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
Find an AlexRims dealer 

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
Find a Fulcrum dealer 

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
Find an Edco dealer

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
Find a Mavic dealer

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 
Find a Ritchey dealer

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 
Find a Vision dealer 

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 
Find a DT Swiss dealer 

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 

• 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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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

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 16 of the best, some for rim brakes and some for discs.

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

Scribe Aero Wide 50-D — £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.

I've got another test bike that's wearing a set of Campagnolo Bora 50 Disc wheels, which are pretty old school: a narrow rim and that V-shaped profile I mentioned earlier. Fast yes, but much more twitchy in a crosswind compared to these Scribes.

The Scribes do offer quite a firm ride, although I wouldn't say they are overly harsh, and if my focus was more on speed anyway then I'd be willing to sacrifice a bit of comfort.

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

Pacenti Forza Carbon Disc — £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.

The tyres will obviously do the majority of this, but using the same tyres, pressures and so on between the amount of wheels I get through, you can feel the tiny little differences.

Speaking of tyres, the Forza-C rims are hookless so they are only compatible with proper tubeless tyres, none of that tubeless ready stuff, so that might limit their appeal somewhat to prospective purchasers. You can fit an inner tube if you like, as long as you use a tubeless-specific tyre.

Read our review of the Pacenti Forza Carbon Disc 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.

Tyre widths have been increasing in the road genre over the last few years and rims have been getting wider too, to keep the compatibility. Rim brake frames don't have the clearance of disc brake versions, because of them needing to keep the brake bridge for one thing, so the Forza rim isn't the widest we've seen at 24mm externally (20mm internal). Pacenti does say that it works perfectly with a 25mm tyre and I'd concur, as it gives the tyre a nice round profile rather than that lightbulb shape you get when used with a more traditional rim that is 3mm narrower.

Read our review of the Pacenti Forza wheels

Parcours Grimpeur Disc — £819

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.

Obviously, 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.

Parcours has gone for a build of 24 Sapim CX-Ray spokes front and rear in a two-cross lacing pattern which certainly feels stiff and gave no issues with trueness even after a fairish amount of abuse. Hard acceleration and heavy braking did little to upset them either, from a stress point of view.

Read our review of the Parcours Grimpeur Disc wheels

Just Riding Along Lark Light Road — from £355

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.

I was massively impressed with JRA's Gecko Carbon wheels when I tested them. They offered a solid build while being extremely lightweight and that theme is followed here with the Lark Lights.

Losing 250g from a wheelset always seems, to me anyway, 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 Road wheels

Prime BlackEdition 50 Carbon — £899.99

Prime's BlackEdition 50 Carbon Wheelset represents the brand's first push to compete with high-end performance wheels. They vastly outperform their price-tag, with stable rims, great braking, smooth hubs and easy tubeless setup.

If you're not familiar with Prime, its a brand sold exclusively through Wiggle and CRC. Wiggle is using its buying power to produce a very capable race wheelset at a much better price than many well-known brands.

In the box, you get tubeless valves, carbon brake pads, QR skewers, spare spokes, nipples and a 10-speed spacer. They don't come with sealant, but that's something I'd get when selecting tyres.

The 50mm deep rim brake option on test can be run using both clincher and tubeless tyres. They arrived with Hutchinson's Fusion 25mm tubeless tyres fitted, but I also tested them with Vittoria's 25mm Corsa G Tubeless and 28mm Goodyear Eagle tubeless tyres. All were easy to mount up with a standard track pump.

Read our review of the Prime BlackEdition 50 Carbon Wheelset

AlexRims CXD4 700C Disc TL Ready Centerlock Road — £249.99

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 of the AlexRims CXD4 wheels
Find an AlexRims dealer

Fulcrum Racing 5 Disc — £244.99

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 of the Fulcrum Racing 5 Disc sheels
Find a Fulcrum dealer

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
Find an Edco dealer

Mavic Ksyrium Elite UST — £419.00

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 of the Mavic Ksyrium Elite UST wheels
Find a Mavic dealer

Ritchey Classic Zeta wheelset — ~£335

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 of the Ritchey Classic Zeta wheels
Find a Ritchey dealer

Vision TriMax 30 KB — ~£435.00

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 of the Vision TriMax 30 KB wheels
Find a Vision dealer

DT Swiss PR 1400 Dicut 21 OXiC — £634.39

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 of the DT Swiss PR 1400 Dicut 21 OXiC wheels
Find a DT Swiss dealer

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 of the Just Riding Along Gecko Carbon

BORG50C Carbon Clincher wheelset — from £800.00

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 of the BORG50C Carbon Clincher wheels

Hunt 30 Carbon Gravel Disc Wheelset — £899

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 of the Hunt 30 Carbon Gravel Disc Wheels

Fulcrum wheels are immensely popular, both as original equipment on complete new bikes and when bought after market. The range is broad and a little complicated so here’s our guide to navigating it.

Fulcrum is a sub-brand of Italian component manufacturer Campagnolo. It makes wheels that are compatible with Shimano/SRAM systems as well as with Campag’s own products.

