditions. In fact, they felt very stable. The wheels also feel zippy when climbing thanks to the respectable weight: 629g front and 791g rear, giving a total of 1,420g. Weight isn't everything, though. We were also impressed with the lateral stiffness. 

Overall, we were impressed with these Giant wheels because they're a great option if you want one wheelset for racing and general riding. 

Read our review 
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DT Swiss PRC 1400 Spline 65 £1,120.00

The DT Swiss PRC 1400 Spline clincher wheels have deep section 65mm rims for aerodynamic efficiency, they're well made and come with excellent internals.

The rim is a NACA shape with a fairly blunt profile, although the PRCs are in no way bulbous like Zipps, for example. The PRCs can be a little hard to handle on some gusty, blustery days, but this is rare – and not much different from any other wheels of a similar depth. 

The PRC wheels use DT Swiss's well-respected 240 hubs. The freehub features a ratchet system (rather than standard pawls). Springs push two 36-tooth star ratchets together to engage when you pedal, all of the teeth engaging at the same time in just 10 degrees. This system works really well and durability is excellent.

The wheels feel stiff in use, so you can set your brake pads very close to the rim without danger of rubbing when you corner hard or ride out of the saddle.

Braking in dry conditions is good – progressive without any grabbing – and braking in the wet, although not exceptional, is sure and confident. 

You get tubeless tape and tubeless valves as part of the package (along with RWS Steel quick releases and SwissStop Black Prince brake pads). Setting them up tubeless is easy enough. 

You are getting some seriously good wheels for your money here. Granted, these don't offer quite the aero performance of DT Swiss's ARC 1100 Dicut wheels but the PRCs feature excellent components, they're stiff, braking is good and, for their depth, they feel pretty stable in most conditions. This is a reliable high-performance wheelset that puts in a great performance in a variety of conditions.

Read our review 
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Roval CLX 50 Disc £1,850

Fast, light and wide, these tubeless carbon disc brake wheels offer excellent performance.

The aim for the new Roval CLX 50 was to marry the aero performance of the deeper section CLX 64 with the lightness of the shallower CLX 32. At 1,415g with a 50mm-deep rim and disc brake hubs, they appear to have achieved that objective. This is a very attractive weight in a hugely competitive wheel market. 

It's a full carbon fibre construction, tubeless ready and available in disc or rim brake versions, with a wide and bulbous profile rim. Internal rim width is 20.7mm, external is 29.4mm, ensuring wider tyres are happily accommodated; between 22 and 47mm can be used. 

The clincher rims are tubeless-ready, using a hookless bead design that is favoured by a few other wheel brands, and claimed to provide a stronger rim with less weight.

At the centre of the wheels are new hubs designed to minimise drag. That accounts for the smooth shape. Inside the hubs are DT Swiss 240 internals with upgraded CeramicSpeed bearings. DT Swiss also supplies the Aerolite spokes.

These wheels are superbly fast in a straight line and maintain excellent momentum when you're really pushing hard on the pedals. They're also tough and dependable. They easily shrug off bad road surfaces; we've smashed into potholes and ridden them along gravel tracks and they've taken all the punishment with no sign of loose spokes or going out of true.

They're smooth and comfortable for a deep-section wheelset, something you really appreciate when riding along a washboard or chattery surface, where the rapid vibrations can easily unsettle an otherwise smooth ride, and especially if you head off onto gravel or dirt roads. 

The Rovals handle winds superbly. The rounded rim profile provides exceptionally good stability with little sign of buffeting even in the strongest gusts.

Read our review 
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Mavic Cosmic Pro Carbon SL UST £1,899.00 

Mavic's Cosmic Pro Carbon SL UST wheels make tubeless technology truly nothing to fear, with all the benefits attached. These are very capable performance all-rounders.

Compared to the previous model, these wheels come with a re-engineered, deeper rim bed with an additional lip to create a secure tubeless seal, and specially designed Yksion Pro tyres to fit this new design.

The rim has an external width of 25mm rim, an internal width of 17mm and a 40mm depth, with a NACA-inspired profile. The excellent iTgMax laser brake track treatment improves the braking performance.

These wheels excel in pretty much any conditions – including gusty winds, where they stay remarkably stable. On climbs they're stiff as you like and they'll slice through valley headwinds.

Although not quite the performance-value proposition they used to be back when they were clinchers, Mavic's Cosmic Pro Carbon SL USTs are still competitive, while boasting arguably the easiest-to-install tubeless interface around.

Read our review
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Bontrager Aeolus XXX 4 TLR Clincher Road £1,999.98

Bontrager's Aeolus XXX 4 TLR clincher wheels are stiff, lightweight and steady in use and offer good braking in both wet and dry conditions. This is a great all-round aero wheelset that's suitable for a wide variety of conditions.

The rim shape is completely new, developed using CFD (computational fluid dynamics) software and wind tunnel testing. The external width at the brake track is 27mm while the internal width is to 21mm, offering plenty of support for the 25mm tyres for which these wheels are optimised. Bontrager says that the Aeolus XXX 4 has lower drag than the Zipp 303 NSW at all yaw angles from 0-17.5°, with the Zipp slightly lower at 20°.

The wheelset is lightweight considering the rim depth, ours coming in at 1,420g for the pair. The focus here is more on aerodynamics, but you're never going to turn down a saving.

The Aeolus XXX 4 TLRs are stiff and stable. Crosswinds do have an effect, but it's not massive considering the 47mm rim depth and there's none of that twitchiness that you get with some aero rims.  The Aeolus XXX 4 TLRs have behaved well on super-windy rides recently. Crosswinds do have an effect, of course, but it's not massive considering the 47mm rim depth and, even more important to my mind, the wheels behave predictably. There's none of that twitchiness that you get with some.

Bontrager has introduced a new feature to the rim brake versions of its Aeolus XXX wheels called a Laser Control Track. Automated laser machining 'roughens the brake track to an optimised level that maximises braking performance when used with SwissStop Black Prince pads (which come as part of the package). Braking performance is noticeably better than before, especially in wet conditions.

All of Bontrager's XXX models are tubeless-ready, coming with the necessary rim strips, valve stems and sealant refill kit.

Read our review
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Knight 35 Tubeless £2,000.00

The Knight 35 wheels are fast; they are also stiff, reliable and stable. 

The 35s come with DT Swiss 240 hubs, which are brilliant. With cartridge bearings and easy servicing, they should last for ages. 

Spokes are Sapim's CX Rays. One thing that slightly annoyed our reviewer was the use of internal nipples. Yes, it looks clean but should you ping these out of true thanks to a pothole, it's more of a hassle to get them straight again.

Although the wheelset isn't superlight – ours came in at 1,590g with rim tape and skewers installed – the weight is still pretty low, and translates to a nippy feel. It's very easy to get these wheels up to speed and then increase that speed, especially when climbing. 

The 35s are the shallowest section wheels that Knight offers. The rim profile is somewhere between a 'V' shape and a 'U'. This gives the rim an external width of 25mm, sitting very nicely with wider tyres. 

The brake track is engineered with a 3mm brake surface for improved heat dissipation in an attempt by Knight to combat brake fade and even blow-outs on long descents. The braking is smooth and consistent. While stopping still isn't as good as aluminium rims, there is room for improvement in the form of softer brake pads; those supplied are quite hard. That does mean they'll last quite a while, but we were quick to swap in a softer pad for better power.

Overall, the Knight 35s offer a very good package for a shallow carbon clincher. 

Read our review 
Buy from Sigma Sport 

Edco Brocon Disc £2,900

The new Edco Brocon Disc Brake wheelset pushes the boundaries when it comes to the design and use of carbon fibre pretty much throughout. The wheels are light, strong and offer a wonderful ride feel, but you do have to pay nearly three grand for them.

For the Brocons' construction, Edco has used a 10k carbon weave design rather than a uni-directional one (woven, rather than all the fibres travel in one direction), saying that the higher shield strength of the woven material increases the impact strength. It's certainly a strong set of wheels and they feel absolutely solid.

The Brocons are based around 28mm-deep, tubeless-ready carbon rims, which means they are more of an 'all-rounder' than a deeper pure race wheel, although that does keep the weight down. (Ignore the name on the rim – we were sent an early set, incorrectly labelled.)

The pair weigh just 1,500g including the supplied tubeless rim tape, which is pretty impressive for a disc brake wheelset. With an inner rim width of just 17mm, Edco recommends tyres only up to 28mm wide.

What really sets the Brocons apart from most other wheels is the use of carbon fibre for the spokes that are easily adjusted or replaced. The hubs are aluminium alloy with NBK bearings and water resistant o-rings.

The Brocons are very stiff with is absolutely no feeling of lateral flex when you are giving it everything in a sprint or on a climb. This stiffness doesn't translate to harshness, though, as the carbon fibre spokes give a plush ride taking out any road buzz.

The Edcos are solid and feel very strong, standing up to all the abuse we threw at them and remaining true throughout. The hubs feel very smooth and the freehub pawl engagement is brilliantly quick.

These are very good wheels and although the price is high because of the technology and materials, it's not necessarily excessive for what you are getting.

Read our review
Find an Edco dealer 

• One of the most popular upgrades, better wheels (and tyres) can dramatically improve your bike’s ride.

• Stock wheels are often heavy and of mediocre quality — upgrading can reduce weight and improve reliability.

• If you want to go faster, choose wheels with deep-section rims; aerodynamics is far more important than weight.

• You’ve a choice of clinchers, tubulars or tubeless, with matching tyres; each system has pros and cons.

• Wheels benefit from the human touch; the best handbuilt wheels are still superior to wheels built entirely by machine.

Upgrading the wheels is one of the first changes many people make to their bikes. Why are wheels so important and how do you choose a better set of hoops?

It's one of the bike industry's guilty secrets: the wheels on even quite pricey road bikes are often a bit ordinary. That means upgrading your wheels can make a big difference to the feel and performance of your bike.