This isn't a test, although we do reference our reviews where relevant. This is simply an overview of the range to tell you what's what and help you decide what's most suitable for you.

Prices are for wheels with Shimano/SRAM-compatible freehubs.

Racing 7 DB 2Way-Fit — £219.99

Fulcrum has dirt riding in mind with the disc-brake version of the Racing 7. It boasts rims with a 19mm internal width to work with tyres up to 62mm wide, and hubs that can be easily adapted to work with the various quick-release and through-axle standards.

Because the rims are shallower than the regular Racing 7's the claimed weight ends up slightly lower at 1,740g.

The  2Way-Fit designation indicates that the Racing 7 DB works with tubeless tyres, but there's a catch: Fulcrum says only Schwalbe Pro One and G-One tyres should be used with any of its  2Way-Fit (Road) wheels. They're great tyres, but Fulcrum really needs to tweak the design for greater flexibility.

There's also a 650B version (£244.99), as the gravel-bike alternative of smaller wheels with really fat tyres continues to gain traction.

Read our review of the Racing 7 DB  2Way-Fit wheels

Buy if: You want tough, fairly light wheels for your gravel bike — and you really like Schwalbe tyres

Racing 6 — ~£192

The Racing 6 is very similar to the Racing 7 but has an over-sized, drilled-out, drive-side flange on the rear wheel. Fulcrum's website in fact no longer lists the rim-brake Racing 7 at all, so the Racing 6 looks to effectively replace that model in the range. Like the Racing 7, the rims are 23mm wide (17mm internal) and slightly deeper on the rear wheel: 27.5mm v 24.5mm up front.

Fulcrum claims a pair of Racing 6 wheels weighs 1,760g.

Buy if: You want reliable, no-frills wheels for everyday riding and training.

Racing 6 DB  2Way-Fit — £219

The disc-brake version of the Racing 6 has a claimed weight of 1,690g a pair, shaving 50g off the Racing 7 DB thanks to 26mm tall rims with 17mm internal width. These are therefore more road-orientated than the Racing 7 DB.

Buy if: You want very sensibly priced disc-brake wheels for the road, and don't mind the Schwalbe-only rule.

Racing 5 — ~£220

When we reviewed the Racing 5s (RRP £289.99) we said, “They're strong and not too heavy, and have shrugged off months of wet miles with nary a whimper.”

Rather than round spokes, the Racing 5s come with double-butted steel spokes that are aero profiled – in other words, they’re flattened to reduce drag. They’re also straight-pull – there’s no bend.

Check out our Fulcrum Racing 5 review

A £270 disc brake version of the Racing 5 (RRP: £349.99) is also available. As well as the ability to take rotors (6 bolt or Fulcrum’s AFS – Axial Fixing System – design), the wheels have disc-specific rims with a 24.5mm external width for the easier fitting of fatter tyres. As with other disc-braked, tubeless-compatible wheels from Fulcrum those tyres will have to be Schwalbe if you're going tubeless.

Read our review of the Fulcrum Racing 5 DB 2Way-Fit wheels

Buy if: You want solid commuting or training wheels that roll well and don't cost the earth.

Racing 4 — £261

Racing 4 is the new name for the wheel formerly known as the Racing Quattro, with 35mm-deep rims and a claimed weight per pair of 1,725g. The idea is to improve aerodynamics and “increase torsional and lateral stiffness compared with a conventional profile, for improved high speed stability.”

The 21 rear spokes are arranged according to what Fulcrum calls its 2:1 Two-to-One system, with 14 on the driveside and 7 on the non-driveside. Fulcrum says that this limits the loss of rim tension when you pedal.

“Slackening and torsion are limited and the transfer of the athlete’s power is much more effective,” it says.

When we reviewed the Racing Quattros we said, “A lot of wheel for not a lot of money. Fast and durable, a great all-rounder.”

Check out our Fulcrum Racing Quattro review.

Buy if: You’re looking for something that’s strong and durable with a little extra rim depth.

Racing 4 DB 2Way-Fit — £319

The disc-brake version of the Racing 4 has 35mm deep disc-specific rims and a claimed weight of 1,690g. Like most of Fulcrum's disc-brake wheels it uses what Fulcrum calls Monoblock Hub For Disc tech, in which stiffening ribs inside the hub convey braking forces to the tangential drive-side spokes to reduce twist on the rotor side.

Buy if: You want semi-aero wheels for your disc-braked bike.

Racing 3 — £379.99

Racing 3s (RRP: £550) are quite a lot lighter than Quattros (the claimed wheelset weight is 1,560g) partly because of shallower rims – the front is 26mm, the rear is 30mm. The latest version gets an upgrade to rims with 17mm internal width to accommodate wider tyres.

Fulcrum no longer lists a 2Way-Fit version of the Racing 3, but they're still available from retailers at £425. You can fit either standard clinchers or go tubeless because there are no holes in the rim.

Check out Road Tubeless: Everything You Need To Know and also our Buyer’s Guide To Tubeless Tyres.

When we reviewed the 2-Way Fit version on road.cc, we called it, “A good wheel choice if you're taking the tubeless plunge – responsive, strong and well-made. Stylish too.”

Buy if: You’d like stiff and responsive wheels for training, sportives, and even racing duties.

Read our review of the Fulcrum Racing 3 2-Way Fit wheels

Racing Zero — £604.10

It’s a large step up in price to the Racing Zero (RRP £799.99), but this is a high-level aluminium wheelset with a 25mm-deep front rim, 30mm-deep rear rim, carbon front hub body, and USB ceramic bearings. Fulcrum claims these are 30% lighter, 40% more resistant, and 50% smoother than standard steel bearings.

The Zero wheelset is light at a claimed 1,495g.

Fulcrum no longer lists the 2Way-Fit rim-brake version of the Racing Zero (£824.99), but there are still a few in retailers.

Fulcrum has applied a plasma electrolytic oxidation treatment to the rims of the £752 Racing Zero Nite (RRP £1,049.99) that was unveiled a couple of years ago.

“The Plasma Electrolytic Oxidation process both hardens the metal, increasing its resistance to wear, [and creates] a surface that improves braking performance in both wet and dry conditions,” says Fulcrum.

Buy if: You’d like a lightweight aluminium wheelset and are prepared to pay for high performance.

Racing Zero Competizione — £856.90

Here's Fulcrum throwing almost all their technologies at a set of high-end go-faster aluminium wheels. They feature 2Way-Fit, 6082 T6 aluminium rims, hubs with carbon-fibre centre sections, CULT ceramic bearings, plasma-treated freehub body and weigh a claimed 1,475g. The rear rim is 30mm deep, the front 27mm and both have 17mm internal width.

Buy if: You want light, fast wheels with a splash of colour.

Racing Zero DB 2Way-Fit — ~£930

With 19mm internal-width rims and a claimed weight of just £1,590g these are Fulcrum's entry in the high-end do-everything wheels category. The rims are made from high-strength 6082 T6 aluminium, joined to the hubs with aluminium spokes, and like the rim-brake version they roll on USB ceramic bearings.

Buy if: You want light, modern tubeless-compatible disc-braked wheels

Racing Quattro Carbon — £839.99

The Racing Quattro Carbon wheelset (RRP £1,099.99) is designed to be aerodynamically efficient and reasonably light, weighing a claimed 1,555g. It has 40mm deep carbon-fibre rims that are 24.2mm wide to support tyres from 25mm to 32mm.

As with Fulcrum’s other non-disc carbon-rimmed wheels, the Racing Quattro Carbon has a 3Diamant surface treatment on the braking tracks. This is machining that, according to Fulcrum, “Eliminates the imperfections caused by the non-homogenous resin deposits and allows the brake pad to work directly on the woven carbon fibres.” The idea is to improve the braking performance in both wet and dry conditions.

The Racing Quattro Carbon is also available in a disc version (£811.80, RRP £1,199.99). When we reviewed them we described these wheels as “Light, fast, stiff and strong, and very, very versatile.” However, unlike other disc-brake Fulcrum wheels they're not tubeless compatible.

Read our review of Fulcrum Racing Quattro Carbon Disc wheels.

Buy if: You’re after lightweight and stiff wheels in a versatile depth.

Racing Zero Carbon — £1,199.99

The Racing Zero Carbon Clincher combines 30mm-deep/24.5mm wide carbon rims with aluminium aero spokes and carbon bodied hubs. The bearings are USB ceramic. The wheelset has a claimed weight of just 1,358g but the pair's supposed to cost a hefty £1,799.99.

There's a disc-brake version too.

Buy if: You want high-quality carbon wheels in a shallow depth.

Speed series

Fulcrum's top-end hoops, the Speed wheelsets have all-carbon aero rims for racing and against-the-clock efforts. There are five models of spoked wheel, plus the Speed 360 one-piece disc rear wheel.

Speed 40C — ~£1,500

The Fulcrum Speed 40C wheels offer buttery smooth ceramic bearings, stable rims and brilliant braking thanks to a what Fulcrum calls AC3 — All Conditions Carbon Control. They spin up effortlessly, handle well on windy days and weigh just 1,420g a pair. The only thing not to like is the price.

There's also a £1,782.47 tubular version — Speed 40T— which weighs just 1,213g a pair and it's available in a disc-brake version too.

Read our review of the Speed 40C wheels

Read our review of the Speed 40T wheels

Buy if: you're racing or going fast really matters to you, and it's hilly or windy

Speed 55C — ~£1,550

As above, but with 55mm deep rims for better aerodynamics. At a claimed 1,470g they don't surrender much to the Speed 40C wheels though we'd expect them to be a bit more susceptible to getting knocked off course in side-winds.

You can also get the 55C rear wheel in a pair with a 40C front for £1,584.62. Claimed weight is 1,450g.

If you prefer to glue on your tyres, there's a tubular version for £1,499 — Speed 55T— which weighs a claimed 1,280g a pair.

Disc brakes and tubulars? No problem. You want the Speed 55T DB you do. New stopping tech meets traditional tyres will set you back £1,711.32 and the pair is claimed to weigh 1395g.