There are several reasons why you might want better wheels. If you're doing a lot of commuting on bad roads (the potholed streets of just about any UK major city for example) you might want a set of beefy wheels for weekday riding, and to switch to something lighter or more aerodynamic for the weekend.

Or you might have decided to keep the run-of-the-mill wheels your bike came with for training and to fit better-performance wheels for sunny days and important events.

>> Read more: All wheel reviews on road.cc

Wheel construction

The basics of wheel construction haven't changed in decades because, quite simply, they work extraordinarily well. A bike wheel can carry hundreds of times its own weight; pretty remarkable structural efficiency.

Your basic tension-spoked wheel consists of a hub that houses bearings so the whole thing can turn easily, a rim for the tyre to sit on and steel spokes under tension that hold it all together.

The tension in the spokes is the vital factor. When you load a wheel, the tension goes down in the spokes between the hub and the ground. As long as it never hits zero, the wheel can support you and your bike.

Nevertheless, wheels have evolved in the last couple of decades, and now usually have fewer spokes and deeper rims, both changes that improve aerodynamics. The spokes themselves may be flattened to better cut through the air too.

Perhaps the biggest change is the use of carbon fiber for rims. That's made possible deep, highly aerodynamic rims with minimal weight penalty. Carbon wheels are still more expensive than wheels with aluminium rims, but prices have been steadily decreasing for the last few years.

Tubulars, clinchers and tubeless

In terms of how tyres mount, there are three types of wheel rim. Rims for tubular tyres — which have the inner tube sewn into the carcass — have a shallow dip where the tyre is glued on. These are the lightest rims, and tubular fans say their soft floaty ride is unparalleled. However, for the vast majority of people the faff of gluing, and the difficulty of fixing a punctured tubular makes them too much hassle.

Clincher or wire-on rims have raised sidewalls with a hook where the tyre bead engages, and the tyre has a separate inner tube. In other words, this is the standard bike rim and tyre we all know and love. Fixing a flat is a simple matter of changing the tube and swapping tyres just requires tyre levers and a pump.

Tubeless tyres are a special case of clinchers. Tyre and rim are manufactured to precise tolerances to enable an airtight seal. The rim has no holes and the tyre is coated internally with rubber so there's no need for an inner tube. Some manufacturers forego the rubber coating and base their tubeless systems around use of sealant. That has the advantage of making them more resistant to penetration punctures, in addition to their natural resistance to pinch punctures.

Weight vs Aerodynamics

If performance is your aim, there's strong evidence that you should put more priority on aerodynamics than weight. Way back in 2001 bike engineer Kraig Willett analysed the forces on wheels and concluded:

"When evaluating wheel performance, wheel aerodynamics are the most important, distantly followed by wheel mass. Wheel inertia effects in all cases are so small that they are arguably insignificant."

That goes against the long-standing conventional wisdom that wheel weight is vitally important to performance because wheels have to be spun up to speed as well as moved along the road.

But you don't do much accelerating when you ride a bike, and even when you do the speed changes involved are relatively gradual. That means you spend most of your time, and therefore effort, simply shoving the air out of the way, and you should choose wheels accordingly.

Pro teams have drawn similar conclusions, which is why you now see far more deep-section wheels in the peloton than you did even ten years ago. Aero wheels are free speed in a breakaway or sprint.

The big disadvantage of deep-section wheels is the effect of crosswinds, which can blow you off track. Some wheels are less affected than others. Zipp's Firecrest shape is widely considered to be among the least problematic thanks to its bulged sidewalls, and most wheelmakers now offer something similar.

Rim width

Just as tyres have become a bit wider in recent years, with the previously ubiquitous 23mm size giving away to 25, 26 and even 28mm tyres, so rims have spread out too. All other things being equal, a wider rim makes for a stiffer, stronger wheel and also makes the tyre effectively a bit fatter.

Wider rims are also claimed to be more aerodynamic because air flows more smoothly between tyre and rim if they are about the same size. Wheel maker Mavic has taken this to its logical conclusion with its CX01 Blades, plastic fairings that fill the groove between its Yksion CXR tyre and Cosmic CXR wheel. The UCI won't let pros use them, but that doesn't affect triathletes and UK time trial riders.

Can we build it?

Wheelbuilding (CC BY-NC-ND Cory Grunkemeyer:Flickr)

If you want your wheels to be durable, then how they were built is just as important as the components that went into them. For wheels to be durable, the tension needs to be high and even. If it's not high then spokes can come loose as you ride because the tension can drop to zero under load. If the tension is not even then the wheel is unlikely to stay round and true, even if it's that way out of the box.

A step in the wheel-building process called 'stress-relieving' also improves wheel longevity by preventing fatigue failure at the spoke heads. If your relatively new wheels start breaking spokes it's a good bet they weren't stress-relieved properly when they were built.

Most wheels these days are built by machines. It's possible to set up wheel building machines to get all of these things right, or very nearly right, but sometimes factories take short-cuts, especially when the objective is to build inexpensive wheels. The less time each wheel spends in the machine, the more wheels the factory can build.

Spokes (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Jon Bowen:Flickr)

That's why cheap machine-built wheels have a poor reputation, but if a wheel builder doesn't know what he or she is doing, humans can build poor wheels too. The most efficient way of mass-producing high-quality wheels seems to be to let machines quickly do the spadework and then finish them by hand, as Joe Graney found when Santa Cruz decided to build its own wheels.

Alternatively, you can get top-quality wheels that have been built by hand from start to finish, either off-the-peg or custom built. Barnoldswick parts-meisters Hope have been making well-regarded wheels for years, including road wheels, while Hunt Bike Wheels is a new entrant in the field. You'll find wheels built by several others in the selection below.

If you want something truly special, a wheelbuilder who really knows their stuff can help you choose exactly the right combination of hubs, rims and spokes for your needs. The doyen of this approach in the UK is probably Liverpool's Pete Matthews whose resume includes building wheels for Tour de France King of the Mountains Robert Millar, legendary rouleur Sean Yates and comedian Alexei Sayle. Many good bike shops have a similar if less storied figure lurking in the workshop, quietly crafting wheels that last until the rim sidewalls wear out.

Names to look for

The major wheel brands nevertheless produce good wheels, by and large. Riders report thousands of happy miles on wheels by Mavic, Bontrager, Shimano, Reynolds, Zipp, DT Swiss and many others. Here are some of our favourite wheels from the last couple of years.

The best road bike wheels

Pacenti Forza-C — £899.99

The Pacenti Forza-C 30mm Disc Clincher wheels are a new design from the ground up and they are absolutely lovely. You can feel the quality of the build as soon as you start riding, and their stiffness is impressive considering their very svelte 1,378g weight. Pacenti hasn't even stung you on the price either.

Pacenti builds these wheels by hand in the UK and it shows – not necessarily the UK bit, but definitely the handbuilt part. The wheels feel tight and stiff, but the spoke tension allows enough comfort through to take out any harshness.

Read our review of the Pacenti Forza-C

Parcours Grimpeur Disc — £819

The latest Parcours Grimpeur Disc wheels are light enough to excel on the tarmac while being so tough that you can smash them over rocks and tree roots with little concern for their wellbeing. They won't break the bank either.

We've been seeing some brilliant, lightweight carbon fibre disc wheels coming through the office lately, and these Grimpeur Discs are some of the best.

Read our review of the Parcours Grimpeur Disc

Prime BlackEdition 50 Carbon — £799.99 (currently out of stock)

Prime's BlackEdition 50 Carbon wheels vastly outperform their price-tag, with stable rims, great braking, smooth hubs and easy tubeless setup. The rims are designed to work best with wider tyres. The 19mm internal width allows the tyre to be nice and fat and our tester was very happy running these at around 55psi, especially with 28mm tyres. The 27.5mm external width, in theory, creates a wind-cheating profile. Until we get a wind tunnel, all we can say is that these didn't hold us back. On the flat, they hold speed easily and glide over poor surfaces.

Read our review of the Prime BlackEdition 50 Carbon wheels

Just Riding Along Lark Light — £414.80

The Lark Light Road wheels from UK brand JRA (Just Riding Along) certainly live up to their name, weighing just 1,460g for the set. They're very responsive and JRA hasn't sacrificed durability to save the grams either. It's the perfect package for the rider who wants a classically styled, lightweight set of wheels for racing or training.

Losing 250g from a wheelset always seems to make much more of a difference to how the weight of the bike feels compared with dropping the same amount elsewhere, so swapping to the Larks from a set of winter rims made impressive differences to acceleration and climbing.

The JRA Light Road hubs run very, very smoothly on their stainless bearings and the pick-up on the freewheel is fast and precise, which all adds to effortless rolling whether on the flat or rolling terrain.

Read our review of the Just Riding Along Lark Light wheels

Pacenti Forza — £350

Pacenti has delivered an excellent product with its Forza Rim Brake wheelset, marrying an impressive weight with a solid, do-it-all road rim for racing or training – all for a very reasonable price, even against the biggest brands in the marketplace.

While it might feel like every wheel brand is pushing its latest disc brake offerings, it can be easy to think that rim brake wheelsets are being left behind, but thanks to brands like Pacenti there are still some quality offerings out there – like the Forza.

Read our review of the Pacenti Forza

Token Prime Ventous Carbon Disc — £999.99

The build quality of the Prime Ventous Carbon Disc Road wheelset is excellent, they look great, perform really well and are pretty good value too. tester Sean Lacey rode them from Land's End to John o'Groats and found them smooth and quiet (including the freehub). They picked up well and gained speed noticeably quicker that the Ultegra wheels he'd been running; the ride was much better.

The wheels were stiff and did have a little give under pressure but weren't fazed at all by fast decents or hard climbs. They  continued on at pace whatever the gradient, the acceleration when cracking on at the base giving a welcome extra bit of speed to carry up.

Read our review of the Token Prime Ventous Carbon Disc wheels
Find a Token dealer

Vision TriMax 30 KB — £635

Vision's TriMax 30 KB tubeless-ready wheels are built to last, look great and stay that way thanks to a clever surface treatment. Weight-weenies might find them a shade heavy, but that's far less important than durability and reliability.

These are probably the most unobtrusive wheels I've ever tested – and that's a very good thing. For a start, they're straight and true, and the spoke tension is decent, which will help them stay that way. They're laterally stiff enough that I couldn't get them to rub on the brakes, even though I run the blocks close to the rim so they come on at a touch. They're unaffected by sidewinds because they're only 30mm deep, enough to give them a slight aero advantage over old-school square rims, but not enough to affect handling when it's windy. Even the freewheel noise is relatively quiet. Very easy wheels to live with.

Read our review of the Vision TriMax 30 KB wheels
Find a Vision dealer

Just Riding Along Gecko — £850

Just Riding Along's (JRA) Gecko Carbon Wheelset is a very impressive set of hoops designed to take on the constant knocks and vibrations the roughest gravel tracks can throw at them, while still being so light that they won't hamper your performance on the road. With a claimed sub-1,400g weight and all the strength you could need, it's also pretty amazing that they come in at well under a grand.

Read our review of the Just Riding Along Gecko wheels

Bontrager Aeolus XXX 4 TLR — £1,928.90

Bontrager's Aeolus XXX 4 TLR clincher wheels are stiff, lightweight and steady in use and offer good braking in both wet and dry conditions. This is a great all-round aero wheelset that's suitable for a wide variety of conditions and it's light considering the rim depth, ours coming in at 1,420g for the pair.

The first thing I noticed about these wheels is their stiffness. With the brake pads set up stupidly close to the rims I could get some rub when throwing the bike around in a massive gear, but I got virtually none in normal use, not even when sprinting or leaning hard into a tight corner. No worries at all there.

The next thing to mention is their stability. Some aero rims can get knocked about by sidewinds, even when the yaw angle is quite shallow. Fluctuations in the speed and/or direction of the wind can have a large effect on the steering, making your bike's front end feel like a handful, upsetting your confidence and ultimately affecting your speed. The Aeolus XXX 4 TLRs have behaved well on super-windy rides.

Read our review of the Bontrager Aeolus XXX 4 TLR wheels
Find a Bontrager dealer

Mavic Ksyrium Elite UST — £419

For 2018 Mavic's highly dependable all-rounder, the Ksyrium Elite, has become tubeless, using the French company's UST system like much of the range. The wheels have maintained their lightweight, durable persona from previous models and are still great to ride whether you are racing or tackling the club run, with a little bit of future proofing. A welcome addition is that the Yksion Pro UST tyres are now among the best tubeless tyres you can buy, and Mavic's Road UST system makes for smooth and simple fitting of tyres with just a standard track pump.

Read our review of the Mavic Ksyrium Elite UST
Find a Mavic dealer

Fast Forward F4R FCC Tubeless DT 350 — £1,159.99

These Fast Forward F4R FCC Tubeless Ready wheels are seriously good for their relatively sensible price tag. They're stable in strong winds, quick to spin up to speed and also quick to stop. What's more, you get great hubs and high-end pads. It's a great package.

Read our review of the Fast Forward F4R FCC Tubeless DT 350

Fulcrum Racing Speed 40C Carbon — £1,569.99

The Fulcrum Racing Speed 40C Carbon wheels are the company's high performance offering. They offer buttery smooth ceramic bearings, stable rims and brilliant braking. The only thing not to love is the price.

Read our review of the Fulcrum Racing Speed 40C Carbon
Find a Fulcrum dealer

DT Swiss PRC 1400 Spline 65 — £1,507.48

The new DT Swiss PRC 1400 Spline clincher wheels come with deep section 65mm rims for aerodynamic efficiency. They're well made and come with excellent internals, plus you can run them tubeless.

You are getting some seriously good wheels for your money here. Granted, these don't offer quite the aero performance of DT Swiss's ARC 1100 Dicut wheels but the PRCs feature excellent components, they're stiff, braking is good and, for their depth, they feel pretty stable in most conditions. This is a reliable high-performance wheelset that puts in a great performance in a variety of conditions.

Read our review of the DT Swiss PRC 1400 Spline 65 wheels
Find a DT Swiss dealer

Hunt Superdura Dynamo Disc — £539

If you're looking at a dynamo system for your road bike then the SONdelux hub dynamo is pretty much the best out there for low resistance and weight, and it's renowned for great build quality which is matched by the rest of the components on these excellent Hunt wheels. Considering how much the dynamo costs on its own, the price is excellent too. They might be a bit much for the odd night ride, but if you rack up the miles after dark they're an investment worth considering.

Read our review of the Hunt Superdura Dynamo Disc wheels

AlexRims CXD4 — £249.99

AlexRims knows a thing or two about making rims (the clue's in the name), so it's not a surprise that it's moving into the wheelset market. And if these CXD4s are anything to go by, you should definitely look at them as an option if you're upgrading your bike or speccing a new build.

On the road the wheels feel nice and stiff, with no obvious flex either from sprint efforts or heavy cornering. The bearings run smoothly, and whipping the cassette off showed that there's not very much notching on the alloy freehub body. The 1,580g all-in weight is pretty good for a disc wheelset at this price. Shimano's RX31s are 380g heavier for the same kind of money, and similar-weight wheelsets from the likes of Cero, Kinesis and Hunt come in at least £50 more expensive.

Read our review of the AlexRims CXD4
Find an AlexRims dealer

Hunt 3650 Carbon Wide Aero — £899

Going wide and deep, Hunt has created a set of fast, durable and light wheels in the 3650 Carbon Wide Aeros. With a specification of high-end parts and great build quality, Hunt isn't trying to reinvent the wheel but it is certainly refining it to a level of performance unheard of on sub-£1,000 wheelsets.

The name 3650 comes from how deep they are: 36mm at the front and 50mm at the rear. It's quite a common combination for many riders as it is so adaptable to various weather conditions and the topography of your chosen route.

The front gives you a slight aero advantage over a more standard box rim shape without getting battered around by crosswinds, and it also keeps the weight down for climbing.

Read our review of the Hunt 3650 Carbon Wide Aero wheels

DT Swiss PR 1400 Dicut OXiC — £634.39

The PR 1400 Dicut OXiC wheels feature a ceramic coated rim surface that provides reassuring braking performance in a range of conditions, making them ideal for year-round cycling in the UK.

The application of a hardwearing ceramic coating on the rim is nothing new: Mavic used to produce a highly regarded ceramic back in the day. DT Swiss, though, reckons its new OXiC treatment is able to deform with the rim, which means the coating can't become detached from the aluminium, a problem that plagued Mavic ceramic rims. DT is confident the ceramic coating won't wear our over the normal lifespan of the rim, and it won't fade in the sun.

Read our review of the DT Swiss PR 1400 Dicut OXiC wheels
Find a DT SWiss dealer

Shimano Dura-Ace C24 Carbon Clincher — £691.99

I've been running the C24s with 25mm Continental Grand Prix 4000 tyres (Shimano advises that you use tyres ranging from 23mm to 28mm with these wheels) and they've been very quick, accelerating fast, and the ride quality is hard to fault.

The C24s, which have just been given a graphics/aesthetics update to match Shimano's new R9100 components, have the shallowest rim heights of any wheels in the Dura-Ace range: the front is 21mm and the rear is 24mm. They're not particularly wide either: 15mm internal, 20.8mm external, whereas the new C40 and C60 clinchers are both 17mm internal and 24mm external, following the trend towards more width.

Read our review of the Shimano Dura-Ace C24s
Find a Shimano dealer

Hunt 30Carbon Gravel Disc — £899

I've been thrashing the Hunt 30Carbon Gravel Disc wheels around the roads and bridleways of the south west, as well as using them for a touring trip to Cuba where they endured all kinds of surfaces, pot-holes and being lashed to roof-racks with string. And I like them, a lot.

As the name suggests, the 30Carbon Gravel Disc wheels are aimed at the fast-growing new gravel/all-road/adventure bike category. Gravel bikes are aimed at riders who want to go quickly on the road, with the freedom to take a turn off the tarmac and explore further into the wild than you could on a traditional road bike. They're typically built tougher than a road bike, and consequently heavier. If you're looking for an upgrade to your gravel bike, wheels may be on your list, and with a weight of less than 1,500g, these are likely to be quite a bit lighter than most stock wheels.

Read our review of the Hunt 30Carbon Gravel Disc wheels

BORG22T Disc Road/CX tubular — £380

The BORG22T wheelset features 22mm-deep aluminium tubular rims and triple butted Sapim Force spokes laced onto Miche Syntium DX hubs. It's not a flashy package, but it bats well above its price tag – it's tough, fast and will suit riders looking for a brilliant cyclo-cross wheelset.

Sometimes a product will genuinely surprise you. Take a look at the spec list of the BORG22T wheels and you'd be forgiven for not expecting much, and certainly not at this price. But I put them on my bike and was surprised to find they're excellent. I wouldn't expect to find a tubular disc wheelset below the £1,000 mark; finding such a great set of wheels for £380 has made me question why I'd spend more.

Read our review of the BORG22T Disc Road/CX tubular wheels

Roval CLX 50 Disc — £1,848

Since Roval parent Specialized introduced the Roval Rapide CLX 40 wheels two years ago, they've been busy and the CLX 50 wheels are the CLX 40s' spiritual replacement. They're a marked improvement, too, with better aerodynamic performance and an impressively low weight for the disc brake version here.

The aim for the new Roval CLX 50 was to marry the aero performance of the deeper section CLX 64 with the lightness of the shallower CLX 32. At 1,415g with a 50mm-deep rim and disc brake hubs, they would appear to have achieved that objective.