Buy if: You're racing

Racing Speed XLR 80mm Carbon Tubular — £2,499.99

If you're doing a time trial or the bike leg of a triathlon, it's a calm day and you've a serious need for speed, then you want the deepest rims possible.

Buy if: You're racing against the clock

Speed 360T — £2,999.99

Finally, for those whose need for speed is only outstripped by the depth of their pockets, there's the 360T rear disc.

Buy if: You're racing against the clock and want to be ready for that perfect float morning

With fatter tyres on smaller wheels, the 650B standard gives the same rolling size as regular 700C wheels with more cushion and grip. Should you consider a bike with this reborn wheel spec?

What is 650B?

This is a wheel size with smaller rims than the 700C road bike standard, but larger than the 26-inch size that was the standard for mountain bikes until a few years ago. Because the rims are smaller, fitting 650B wheels into road and gravel bikes that usually take 700C wheels allows the use of fatter tyres with little or no alteration to the frame design, assuming you have disc brakes.

There used to be loads of French wheel sizes, designated by the rolling diameter of the tyre in millimetres, and a letter. The road bike standard 700C is one of these sizes; it originally had quite fat tyres that bulked things out to a rolling diameter of 700mm.

Wheel size designations are a proper omnishambles. The only way to be sure a tyre will fit a particular rim is to look at the size of the bead seat, the part of the rim where the tyre fits when inflated. Your 700C wheels have a bead seat diameter of 622mm; for 650B it's 584mm.

The 650B size was popular with French touring cyclists back in the 60s, and has been brought back from the brink of extinction by the mountain bike industry. It has pretty much replaced the original mountain bike 26-inch wheels, which have a bead seat diameter of 559mm. Also referred to as 27.5in, the wheel size is now found on bikes from entry-level hardtails to downhill bikes.

But 650B is no longer just on mountain bikes. Road bike manufacturers from small independent frame builders like Hallett Handbuilt Cycles to mainstream brands like Cannondale have adopted it for all-purpose and gravel bikes.

The combination of a 650B wheel's 584mm rim and a tyre width of between 30 and 50mm gives about the same overall wheel size as a regular 700C rim and 25mm tyre, so the rolling speed and handling characteristics will be similar to a regular road bike.

- Trend spotting: Why you need to switch to wider tyres

Benefits include additional cushioning from the bigger volume of air, providing a smoother ride, and a larger contact patch which boosts traction, ideal for mixed terrain and slippery roads.

Do we need a new wheel size?

There has been a move to wider tyres on endurance and sportives bikes over the past few years, with bikes like the Cannondale Synapse and Giant Defy, which both cater for up to 28mm tyres, proving incredibly popular with cyclists that want a bit of extra comfort.

- Buyer's guide: sportive and endurance road bikes + 15 of the Best

Even professional road race cyclists, once wedded to skinny 22 and 23mm tyres, are now switching to 25mm and 26mm tyres as standard. But it's arguably cyclists seeking comfort, especially with road conditions deteriorating due to lack of maintenance, that have been pushing manufacturers to develop bikes with space for wider tyres.

The adoption of wider tyres has been swift. With many cyclists cottoning onto the benefits of wider tyres, many are seeking bikes capable of taking even wider tyres. A mere 28mm just doesn't cut it anymore. The latest crop of gravel and adventure bikes massively increase clearance over the endurance bikes, accepting tyre widths between 30 and 50mm.

- Buyer’s guide to gravel and adventure bikes plus 13 of the best

One significant benefit of 650B is to do with geometry. A 42mm tyre on a 650B rim provides about the same outside diameter as a 23mm tyre on a 700C wheel, so you can fit much wider tyres to the bike without requiring any drastic changes to the geometry of the frame and fork.

A bigger tyre on a 700C rim requires changes to the frame and geometry. The chainstays need to be longer, and with it the wheelbase and the fork needs to be taller. This can impact the handling of the bike and takes it further away from the responsiveness and agility that is the hallmark of a road bike.

Why now?

Wider tyres are becoming more and more popular. Gravel and adventure bikes offer a new option for the growing number of cyclists that want a versatile bike to cover different road surfaces and terrain (and previously might have chosen a cyclocross bike) and with 650B is back in fashion in the mountain bike world. All of that has made bike makers look again at a wheel size alternative.

With the mountain bike industry geared up to developing 650B bikes, there’s now a lot bigger choice of wheels. There’s also a cross-pollination of ideas and engineering, especially with the growing gravel and adventure bike sector, which owes a lot to the mountain bike world. It was really only a matter of time.

How Cannondale went 650B with the Slate

When it launched the Slate a couple of years ago, Cannondale reckoned that a 650B rim with a 42mm tyre was the perfect pairing for a bike designed to be fast and agile on the road, like a regular road bike, but capable when the surface turns to dirt and gravel.