This is a very attractive weight in a hugely competitive wheel market. They're not much heavier than the £4.8k Lightweight Meilenstein C Disc wheels, for example, and only a smidgen heavier than the so-called lightweight, shallow, rim-braked FFWD F3R carbon clinchers. You can have aero and low weight it would seem. And a Zipp 404 Firecrest Disc wheelset? That's a comparatively portly 1,715g.

Read our review of the Roval CLX 50 Disc
Find a Roval dealer

Halo Evaura Uni 6D — £348.98

Halo seems very proud of its new Evaura Universal 6D 700C wheelset, and quite rightly. These are well-made wheels that can be adapted for a variety of cycles and purposes. The ride quality is excellent, the weight modest and – despite the dishing needed to make it disc-brake compatible – it proved impossible to provoke them into twisting or flexing.

The idea behind this wheelset is to make it as adaptable as possible to the new rash of wheel and braking standards that is spreading across the industry. While most conventional road frames take a 130mm rear axle, disc brake-equipped bikes are commonly adopting the 135mm found on mountain bikes. (Mountain bike rear axles are themselves now getting longer, but that's another story...)

Read our review of the Halo Evaura Uni 6D wheels
Find a Halo dealer

Fast Forward F3R Full Carbon Clincher Wheels — £1,499.99

Fast Forward F3R Full Carbon Clincher wheels are a lightweight option that provide excellent acceleration and a high level of stiffness, although the lack of aero credentials might put off some who aren't pure climbers.

Fast Forward bills the Full Carbon Clincher as a wheelset that's particularly suited to climbing. The carbon rims are 30mm deep and 22.4mm wide with quite a rounded profile and a blunt inner edge – far more U-shaped than V-shaped.

Read our review of the Fast Forward F3R Full Carbon Clincher wheels
Find a Fast Forward dealer

Knight Composites 65 wheels — £2,000

The Knight 65 Carbon Fibre clinchers offer very good stiffness, but their real skill is in cutting through the air at high speeds and feeling stable with it.

These wheels – Knight's own rims laced to DT Swiss 240 hubs – have a whole lot going for them. Okay, at 65mm deep they're never going to be particularly light, our pair coming in at 1,680g (including rim strips and skewers), but that's not unusual. For comparison, Zipp's 404s are a claimed 1,505g (you also need to factor in the weight of the rim strips and skewers) and Bontrager's 70mm-deep Aeolus 7s are a claimed 1,610g.

It's when you fire the Knight 65s up to speed that things get impressive. As tester Mat Brett put it: "I have a few routes that I ride regularly as personal time trials for reviewing bikes and kit – rolling rather than hilly – and I've used these wheels to help achieve consistently fast times over several weeks and in a wide variety of conditions. I measure power every ride and my view is that these wheels are offering impressive speeds for the wattage I'm putting out. It's unscientific and highly anecdotal, so take it or leave it, but this is my experience."

Read our review of the Knight Composites 65 DT Swiss 240 wheels
Find a Knight Composites dealer

DT Swiss RRC 65 Dicut clinchers — £1,999.98

They might be a lot of money but these DT Swiss RRC 65 Dicut clincher wheels are fast and stable, and they offer a good braking performance too.

These wheels are at their best when slicing along at high speed. They maintain pace beautifully with an appreciably lower resistance than shallow section rims. The RRC 65s also accelerate well, especially considering their 65mm rim depth. Weighing 745g (front) and 885g (rear) – excluding skewers; combined weight is 1,630g (DT's official total weight is 45g lower) – they spin up to speed with little fuss. For comparison, Zipp's 58mm deep 404 Firecrest Carbon Clinchers have claimed weights of 725g and 895g (1,620g total).

Some people might consider 65mm a little deep for general road use but we rode with these wheels on both a road bike and more occasionally on a TT bike for six weeks and they were superb. We really rate these wheels highly, and not just for racing against the clock.

Read our review of the DT Swiss RRC 65 Dicut clinchers
Find a DT Swiss dealer

Vision Team 35 — £249.99

Vision's Team 35s are competent and durable entry-level race wheels, with the added bonus of being very comfortable for a set of semi-deep-section alloy clinchers. The black anodised finish gives them a cool stealth look too.

The Team 35s are a revamped version of Vision's long-standing T35 model, and with a recommended retail price of £229.95 they sit right at that level of a first serious performance upgrade for a lot of bikes.

At first glance they seem a bit porky at 1,820g, especially considering the quoted weight is some 100g less than that, but the good thing is they never feel sluggish out on the road. You notice it a little if things get really steep or you ask for some rapid acceleration from a standing start, so if you're searching for a climber's set of wheels, look elsewhere.

Otherwise, the Team 35s are hard to knock. Considering the depth of the alloy rim, you'd expect them to feel harsh, but they don't.

Read our review of the Vision Team 35 wheels
Find a Vision dealer

Swiss Side Hadron 625 — ~£1,200

"Hur hur hur your wheels are called Hard... oh no, wait, it's Hadron." To Swiss ears, the name may well conjure up the crowning peak of European scientific endeavour, but it's perilously close to something that provided regular amusement to the Sunday morning crew back at home. That's as may be, but the Swiss Side Hadron 625s are stonkingly good wheels, offering arguably the best performance in this price bracket on the market today.

They use a hybrid aluminium-carbon rim to give aluminium-rim brake performance and class-leading aerodynamic performance, at a price way below the big players like Zipp and Enve. And by god they sound good.

Read our review of the Swiss Side Hadron 625 wheels

Superstar Components Pave wheels — £299.99

The least expensive wheels we've ever given four and a half stars, the Superstar Pace 28s demonstrate that custom handbuilt wheels can be competitive on weight and reliability with any factory wheels. They have wide rims in the modern style and are built on reliable Icon hubs. They're comparable to substantially more expensive wheels from other manufacturers; light enough to race on while still managing to be as tough as old boots, and look how shiny they are.

Read our review of the Superstar Components Pave wheels

Hunt 4Season Aero V2 — £319

Hunt's entry-level road clinchers look like an excellent choice. They succeed the now-discontinued 4Season Dura Road wheels which we liked a lot, and like those wheels, these look to be a good first upgrade over heavy stock wheels, or as a good quality winter or all-round option, they're right on the money.

The 4Season Aero V2 wheels have the same hubs. We had no issues with the 4-pawl freehub, nor with the sealed EZO bearings. Everything ran smoothly in spite of being subjected to some biblical conditions. The supplied skewers are an external cam, with a nylon insert instead of the brass one you get on the more expensive Hunt wheels, but they do the job without any fuss.

Read our review of the Hunt 4Season Dura Road
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Pro-Lite Bortola A21 wheels — £270.99

The 1,540g weight of these wide, tubeless-ready wheels is impressive for an aluminium wheelset even if that is about 65g over the claimed weight. With the Bortolas Pro-Lite haven't sacrificed strength or durability to achieve it, it's more of a by-product of well chosen, proven components.

On the road, they're smooth and comfortable, but light enough to reward a little out of the saddle dig on a steep section while climbing.

Overall the Bortolas are perfect all rounder wheels that only really lose out in terms of aerodynamics due to that shallow rim.

Read our review of the Pro-Lite Bortola A21 wheels

Pro-Lite Revo A21W — £269.99

Road disc and gravel wheels are getting better, lighter and cheaper, and right at the forefront of that trend are the Pro-Lite Revo A21s. At 1,650g, with a Centerlock option, thru-axle compatibility and a wide track rim, they're a bargain, and pretty future-proof too.

Pro-Lite builds all its wheels by hand and the Revos arrived nice and true, with even spoke tension. The spokes are bladed and triple butted, and Pro-Lite uses a brass washer at the spoke head to better distribute the forces there.

The Revos use a 21mm deep rim (hence the name), which is 23.8mm wide externally and 19mm internally. That makes it ideal for 28-32mm tyres, although 25mm rubber and bigger chamber tyres will be fine too.

Read our review of the Pro-Lite Revo A21W
Find a Pro-Lite dealer

Stan's NoTubes ZTR Grail Team — £457.95

We've been hugely impressed with these wheels. With 25mm slicks at high pressures they're fast on the road, and they've proven extremely tough when riding with knobbly tyres at low pressures off-road. They're a decent weight, the hubs are easily interchangeable to different axle standards, and the company's Bead Socket Technology (BST) means getting a tubeless tyre inflated is a cinch.

The Grail rims are wide: 24mm on the outside, 21mm on the inside. The rims are also quite deep, 24.5mm, making them the company's deepest – and therefore more aero – rim to date. They're constructed from aluminium and weigh a claimed 460g apiece. The BST rim profile features a shallow seating area so the tyre bead locates right up against the side of the rim. Getting a Schwalbe One tubeless tyre to inflate was ridiculously easy – a slosh of sealant inside and a track pump to inflate the tyre.

If you want a disc- and tubeless-ready wheelset with a wide rim profile to make the most of the growing number of wide tubeless tyres, the Stan's NoTubes ZTR Grail Team wheels combine a competitive price, decent weight and impressive performance. Add in the easy tubeless compatibility and axle versatility, and they're seriously worth considering.

Read our review of the Stan's NoTubes ZTR Grail Team
Find a Stan's NoTubes dealer

Edco Optima Roches (22mm) Tubeless Ready Wheels — £400

Traditional looks meets modern width in these wheels from Swiss-based Edco, which have 22mm wide rims and are ready for Tubeless tyres like those offered by Hutchinson, Bontrager or Schwalbe.

There are a lot of clever touches to these wheels like the MultiSys freewheel body, designed to accept both Shimano/SRAM and Campagnolo cassettes so you don't need new wheels if you ever change gearing allegiance.

These wheels ride well, are a sensible 1,571g and come with a whopping eight-year guarantee.