- Cannondale Slate - First Ride Review

“On Slate, the decision to go for 650B was natural for us,” Cannondale's David Devine says. “We knew which tyre size we wanted, 42mm. We knew which chainstay length we wanted, 405mm. When we discovered the rollout of 700x22mm and 650x42mm were roughly the same, we decided it was the best wheel size for achieving our desired tyre volume within the set geometry. Traditional 700C wheels, paired with the 42mm tyre would have driven a longer chainstay length, and would have necessitated a higher frame stack while maintaining the same 30mm Lefty Oliver Suspension fork.

“650B wheels offer our desired geometry and tyre volume together in one package, rather than having to make a compromise with smaller tyres or longer chainstays,” explains Devine.

The bespoke option

It’s not just the big players in the cycling industry that are paying attention to the benefits of 650B. Bespoke frame builders have been closer to the cutting-edge of bicycle design than many of the bigger corporations for some time, with a closer relationship to their customers and able to produce one-off frames much more quickly.

Richard Hallett of Hallett Handbuilt Cycles has been dabbling with the 650B wheel size and appears convinced of the benefits, saying that ride comfort and grip are the big advantages.

“650B road tyres such as the Grand Bois Cypres and Hetre offer demonstrable improvements over 700C tyres up to 28c in rolling resistance, ride comfort, grip, all-roads riding and, importantly, safety,” says Hallett, “so using 650B wheel and tyres I can build a touring, audax, utility or training bike that offers superior performance in these respects.

“There is a weight penalty, the amount depending on tyre size, which is why they aren't used in racing. If someone wants a racing or sportive bike, I recommend 700C, up to 25mm.”

Road.cc took a closer look at one of Richard Hallett’s bespoke bikes last year, a steel frame and fork with 650B wheels and 42mm tyres. His aim was to build a fast, comfortable and fine-handling bike and put it through its paces in the 300km Dragon Ride sportive, a stern test indeed for any road bike.

We’ve been here before haven’t we?

Sort of, yes. Using smaller mountain bike wheels on a road bike is nothing new of course. There have been many road bikes designed with 26-inch mountain bike wheels that allow clearance for larger tyres: the Surly Long Haul Trucker is one such bike that can, as well as regular 700C wheels, take a 26in rim with a tyre width up to 62mm.

While such bikes have been a quirky oddity to most regular road cyclists, the growing popularity of wider tyres on all road bikes and a shift towards comfort over outright speed, could mean we'll be seeing a lot more new bikes that take a fresh look at the advantage of combining a smaller wheel with a bigger tyres.

Was Cannondale’s Slate the start of a new trend or simply a one-off? David Devine thought at the time that we were likely to see more manufacturers take an interest.

“I do anticipate that other bike companies will trend toward making 650B road bikes,” said Devine. “Already, we have some tyre manufacturers approaching us to make sure they are opening moulds that will be compatible with Slate. In addition to the tyres available from Panaracer, you will see tyres from some of the main brands already coming to the market in this size. The Slate will help broaden the tyre selection for 650B x 42mm tubeless, all-road tyres. It’s something that has been around in the hand built community for some time.”

While there are clearly some very good reasons for going to a 650B wheel sizes, there are some downsides. A 42mm tyre is heavy, about 400g, about twice the weight of a regular narrow road tyre, and that can extra weight at the outside of the wheel could impact acceleration and speed. Those concerns might be easily outweighed by the comfort, durability and robustness for tackling rough roads and gravel paths and off-road tracks, though. 650B could make sense to a lot of cyclists.

Perhaps the mainstream bike brands won’t have it all to themselves, argued Richard Hallett.

“The large-scale manufacturers seem to have put all their eggs in the 700C wheel basket so we see everything from race and sportive bikes on 700Cx23/25 to gravel and adventure bikes with 700Cx32/35 tyres,” he said. “These are inevitably heavier than 650Bx32 with no appreciable performance advantage, but investment in 650B would cost money, so I suspect 650B road bikes will remain a small part of the market for the moment.”

The latest 650B bikes

Three years later, it looks like Hallett was more or less right, but a few more manufacturers have taken the plunge and added a 650B-shod bike to their ranges. Canadian brands Kona and Norco both have gravel bikes with 650B wheels, as do the UK's Genesis, Chain Reaction Cycles house brand Vitus and boutique marque Mason Cycles.

And after being very hard to find, the Slate is back in the UK for 2019 with two models, both with SRAM 1 X 11 transmissions and the Lefty 30mm suspension fork. Cannondale still describes the Slate as "a full-tilt road bike with legit off-road chops" a rather confusing line, but at least the new models come with knobbly tyres.

Open WI.DE — £3,200 (frameset only)

The WI.DE (Winding Detours) gravel bike from Open takes wider tyres than the company’s original UP from 2015 and is all the better for it, with supreme speed over all sorts of surfaces, infused with great handling and low weight.

Gravel bikes have been edging closer to the territory occupied by mountain bikes for a few years now, leading to many accusations they are nothing but glorified rigid mountain bikes with curly bars. The WI.DE suggests there's some truth in these accusations; it has space for up to 60mm (2.3in) tyres on 650b rims, as wide as many cross-country mountain bikes.