Read our review of the Edco Optima Roches (22mm) Tubeless Ready Wheels
Find an Edco dealer​

Swiss Side Hadron 485 — ~£1,200

Hadron wheels (named after that big circular tunnel near Geneva, of course) are available in rim depths of 48.5mm, 62.5mm and 80mm (front)/85mm (rear). All share the same fundamental construction, with aluminium rims and carbon fairings. Swiss Side says it's done an enormous amount of work to perfect the aerodynamic design of these rims, focusing on aerodynamic drag and also minimising the sensitivity to side-winds.

They've performed well in a wide variety of riding. We won't pretend that we can accurately determine the difference compared with other quality aero wheels of a similar depth, but they certainly feel like they're in the same ball-park, holding speed really well and making a rather satisfying hum in the process.

Read our review of the Swiss Side Hadron 485
Find a Swiss Side dealer

Fulcrum Racing Quattro Carbon DB — £859.99-£880.99

The Fulcrum Racing Quattro Carbon DB wheels could well redefine the modern bicycle wheel. They're bang on trend for a broad range of today's disc brake-equipped bikes and promise the trinity of light, fast and strong.

First, they're the right material: carbon fibre, with a 3k core and unidirectional surface. And while Fulcrum doesn't tout them as tubeless ready, they are, with only the valve hole in the bed of the 40mm-deep aero section rims.

The broad carbon rims are laced with 18 spokes in the front and 21 in the rear – a number low enough to keep the weight down, but high enough to make the wheels feel bombproof.

Paradoxically, they ride like function-specific race-day wheels, all revved up and raring to rip up the road, and so, naturally, you expect them to be fragile and delicate, with a need to be guarded from harm and children's sticky fingers. In reality, they're street tough and ready for couple of pints and a scrap.

Read our review of the Fulcrum Racing Quattro Carbon DB
Find a Fulcrum dealer

Spin K2 Carbone XLR38 25mm Fat Boy Clincher wheels — £949.00

The closest equivalent to these wheels in the current Spin range is the DM8 Custom Shop Pro ThirtyEight Super Fly Boy. They're still 38mm deep, but now wider to give better support and shape to 25-28mm tyres.

The XLR38s offered bags of speed with a fat rim profile reminiscent of a Zipp or Enve but at a fraction of the price. We expect theSuper Fly Boys to be just as good, making them an ideal upgrade for anyone looking to invest in their first deep section carbon wheels.

Spin offers a choice of rim depths, laced to its own SPN Precision hubs. With the 38mm rims, they weigh 1500g per pair. That's a very competitive weight, certainly for the price. You won't get much lighter unless you're prepared to spend quite a lot more money. Braking with the supplied QuickStop Black Shadow brake blocks was excellent.

Read our review of the Spin K2 Carbone XLR38 25mm Fat Boy Clincher wheels

Specialized Roval Rapide CLX 40 — £1,199.00

Roval is Specialized's in-house wheel brand and these Rapide CLX 40 wheels provide very good performance for the money, rivalling more established names in the carbon aero wheel market like Zipp and Enve.

Read our review of the Specialized Roval Rapide CLX 40s
Find a Specialized dealer

The Mavic Aksium is the French brand's entry-level wheelset for standard QR frames. At £209 (often much cheaper online, but be quick as prices are rising thanks to the pound falling in value) and 1,840g for the pair, they represent good value for money if you need decent wheels on a budget.

• Pros: Price, trickle-down technology, 17mm bed for wider tyres, serviceability
• Cons: Weight, no rim wear indicators

For many years Mavic's Aksium has been a staple of entry-level road cycling, generally the first stop on the low-cost factory-specced wheelset upgrade path. Way back in 2010 Mat reviewed a previous incarnation– priced at £199 with a weight of 1,964g. So in the intervening nine years they've shed 124g (the weight of an iPhone 6) and risen in sticker price by £10. The UK's official inflation figures for 2010-19 put the relative modern-day value of that £199 price at £252, so the fact that the new Aksiums are both 6.3% lighter and the equivalent of £43 cheaper – a reduction of 17% on the 2010 price in today's terms – is quite something.

> Find your nearest dealer here

Mat's only real concern was that the front went rather out of true after the fourth ride; once corrected on the roadside they then remained true. In this respect I found them to be pretty good – after quite a few gravelly miles on both my cyclo-cross bike shod with knobblies and then Scotland's finest Highland roads on a road bike, the front wheel required a small tweak to line back up: five minutes with a 3.3 spoke key and job done. Noting I only saw the wobble in a truing stand – it wasn't noticeable out riding. The rear remained true.

The build look and quality belies the budget price – Aksiums are handbuilt in Romania, the branding is relatively restrained, and the straight-pull, radially laced spoke pattern looks nice.

Rated for 120kg bike+rider, the 20-spoke count front and rear points towards keeping weight down possibly at the expense of long-term thrashability. These aren't the wheels for loaded touring or a larger rider smashing about the place, but for average weights on smoothish roads they should be fine.

For this Everyman's wheelset I fitted the Everyman's tyre choice – Continental Grand Prix 4 Seasons in 28mm. I've put in many many thousands of miles on these over the years, and when fitted to the Mavics they didn't disappoint in terms of grip or handling – everything was on track and upright. The 17mm rim bed suited them perfectly, measuring a smidge over 27mm at 75psi – Conti tyres are a bit of a turkey-shoot when it comes to measured-vs-advertised widths, and true to form the GP 4 Seasons measured a bit narrow on the Mavics. Fitting was a hassle-free affair, using thumbs only – as is right and proper for tubed tyres, where you don't want to be risking nipping the tube with a tyre lever.

After a bunch of miles with the GP 4 Seasons I set them up tubeless, fitting René Hearse Steilacooms with one layer of tape, while Hutchinson Sector 28s needed two layers to seal up nicely – the rule of thumb being, if you can easily slip the tyre on the rim uninflated, add another layer. Once up, they held air fine. They aren't branded as 'tubeless-ready', so if you do go this route, as for any tubeless setup, be sure to perform the 2 x over-max-pressure test to ensure there's no chance of the bead popping off (inflate to twice what you ride, and leave overnight). Best do this without sealant, obvs, otherwise be prepared for a big cleanup job if they let go.

With the Aksiums' indicated internal width of 17mm, measured at an actual 16.5mm, the Hutch 28s came up bang on 28mm. That 17mm means you'll likely run out of brake calliper clearance before you run out of support for a wider tyre – Mavic recommends a maximum of 32mm.

> What width tyres are best for you?

On the road the Aksiums felt fine – no evident flex sprinting out of the saddle, nor brake rub when squeezing the brakes a bit to bring the pads in. Braking using Kool-Stop salmon-coloured pads was predictable and effective, wet or dry.

The Aksiums don't come with any sort of rim wear indicator, so best keep an eye on them and follow best practice as recommended by Dave here.

There's a definite sound to the Aksiums – somewhere between the rumble of a carbon rim and the quiet whoosh of a deep aero – but that's likely unique to my particular carbon fork/alloy frame combo. The freehub is pretty much silent at riding speeds, so this isn't the pedestrian-alerting audio signature you're looking for in a commuting scenario.

The factory-installed Shimano/SRAM-compatible 11-speed freehub body is steel, meaning no concerns about cassettes eating into the splines. A Campagnolo freewheel is available from Mavic for about £40.

The unbranded skewers are effective and didn't bind up after muddy miles of use. The steel axle holds threaded bearing inserts, easily removed with a 13mm cone wrench and 17mm spanner to facilitate swapping out the readily available standard bearings (2 x 6001 for front, or 6001 + 608 for the rear). Being Mavic, there is excellent DIY documentation on its website, searchable by the serial number laser-etched into the rim.

One bonus of Mavic's design is, if you do snap a rear spoke, they are replaceable without removing the cassette. For anyone planning to ride long distances or travel with the bike this might be a good thing to factor in: not needing a chain whip/cassette remover tool.

Really, the only downside is that there are no rim wear dots or lines – you'll need to track wear yourself. Mavic recommends a maximum of 0.4mm wear (easy to measure using a pair of £5 Iwanson callipers).

All in all, for £209 list or often closer to £140 if you're fast, the Aksiums are a solid choice for decent, repairable QR wheels that will take a reasonably wide tyre and feel good doing so. They're not quite the excellent value they were – they're now a little more than the Alex ALX265 wheelset at £199.99– but they're still pretty good.

Verdict

A great budget choice with serviceable hubs and a decent weight

If you want to change the wheels on your disc brake road bike, we have 12 pairs here ranging from under £300 to over £2,000.

Your stock wheels might have worn out, perhaps you want a second pair of wheels/tyres setup for a different kind of road surface, or maybe you just fancy an upgrade. The wheels shown here are the ones that have impressed road.cc reviewers most over the past couple of years. They've all scored at least eight out of 10 in testing so you can be sure that they're the real deal. 

Read everything you need to know about disc brakes 

If you're interested in any particular wheelset, we've included a link to our original review where you'll find all the details you need to make your buying decision. We've also included a link to help you find a local dealer for each brand, while clicking on the product name will take you direct to an online retailer.

Axle compatibility

Most rim brake wheels attach to your bike with quick release skewers, but things are more complicated in the disc brake world. Some disc brake bikes use quick releases and traditional-style open-ended dropouts, but others use thru axles. This is where the dropouts are closed, an axle passing into a hole on one side of the frame/fork, through the wheel hub and screwing into a threaded hole (usually) on the other side of the frame/fork.

Most of today's road bikes that use thru axles take 12x100mm at the front (the diameter is 12mm, the length is 100mm) and 12x142mm at the rear. However, some disc brake bikes take 15mm thru axles (or even 9mm thru axles) and some have a 135mm rear spacing, although this is uncommon. 

The same wheels can usually be made to fit different bikes through the use of axle adaptors. The Hunt Superdura Dynamo Disc Wheelset (below), for example, will work with both quick release skewers and 12mm thru axles (and less common configurations). 

Just make sure that you get the right adaptors in order to replace like with like.

Centerlock or 6-bolt?