Our David Arthur rode the WI.DE with 57mm tyres and reports that it was nimble at low speed when swerving around trees on singletrack, while stable at higher speeds on loose gravel tracks. The steering is calm at high speeds making it a relaxing bike to ride on long distances because it’s not twitchy.

If you think the big tyres will mean a sluggish ride, think again. The WI.DE is stupendously quick over all terrain, whether it’s a road where it manages to not give out much speed to a pure road bike, or along rough gravel roads or forest tracks. The speed of the Open was its defining feature. The high stiffness of the frame delivers a sprightly uptake of speed and the low weight - 8.75kg for the pictured size medium test bike - ensures there’s no hill too steep or tough for the WI.DE to conquer.

Read our review of the Open WI.DE

Saracen Levarg — £1,099.99 - £2,299.99

The name is 'gravel' backwards, but there's actually nothing backwards about Saracen's 650B-shod gravel bikes. The Levargs are fast and fun bikes, well-suited to taming the UK’s poorly surfaced roads and bashing along dirt and gravel tracks.

Read our review of the Saracen Levarg SL

Genesis Fugio — £1,317 & £1,869

The Genesis Fugio, above, is solidly a gravel bike, with 50mm tyres. It’s almost a mountain bike with drop bars, and fits the growing trend for big tyred drop bar road bikes that can go almost anywhere. The frame is made from Mjölnir chromoly double butted tubing, with a full carbon fibre fork.

There are two models for 2019, Fugio 20 and Fugio 30. Both have SRAM 1 X 11 transmissions with 42-tooth chainrings and 11-42 cassettes. The Fugio 20 has SRAM Apex components, cable-actuated disc brakes and Donnelly X'Plor MSO tyres, while the more expensive Fugio 30 gets SRAM Rival parts, hydraulic brakes and WTB Byway tyres.

A Fugio frameset is £719.99 if you want to start from scratch and build your own.

Find a Genesis dealer

Kona Rove 2020 — £1,139-£3,399

Four models of Kona's venerable Rove adventure/touring bike come with 650B wheels, though the frame will also accommodate 700C wheels. There are two aluminium-framed bikes, including the Rove NRB, above, and two with steel frames, including the range-topping Rove LTD in Reynolds 853.

Can't live without composites? Kona's Libre carbon gravel bike has switched to 650B for 2020.

Vitus Substance CRX Apex — £1,599.99

This update of the gravel/adventure bike Vitus launched in 2018, the latest Substance has a carbon fibre frame and fork and SRAM Apex 1X11 gearing.

Ibis Hakka MX — from £3,349

The Ibis Hakka MX is a descendant of the US company’s previous Hakkalugi cyclocross bike but geared much more towards the gravel and adventure riding, rather than racing in the mud. Like most of the bikes here it will take 650B or 700C wheels, though you get the fattest tyre option with 650B: the stock Schwalbe Thunder Burt tyres are 54mm wide. It's a long way from cheap even in the base SRAM Rival 1X spec above, but you're getting a frame from one of the best-regarded carbon shops in the business.

Read our review of the Ibis Hakka MX

Mason Bokeh — from £2,795

From the detail-obsessed mind of Dom Mason comes a highly capable adventure bike with a feature-packed aluminium frame, splendid aesthetics, and handling that ensures it's as at home on the road as it is on the trail.

Read our review of the Mason Bokeh Force

Cannondale Slate SE Apex 1 — £2,160

Cannondale offers two models of Slate, with SRAM Apex and SRAM Force at the lower and higher price points respectively, but the more expensive Slate is now practically impossible to find. Aside from the difference in groupset quality, the specs are very similar. Both have 44-tooth single chainrings with 11-42 cassettes and knobby WTB Resolute tyres.

Find a Cannondale dealer

We’ve previously taken you through the wheel ranges from Mavic and Fulcrum, now it’s time to turn our attention to Shimano’s rather large offering of wheels. Shimano wheels are frequently specced by bike manufacturers and they’re popular aftermarket upgrades, no doubt helped by being a common sight in the professional peloton - it supplies wheels to more teams than any other brand.

Your complete guide to Shimano groupsets

GRX wheels — £381.09

The newest members of Shimano's wheel collection are the dedicated gravel bike wheels that sit alongside the company's recently-announced GRX components.

The tubeless WH-RX570 wheels come in 700C and 650B sizes and feature 21.6mm internal width rims that accommodate wider tyres.

Dura-Ace R9100 and R9170 wheelsets

Shimano unveiled new Dura-Ace wheels with the launch of its latest groupset last summer. The new C40 and C60 wheels have a fashionably wide rim designed for improved aerodynamics.

The rims have a wider profile than the previous generation Dura-Ace wheels, following the current trend for bulbous profiles that are more stable in crosswinds than the older V-shape rims. Each is available in a clincher or tubular version, so you can emulate the pros if you want or be sensible and fit some inner tubes.

Alternatively, the R9170 versions of the C40 and C60 wheels are designed solely for disc brakes and use a 12mm thru-axle hub and a rim that is tubeless compatible. There’s also a tubular option as well.