There are two different standards for fixing disc brake rotors to wheels: Shimano's Centerlock and 6-bolt. If you have a preference for one system, make sure the wheels are compatible (or be prepared to buy an adaptor).

Shimano RX31 Wheelset £299.98

Shimano's RX31 wheelset is perfect for bikes that see a hard life, whether that be slogging along on the commute in all weathers, a bit of light touring, or even some gravel or cyclocross abuse. Our test wheelset proved to be pretty much bombproof and the bearings ran smooth and quiet no matter what we through at them. The build quality was good, the tension remaining high and even across bladed spokes, and the rims staying true. These are solid, dependable wheels at a good price.

Read our review
Find a Shimano dealer 

AlexRims CXD4 700C Disc TL Ready Centerlock Road Wheelset £339.99

The CXD4 is a mid-level alloy disc wheelset that weighs a reasonable 1,580g for its price. The rim is a tubeless-ready 23mm-deep alloy extrusion, sleeve-jointed for extra strength. Its 19mm width means you really want to be running at least a 28mm tyre, with anything up to a 50mm okay if it'll fit in your frame. The hubs have an alloy body and axle and sealed cartridge bearings: two in the front and four in the rear. 

On the road, the wheels feel stiff and solid and the bearings run smoothly. They can take a battering on rougher surfaces and still run true. They can handle a cyclocross race or a gravel event fine.

Read our review 
Find an AlexRims dealer 

Fulcrum Racing 5 Disc Brake Wheelset £349.99

The Racing 5 is a well-established general-purpose road wheelset that's a good choice for a first upgrade.

The wheels have 26mm deep rims that are 21.8mm wide, and these are now officially suitable for tubeless tyres. The hubs are quality affairs, as befits a sub-brand of Campagnolo, and the spokes are built with round, straight-pull spokes.

The Fulcrums are solidly built, reasonably stiff and generally easy to live with. Coming in at a decent weight (we weighed our review set at 1,640g), these are excellent wheels for the money.

Read our review
Find a Fulcrum dealer

Halo Evaura Uni 6D 700C Wheelset £370

These are well-made wheels that can be adapted for a variety of cycles and purposes. They work with both disc brakes and rim brakes and Halo has developed hub adapters for both conventional and offset cranks to allow any combination of axle length, chainstay length or crank offset. The rims are tubeless-ready, allowing a tubeless tyre to snap into place with a very satisfying crack. The ride quality is excellent, the weight modest and we found it impossible to provoke them into twisting or flexing.

Read our review 
Find a dealer 

BORG22 Disc Road/CX Tubular Tyre Disc Brake Wheelset £404.00

The BORG22 wheelset features 22mm-deep aluminium tubular rims and triple butted Sapim Force spokes laced onto Miche Syntium DX hubs. It's not a flashy package, but it bats well above its price tag – it's tough, fast and will suit riders looking for a brilliant road or cyclo-cross wheelset.

Although not light, these wheels are responsive while the aluminium rim and higher spoke count mean these put up a strong and robust performance. The hubs are unfussy and last very well. 

These wheels are built up to order in the UK so you can have the spoke tension tuned to suit your weight and riding requirements. 

Read our review 
Buy Borg wheels 

Hunt Superdura Dynamo Disc Wheelset £539.00

If you're looking at a dynamo system for your road bike then the SONdelux hub dynamo is pretty much the best out there for low resistance and weight, and it's renowned for great build quality which is matched by the rest of the components on these excellent Hunt tubeless ready wheels. Considering how much the dynamo costs on its own, the price is excellent too. They might be a bit much for the odd night ride, but if you rack up the miles after dark they're an investment worth considering.

These wheels put in a near-faultless performance. They're a must for your list if you're looking into dynamo power.

Read our review
Buy Hunt wheels 

Edco Optima Roches Disc Brake, Tubeless Ready Wheelset £550

Edco's Optima Roches are a tough set of wheels that are tubeless ready and compatible with SRAM, Campag 10/11 and Shimano 10/11-speed (yes, all of them). These wheels are built around Edco's own SuperG hubs, which are handmade in Edco's Swiss factory and guaranteed for a whopping eight years.

These are about as tough as they come, which is no mean feat for a pair of wheels that weigh 1,725g, have a low spoke count and spin up fast enough to enjoy sprints. Like a good wheel, they are stiff without rattling the fillings, making them perfect for any kind of riding that requires a fast wheel that will take a battering.

Read our review 
Find an Edco dealer 

Just Riding Along Gecko Carbon Wheelset £850.00

Just Riding Along's Gecko Carbon Wheels are impressive hoops that take on the constant knocks and vibrations the roughest gravel tracks can throw at them, while still being so light that they won't hamper your performance on the road. With a 1,400g weight (with the tubeless rim tape and valves fitted) and all the strength you could need, it's also pretty amazing that they come in at well under a grand.

Read our review
Buy Just Riding Along wheels 

Mavic Ksyrium Pro UST Disc £899

Mavic's Ksyrium range has always had a good reputation for offering decent performance whatever your type of riding, and these aluminium alloy Pro UST Disc models further confirm this with a solid build quality and plenty of stiffness, all at a decent weight.

We haven't just used these wheels on the road, we've taken them onto gravel bridleways, towpaths and other rough tracks and they can take a kicking without their trueness being affected. 

You can run the wheels tubeless with Mavic's own Yksion Pro UST tyres that come as part of the package. 

Read our review
Find a Mavic dealer 

Token Prime Ventous Carbon Disc Road Wheelset £1,099.99

This is an excellent full-carbon clincher wheelset. The build quality is high, they look great, perform really well and are pretty good value too. 

Smooth and quiet, they gain speed quickly and continue at pace whatever the gradient. The buttery bearings and stiff construction make for controlled descending, but the Tokens are at their best on flatter, faster rides when the aero profile helps you bowl along at a good speed. Rough sections of tarmac are dealt with easily too, the wheels absorbing a reasonable amount of buzz and feeling composed,

Tubeless rim tape is already installed if you want to run them with the appropriate tyres.

Read our review 
Find a Token dealer

Roval CLX 50 Disc Wheelset £1,850 

Fast, light and wide, these tubeless carbon wheels offer excellent performance. They're superbly fast in a straight line and maintain excellent momentum when you're really pushing hard on the pedals. The rounded rim profile provides exceptionally good stability with little sign of buffeting even in the strongest gusts.

They're also tough and dependable, easily shrugging off bad road surfaces. We smashed into potholes and rode them along gravel tracks during testing and they took all the punishment with no sign of loose spokes or going out of true.

Read our review 
Find a Roval dealer 

DT Swiss ERC 1100 Dicut DB Wheelset £2,069.98

These tubeless-ready carbon-fibre wheels are aimed at meeting the demands of endurance bikes, combining speed with stability and comfort.

A disc brake specific 47mm deep clincher rim is optimised for 25 to 28mm tyres with hubs based on DT's proven 240 design, but wrapped in a new aero shell and rolling on ceramic bearings.

These wheels aren't cheap but they do provide a fantastic aero performance that excels in a wide range of conditions with the durability you'd expect at this price.

Read our review 
Find a DT Swiss dealer 

Want to go tubeless? Here are all your options in tyres.

Tubeless tyres are gradually gaining popularity as more riders become convinced that their improved ride and increased resistance to punctures are worth the cost of new wheels and tyres and the sometimes problematic fitting process. If you’re about to make the switch, here’s a look at your tyre options.

When tubeless tyres for road wheels first appeared you had very few choices. Hutchinson made tyres, Shimano and Stan’s NoTubes made wheels and conversion kits and, er, that was it. Now many tyre makers offer tubeless options, though Michelin and Continental are notable hold-outs.

Read more: How to fit a tubeless tyre
Read more: Road tubeless: everything you need to know — including how to convert

Bontrager

Bontrager R3

Bontrager offers a range of three tyres badged Tubeless Ready, which means what you need to get them working is sealant and either Bontrager’s special rim strips if you have Bontrager wheels, or other tubeless compatible wheels and valves. In ascending order of raciness, they’re the AW2, R2 and R3. We’ve tested and liked the latter as part of the Bontrager Road TLR Upgrade Kit.

Read our review of the Bontrager R3 Tubeless Ready
Read our review of the Bontrager Road TLR Upgrade Kit
Read our review of the Bontrager CX3 Team Issue TLR Cyclocross Tyres
Read our review of the Bontrager GR1 TLR Team Issue Gravel
Read our review of the Bontrager GR2 TLR Team Issue Gravel

Find a Bontrager dealer

Compass

Compass Barlow Pass TC

Compass Cycles grew out of the magazine Bicycle Quarterly, founded in 2002 by Jan Heine, a Seattle-based long-distance cyclist and journalist. Heine contends that wide, supple tyres perform better in every respect than skinny tyres, and perform better than would be expected from rolling resistance twsts performed on smooth steel drums. And he's put his money on it with a line of tyres that includes tubeless models.

Read our review of Compass Cycles Barlow Pass tyres

Continental

Conti was one of the last two major tyre makers to hold out against tubeless, but late in 2018 announced a new tyre, the Grand Prix 5000, to succeed the much-loved Grand Prix 4000S II, and as well as regular clinchers there are tubeless versions too.

And they were worth the wait. The Grand Prix 5000 tubeless tyre takes everything that is improved with this latest generation tyre and adds tubeless compatibility for improved puncture resistance. They're relatively painless to set up and provide excellent performance in all conditions with low rolling resistance, good grip and durability.

Read our review of the Continental Grand Prix 5000 TL

Donnelly

Donnelly is the new name for the tyres formerly known as Clement, after Clement brand owner Pirelli decided to return to the tyre sector. Donnelly specialises in cyclocross tyres—all the 33mm tyres in the range are for cyclocross—but has a decent selection of fat rubber for gravel and bad roads too.