If you want the lightest option, the R9100-C24 has a very shallow 24mm rim that keeps the weight low, making it an ideal wheelset for climbers. It's virtually unchanged from the previous R9000-C24 in case you're wondering.

Clincher

R9100 C24 — £770.99
R9100 C40 — £996.99
R9170 C40 Disc — £1,440.99
R9100 C60 — £1,178.08
R9170 C60 Disc — NA

Tubular

R9100 C40 Carbon — £1,708.02
R9170 C40 Disc — £1,536.90
R9100 C60 Carbon — £1,979.98
R9170 C60 Disc — ~£2,300.00

Shimano’s previous Dura-Ace R9000 generation wheels are still available if you shop around. There’s the C24 (£1,999.98) and C75 (£1,699.98), the classic C50 (£1,599.98) and finally the C35 (£1,499.98).

Review: Shimano Dura-Ace C24 Carbon Clincher wheelset

Ultegra  wheelsets

Along with the latest version of Ultegra 8000 launched this year, which follows closely in the wake of new Dura-Ace, Shimano released updated wheels. It’s offering two wheelsets under the Ultegra label, the carbon-laminate RS700 for rim brakes (£490.90) and the RS770 (£498.26) for disc brakes.

Both are tubeless-ready and the later is compatible with thru-axles. There are also new hubs to shed about 60g of weight compared to the old 6800 wheels, and there’s a lighter carbon layup in the new rims. Claimed weight is 1,568g for the rim brake wheels and 1,639g for the disc wheels.

A step down, but also allocated to the Ultegra groupset are the tubeless RS500 wheels (£299) with 24mm deep rims. Claimed weight for the rim-brake version is 1,648g.

RX830 35mm Tubeless Disc Brake wheelset — £452.99

The RX830 combines Shimano’s proven carbon laminate technology in a 17mm wide (internal) tubeless-ready rim optimised for disc brakes, so there’s no brake track on these rims. The hubs are cup and cone and ready for disc brakes with conventional quick release axles - so you’ll only see these on cheaper or older generation rim brake bikes, as most disc brake bikes are moving over to thru-axles. Shop around and you can find them discounted, as is the case for most of the wheels here.

RX31 Road Disc Brake wheelset — £272.22

The RX31 was one of the very first dedicated disc brake wheelsets available when disc brakes started appearing on production road bikes a few years ago. Shimano has built a solid wheelset around 24mm profile aluminium clincher rims with 24 stainless steel butted and bladed straight pull spokes in each wheel to best deal with the disc brake forces. Hubs are now thru-axle compatible with contact sealed bearings with an 8,9,10 and 11-speed compatible freehub.

- Review: Shimano RX31 wheelset

RS330 Alloy clincher wheelset — £207.83

Looking like a good upgrade option for many entry-level bikes, though you’re likely to see these wheels specced on a lot of mid-range bikes, the RS-330 uses a lightweight aluminium rim with a 30mm depth providing good aerodynamics, making them ideal for anyone wanting to inject a bit more speed into their riding.

RS11 Alloy clincher wheelset — £179.98

You’re getting a bit more technology in return for your extra £50 at RRP over the RS010 wheels below, with a 24mm profile aluminium rim and bladed stainless steel straight pull spokes - 16 up front and 24 our back. The hubs have labyrinth sealed angular contact bearings and low-friction seals for low rolling resistance and good durability.

RS170 disc brake wheelset — £127.01

The WH-RS170s are part of Shimano's entry level into the world of disc brake ownership and while they aren't the lightest set of wheels out there, they are strong and well made, so should be ideal for the winter trainer or the odd excursion onto gravel tracks and bridleways.

Read our review of the Shimano RS170 Clincher Disc wheels

RS010 Alloy clincher wheelset — £109.98

The RS010 is the most affordable in the RS line and uses much of the same technology as you'd expect higher up the range, and is a really good entry-level wheelset. You get the same 24mm rim depth as the more expensive wheels with 20 front spokes and 24 rear spokes and quick release hubs with wide flanges, contact bearings and steel axles.

RX010 Centre Lock Disc wheelset — £132.46

An affordable disc brake wheelset with 28 spokes in each wheel for extra durability and a 24mm rim for low weight, combined with Centre Lock disc rotor mounting system. The rim width is recommended for 25 to 38mm wide tyres. The hubs use regular quick release axles.

Read more: 22 of the best road bike wheels

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 21 of the best, some for rim brakes and some for discs.

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

Hunt 30 Carbon Aero Disc Road wheels — £799

 The 30 Carbon Aero Disc wheelset from UK brand Hunt is unbelievably light, which really benefits climbing and acceleration, especially because achieving that weight hasn't meant any loss in lateral stiffness. These are seriously good wheels at a very good price.

With 30mm-deep rims, these wheels are versatile for all kinds of road riding – racing, sportives, audax or just getting out with mates on a group ride.

At just 1,347g they feel light and responsive whatever the terrain, but it's most notable when you are in the hills. Attack a climb out of the saddle and they'll make the whole bike surge forward as if it weighs nothing, also helped by the instant engagement of the multi-point pawls in as little as 7.5 degrees.