Ere Research

Ere Research Genus

Ere REesearch CEO Piet van der Velde has almost three decades in the bike industry, most recently as product director of saddle maker Selle Italia before founding Ere Research in 2017. The company launched with an extensive range of tyres, with tubeless versions of almost all models, and some — the Tempus tyres for time trials — only available in a tubeless format.

Read our review of the Ere Research Genus

Giant

Giant Gavia SLR 1

The world's biggest bike manufacturer has switched to tubeless tyres and wheels on large swathe of its recent models. Giant has come up with a ten-model range that covers a full range of applications from racing to messing about in the dirt.

Find a Giant dealer

Goodyear

Goodyear announced a return to bicycle tyres in 2018 with a range that includes what the company describes as 'Tubeless Complete' tyres, which have "tubeless specific bead and casings, allowing for easy installation and superior air retention". With a tyre carcass that's impenetrable to sealant but not airtight, Tubeless Complete is a sort of halfway house between Road Tubeless, which has an air-retaining coat of butyl rubber on the inside of the tyre and Tubeless Ready, which has a standard tyre carcass. Goodyear recommends the use of sealant to make sure the bead is properly seals against the rim, and says sealant won't seep through the Tubeless Complete carcass so it will still all be there when you need it to fix a puncture.

Read our review of the Goodyear Eagle All Season

Hutchinson

Hutchinson Sector 28

Hutchinson launched tubeless tyres for road bikes back in 2006, so it’s no surprise the French tyre maker has a fairly big range. While most tyre makers have gone down the Tubeless Ready route with lightweight tyres that need sealant to keep the air in, Hutchinson also makes tyres to the original Road Tubeless spec, sealed with a coating of rubber inside the tyre.

Hutchinson's flagship tubeless tyre is the Fusion 5, which is available in a number of variants. There are Tubeless Ready versions that need sealant, and Road Tubeless versions that, on paper, don't need sealant, but that everyone uses sealant with anyway just to be safe. Both Road Tubeless and Tubeless Ready versions are available in Galactik, Performance and All Season variants.

Galactik is the lightest version, intended for racing; Performance is the all-rounder with a slightly thicker tread and All Season is more durable, with a thicker tread and grooves to allegedly disperse water in wet conditions. Road Tubeless Fusion 5s come in 23mm and 25mm widths, Tubeless Ready in 25mm, plus 28mm in Performance and All Season.

All Fusion 5s use Hutchinson's ElevenStorm rubber which provides very low rolling resistance and buckets of grip. Tubeless Ready versions have Hutchinson's Hardskin bead-to-bead protection to reduce cuts and punctures. Galactik Road Tubeless tyres have a light reinforcement under the tread, while Performance and All Season Road Tubeless tyres get extra protection in the form of a Kevlar band.

Read our review of the Hutchinson Intensive Road Tubeless tyres
Read our review of the Hutchinson Fusion 2 tubeless tyres
Read our review of the Hutchinson Sector 28 tubeless tyres

IRC

IRC Formula Pro Tubeless

IRC makes several tubeless or tubeless ready tyres, but they’re very rare in the UK; we’ve only been able to find one source. That’s a pity as IRC has been pushing road tubeless technology to make tyres lighter and faster. The Pro Tubeless tyres have internal coating based on latex rubber rather than synthetic butyl. That makes for lower rolling resistance, just as a regular clincher tyre is faster with a latex inner tube than a butyl one.

Read our review of the Formula Pro Tubeless RBCC
Read our review of the Formula Pro Tubeless X-Guard

Kenda

Kenda Kommando X Pro

Kenda's line of tubeless-ready tyres focuses on gravel and cyclocross tyres, with just one road tyre, the Valkyrie. They're designated KSCT, for Kenda Sealant-Compatible Tyre. Some models seem to be quite hard to find in the UK, but we've been broadly impressed by the Kenda gravel tyres we've tested.

Read our review of the Kenda Cholla Pro
Read our review of the Kenda Kommando X Pro
Read our review of the Kenda Flintridge Pro
Read our review of the Kenda Alluvium Pro

Find a Kenda dealer

Maxxis

Maxxis is known for mountain bike tyres, but also offers tubeless-ready tyres in a wide range of sizes and applications, plus a tubeless tyre that doesn't need sealant.

Find a Maxxis dealer

Mavic

Mavic Yksion Pro UST

Mavic jumped into the road tubeless sector with both boots in summer 2017, announcing a new standard — Road UST — and a big range of wheels. The accompanying tyre offerings are a bit thin at the moment — the Yksion Pro UST in 25mm and 28mm widths — but Mavic clearly anticipates other manufacturers adopting the standard when it's been ratified by the relevant international bodies.

Mavic still offers its all-purpose/gravel tyre in the old Road Tubeless standard, the 30mm Yksion Elite Allroad.

Find a Mavic dealer

Panaracer

Panaracer Race A Evo 3

Panaracer has joined the tubeless fray with the Race A Evo 3 Tubeless. The Japanese tyre maker has developed a brand new bead which it claims allows the tyre to be inflated using just a hand pump and claims this tyre increases puncture resistance by 24% compared to the previous Evo 2 tyre, thanks to a new Protite puncture proof material. The tread compound is also claimed to improve cornering performance.

Read our review of the Panaracer Race A Evo 3 tubeless
Read our review of the Panaracer GravelKing Slick Tread 38

Find a Panaracer dealer

Pirelli

After returning to bicycle tyres with the P Zero clincher series, Pirelli has recently added tubeless-ready rubber to the range. Our Stu Kerton was impressed, calling the Cinturato "a very good tyre, especially during these winter months, offering plenty of cold and wet weather grip while also providing loads of puncture proofing. The small cost to the rolling resistance is worth it for the durability too."

Read our review of the Pirelli Cinturato

Ritchey

Ritchey Alpine JB

Ritchey has just one model of tubeless tyre, the 35mm version of the Alpine JB. We liked the non-tubeless 30mm equivalent, so for dirt road riding, the Alpine JB is well worth a look.

Find a Ritchey dealer

Find a Ritchey dealer

Schwalbe

Schwalbe ProOne

Schwalbe says “The future will be tubeless” in its latest blurb for the Schwalbe Pro One tyre, which it claims is its best tubeless tyre ever. We tested the slightly less advanced One Tubeless recently and found it rode brilliantly and, unlike many tubeless tyres, it was easy to get on the rim and to then pop into place on the bead seat.

Schwalbe offers a total of seven ‘Tubeless Easy’ tyres, from the Pro One, which is being reliably reported as having a super-low rolling resistance, to the aptly named Big One, a 60mm tyre intended for mountain bike beach racing but which we’ve included in case anyone’s thinking of building up a ‘monster-cross’ bike.

Read our review of the Schwalbe One Tubeless
Read our review of the Schwalbe Pro One Tubeless
Read our review of the Schwalbe S-One Tubeless

Find a Schwalbe dealer

Specialized

Specialized Roubaix Road Tubeless

Until recently, Specialized has focused on endurance and cyclo-cross riding with its Tubeless Ready tyres, which it spells 2Bliss because — well, who knows. Californians, eh?

Specialized also makes a Road Tubeless version of its S-Works Turbo tyre. The 26mm version of this tyre recently won a rolling resistance test against a range of standard and tubeless tyres, and looks promising as a fast tyre for UK riding.

Read our review of the Specialized Trigger Pro 2Bliss Ready

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Vittoria

Vittoria makes the big claim that its Corsa Speed graphene technology tyre is the fastest ever independently measured, and the lightest tubeless-ready tyre too. A dirt tyre, the Terreno Zero TNT G2.0 has recently joined the range.

Read our review of the Vittoria Corsa Speed G+ Isotech
Read our review of the Vittoria Terreno Zero TNT G2.0

Find a Vittoria dealer

WTB

WTB are known for mountain bike tyres so it's no surprise that they specialise in fat 650B rubber for mixed-surface antics or, as they more prosaically call it Road Plus. The range also includes cyclo-cross and road tyres.

Read our review of the WTB ByWay
Read our review of the WTB Horizon

Find a WTB dealer

Zipp

Wheel maker Zipp — part of the SRAM group — offers the Tangente Speed tubeless tyre in two sizes, 25mm and 28mm. We found them easy to install and fast-rolling, but they're expensive.

Read our review of the Zipp Tangente RT28

Find a Zipp dealer

If you want to change the wheels on your disc brake road bike, we have 12 pairs here ranging from under — £300 to over — £2,000.

Your stock wheels might have worn out, perhaps you want a second pair of wheels/tyres setup for a different kind of road surface, or maybe you just fancy an upgrade. The wheels shown here are the ones that have impressed road.cc reviewers most over the past couple of years. They've all scored at least eight out of 10 in testing so you can be sure that they're the real deal.

Read everything you need to know about disc brakes

If you're interested in any particular wheelset, we've included a link to our original review where you'll find all the details you need to make your buying decision. We've also included a link to help you find a local dealer for each brand, while clicking on the product name will take you direct to an online retailer.

Axle compatibility

Most rim brake wheels attach to your bike with quick release skewers, but things are more complicated in the disc brake world. Some disc brake bikes use quick releases and traditional-style open-ended dropouts, but others use thru axles. This is where the dropouts are closed, an axle passing into a hole on one side of the frame/fork, through the wheel hub and screwing into a threaded hole (usually) on the other side of the frame/fork.

Most of today's road bikes that use thru axles take 12x100mm at the front (the diameter is 12mm, the length is 100mm) and 12x142mm at the rear. However, some disc brake bikes take 15mm thru axles (or even 9mm thru axles) and some have a 135mm rear spacing, although this is uncommon.

The same wheels can usually be made to fit different bikes through the use of axle adaptors. The Hunt Superdura Dynamo Disc Wheelset (below), for example, will work with both quick release skewers and 12mm thru axles (and less common configurations).

Just make sure that you get the right adaptors in order to replace like with like.

Centerlock or 6-bolt?

There are two different standards for fixing disc brake rotors to wheels: Shimano's Centerlock and 6-bolt. If you have a preference for one system, make sure the wheels are compatible (or be prepared to buy an adaptor).

Let's dive in.

16 of the best disc-brake-compatible wheels

Hunt 35 Carbon Gravel Disc X-Wide wheels — £899

The Hunt 35 Carbon Gravel Disc X-Wide are the UK brand's flagship gravel wheelset. The step up to 23mm internal rim width sets them up for the new breed of mega-wide-clearance allroad bikes – and the adaptable hubs mean your investment now is almost guaranteed to fit any future bike purchase.

The main reason for getting the X-Wides is the super-wide 23mm rim bed, backed up by a few square acres of carbon chunkiness to keep things in one piece. There's a great deal of comfort to be had from the rim profile when you're bombing about taking drop bars where no sane person would consider sensible or even possible. Everything about the X-Wides murmurs 'Find Your Limits', and it didn't take  long to trust that they were more than up to the job.

Read our review of the Hunt 35 Carbon Gravel Disc X-Wide wheels

Scribe Aero Wide 50-D wheels — £870

The Scribe Aero Wide 50-D carbon disc wheels are all about speed according to the manufacturer, and they don't disappoint. Matching a wind-cheating 50mm-deep rim to smooth-running hubs, an instantaneous freehub engagement and plenty of stiffness makes for a set of wheels that delivers for those who want to put the hammer down. The impressive weight and a sensible price finalise the deal.

A wheel weight of 1,449g (1,438g claimed) is impressive full stop, but when you consider that's including a wide and deep carbon fibre rim, plus the extra spokes needed for a disc build, it is truly awesome and something you really notice when fitting them to your bike.

Read our review of the Scribe Aero Wide 50-D wheels

Pacenti Forza-C 30mm Disc Clincher wheels — £899.99

The Pacenti Forza-C 30mm Disc Clincher wheels are a new design from the ground up and they are absolutely lovely. You can feel the quality of the build as soon as you start riding, and their stiffness is impressive considering their very svelte 1,378g weight. Pacenti hasn't even stung you on the price either.

Pacenti builds these wheels by hand in the UK and it shows – not necessarily the UK bit, but definitely the handbuilt part. The wheels feel tight and stiff, but the spoke tension allows enough comfort through to take out any harshness.

Read our review of the Pacenti Forza-C 30mm Disc Clincher wheels

Parcours Grimpeur Disc wheels — £819.00

The Parcours Grimpeur Disc wheels are light enough to excel on the tarmac while being so tough that you can smash them over rocks and tree roots with little concern for their wellbeing. They won't break the bank either.

With a 40mm-deep U-shaped carbon rim they weigh in at just 1,406g with the tubeless rim tape fitted, which ties in well with Parcours' claimed weight of 1,390g bare.

Fitted to the Flanders Forte cyclo-cross frameset that we had in for testing, the wheels offered snappy acceleration, and their low weight helped the whole bike feel flickable at the front and rear for hopping over potholes, rocks and other obstacles.

Being fitted to a cyclo-cross bike they spent most of their time off-road and they took the knocks and bumps from the gravel tracks and tree roots of the local singletrack without issue.

Read our review of the Parcours Grimpeur Disc wheels

Shimano RX31 Wheelset — £272.22

Shimano's RX31 wheelset is perfect for bikes that see a hard life, whether that be slogging along on the commute in all weathers, a bit of light touring, or even some gravel or cyclocross abuse. Our test wheelset proved to be pretty much bombproof and the bearings ran smooth and quiet no matter what we through at them. The build quality was good, the tension remaining high and even across bladed spokes, and the rims staying true. These are solid, dependable wheels at a good price.

Read our review
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AlexRims CXD4 700C Disc TL Ready Centerlock Road Wheelset — £287.99

The CXD4 is a mid-level alloy disc wheelset that weighs a reasonable 1,580g for its price. The rim is a tubeless-ready 23mm-deep alloy extrusion, sleeve-jointed for extra strength. Its 19mm width means you really want to be running at least a 28mm tyre, with anything up to a 50mm okay if it'll fit in your frame. The hubs have an alloy body and axle and sealed cartridge bearings: two in the front and four in the rear.

On the road, the wheels feel stiff and solid and the bearings run smoothly. They can take a battering on rougher surfaces and still run true. They can handle a cyclocross race or a gravel event fine.

Read our review
Find an AlexRims dealer

Fulcrum Racing 5 Disc Brake Wheelset — £245.39

The Racing 5 is a well-established general-purpose road wheelset that's a good choice for a first upgrade.

The wheels have 26mm deep rims that are 21.8mm wide, and these are now officially suitable for tubeless tyres. The hubs are quality affairs, as befits a sub-brand of Campagnolo, and the spokes are built with round, straight-pull spokes.

The Fulcrums are solidly built, reasonably stiff and generally easy to live with. Coming in at a decent weight (we weighed our review set at 1,640g), these are excellent wheels for the money.

Read our review
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Halo Evaura Uni 6D 700C Wheelset — £348.98

These are well-made wheels that can be adapted for a variety of cycles and purposes. They work with both disc brakes and rim brakes and Halo has developed hub adapters for both conventional and offset cranks to allow any combination of axle length, chainstay length or crank offset. The rims are tubeless-ready, allowing a tubeless tyre to snap into place with a very satisfying crack. The ride quality is excellent, the weight modest and we found it impossible to provoke them into twisting or flexing.

Read our review
Find a dealer

BORG22 Disc Road/CX Tubular Tyre Disc Brake Wheelset — £404.00

The BORG22 wheelset features 22mm-deep aluminium tubular rims and triple butted Sapim Force spokes laced onto Miche Syntium DX hubs. It's not a flashy package, but it bats well above its price tag – it's tough, fast and will suit riders looking for a brilliant road or cyclo-cross wheelset.

Although not light, these wheels are responsive while the aluminium rim and higher spoke count mean these put up a strong and robust performance. The hubs are unfussy and last very well.

These wheels are built up to order in the UK so you can have the spoke tension tuned to suit your weight and riding requirements.

Read our review
Buy Borg wheels

Hunt Superdura Dynamo Disc Wheelset — £539.00

If you're looking at a dynamo system for your road bike then the SONdelux hub dynamo is pretty much the best out there for low resistance and weight, and it's renowned for great build quality which is matched by the rest of the components on these excellent Hunt tubeless ready wheels. Considering how much the dynamo costs on its own, the price is excellent too. They might be a bit much for the odd night ride, but if you rack up the miles after dark they're an investment worth considering.

These wheels put in a near-faultless performance. They're a must for your list if you're looking into dynamo power.

Read our review
Buy Hunt wheels

Edco Optima Roches Disc Brake, Tubeless Ready Wheelset — £260

Edco's Optima Roches are a tough set of wheels that are tubeless ready and compatible with SRAM, Campag 10/11 and Shimano 10/11-speed (yes, all of them). These wheels are built around Edco's own SuperG hubs, which are handmade in Edco's Swiss factory and guaranteed for a whopping eight years.

These are about as tough as they come, which is no mean feat for a pair of wheels that weigh 1,725g, have a low spoke count and spin up fast enough to enjoy sprints. Like a good wheel, they are stiff without rattling the fillings, making them perfect for any kind of riding that requires a fast wheel that will take a battering.

Read our review
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Just Riding Along Gecko Carbon Wheelset — £850.00

Just Riding Along's Gecko Carbon Wheels are impressive hoops that take on the constant knocks and vibrations the roughest gravel tracks can throw at them, while still being so light that they won't hamper your performance on the road. With a 1,400g weight (with the tubeless rim tape and valves fitted) and all the strength you could need, it's also pretty amazing that they come in at well under a grand.

Read our review
Buy Just Riding Along wheels

Mavic Ksyrium Pro UST Disc — £773.10

Mavic's Ksyrium range has always had a good reputation for offering decent performance whatever your type of riding, and these aluminium alloy Pro UST Disc models further confirm this with a solid build quality and plenty of stiffness, all at a decent weight.

We haven't just used these wheels on the road, we've taken them onto gravel bridleways, towpaths and other rough tracks and they can take a kicking without their trueness being affected.

You can run the wheels tubeless with Mavic's own Yksion Pro UST tyres that come as part of the package.

Read our review
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Token Prime Ventous Carbon Disc Road Wheelset — £999.99

This is an excellent full-carbon clincher wheelset. The build quality is high, they look great, perform really well and are pretty good value too.

Smooth and quiet, they gain speed quickly and continue at pace whatever the gradient. The buttery bearings and stiff construction make for controlled descending, but the Tokens are at their best on flatter, faster rides when the aero profile helps you bowl along at a good speed. Rough sections of tarmac are dealt with easily too, the wheels absorbing a reasonable amount of buzz and feeling composed,

Tubeless rim tape is already installed if you want to run them with the appropriate tyres.

Read our review
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Roval CLX 50 Disc Wheelset — £1,848

Fast, light and wide, these tubeless carbon wheels offer excellent performance. They're superbly fast in a straight line and maintain excellent momentum when you're really pushing hard on the pedals. The rounded rim profile provides exceptionally good stability with little sign of buffeting even in the strongest gusts.

They're also tough and dependable, easily shrugging off bad road surfaces. We smashed into potholes and rode them along gravel tracks during testing and they took all the punishment with no sign of loose spokes or going out of true.

Read our review
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DT Swiss ERC 1100 Dicut DB Wheelset — ~£1,700

These tubeless-ready carbon-fibre wheels are aimed at meeting the demands of endurance bikes, combining speed with stability and comfort.

A disc brake specific 47mm deep clincher rim is optimised for 25 to 28mm tyres with hubs based on DT's proven 240 design, but wrapped in a new aero shell and rolling on ceramic bearings.

These wheels aren't cheap but they do provide a fantastic aero performance that excels in a wide range of conditions with the durability you'd expect at this price.

Read our review
Find a DT Swiss dealer