It's the same when it comes to sprinting or hard acceleration: the response is like a switch has been flicked bunging another 100 watts into your legs for free.

All of this is a waste of time if you can't get that power out because of flex, but there are no such issues here. Even full-on sprinting efforts don't see the rims budge a millimetre from side to side.

Read our review of the Hunt 30 Carbon Aero Disc Road wheels

Scribe Aero Wide 38 wheels — £870

In developing the Aero Wide 38 wheels, Scribe has shown that while the disc brake continues to grow in popularity there is still plenty to be done for those of us who prefer rim brakes to stop our bikes. Weighing just 1,401g without sacrificing stiffness, these wheels are fast, hugely versatile and they come in at an impressive price.

Taking them out of the box, the first thing you notice is the weight – or lack of it – which can often give a little bit of trepidation before fitting them to the bike.

I'm not your typical whippet-thin racer and I can put out a lot of power in quick bursts for short, sharp hills or sprinting for lights, that kind of thing, and if a wheel designer has focused on weight rather than lateral stiffness, I'm going to notice it.

When riding the Aera AR55 wheels I could get them touching the brake pads even when they were backed off by millimetres, but thankfully hitting the same climbs on the Scribes hasn't seen a single issue even with pads sitting a millimetre away from the rim.

Acceleration is epic, and when you are riding in unfamiliar places and don't know what is around the corner, finding yourself at the foot of a hill isn't an issue as just a quick dig on the pedals or climb out of the saddle will see the wheels maintain pace much easier than a heavier set.

Read our review of the Scribe Aero Wide 38 wheels

Mason X Hunt 4 Season Disc Wheels — £329

Back in 2015 Stu rated the Mason Resolution featuring the first 17mm-internal-width incarnation of the collaboratively designed Mason x Hunt 4 Season Disc wheelset. He found that 'stiffness is high, you can really notice that when sprinting or climbing out of the saddle yet they don't feel harsh in any conditions'. The second incarnation is also a cracking buy.

At launch in 2015, the Mason X Hunt 4 Season wheels were £349. The 2019 update brings the width out to 19mm, allowing wider tyres and the multiple benefits thereof, for a price of £329. That's about a £55 reduction allowing for 2015-2019 inflation – not bad for a product that's only improved technically.

On the road over three months – be it gravelly, rocky or tarmac – the Mason X Hunt 4 Season Discs didn't disappoint. They felt solid, with no discernible flex likely to create tyre rub if you're pushing the limits of your frame clearance. Talk of 'stiffness' or 'comfort' is pretty much moot with large, soft tyres – so let's just say that the 4 Seasons felt great, steering was sharp under cornering/braking, and the 4-pawl 10-degree engagement freehub felt snappy when accelerating hard. The ratchets are on the loud side, so if you're after stealth maybe look elsewhere. The freehub body is coated with a special treatment that Hunt says provides 'excellent durability against cassette sprocket damage'. Removing my cassette after a fair bit of riding, I couldn't see any sign of wear at all – so it's obviously working.

Read our review of the Mason X Hunt 4 Season Disc Wheels

Hunt 35 Carbon Gravel Disc X-Wide wheels — £799

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.

Out of the box the X-Wides look quite the business – jet black with subtle white branding. With an outside width of 30mm and depth of 35mm (hence the name) they look huge – but at only 1.5kg for the set, there's clearly carbon witchcraft going on inside.

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 me long to trust that they were more than up to the job.

Setting up my now-40mm Steilacooms for about 32psi, no byway or gravelly road was beyond them. I sought out increasingly-lumpy mountain bike trails and footpaths (perfectly legit up here in the Bonnie Republic), the only limits to hand being my own skills and willingness to risk considerable personal pain should things go awry.

The pre- and post-gravel commutes on tarmac amply demonstrated the X-Wides' ability to hold a decent turn of speed, even in a nippy crosswind. Obviously the asymmetric profile is going to favour wind from one direction over another, but I couldn't work out which, even battling along a snaking road over a North Yorkshire moor. No doubt the aero butted spokes help out here, keeping things swishing along.

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

Pacenti Brevet Wheels — £349.99

Pacenti's Brevet Wheelset offers a classic look with modern features and performance that exceeded our expectations. The weight is good, but this is a wheelset all about comfort and style, both of which Pacenti has got spot on.

Ever since carbon wheelsets rudely made an appearance in Paris-Roubaix, my love of a classic box-section rim has grown ever stronger. These days, Enves are more common on the club run than a classic, handbuilt wheelset and that saddens me. I've owned many shallow section wheels, the best of which were Ambrosio's Excellence rims laced with plain gauge spokes to blissfully silent Ultegra 6800 hubs.

Pacenti markets these wheels as classic style matched with modern features, intending them to be used for a retro bike build that you can take to L'Eroica. What I see is a stylish set of wheels for getting the miles in.

The classic style is the main feature for me, and wow do these look stunning. The polished box-section alloy rims are just 15mm tall and have 28 spoke holes holding silver Sapim D-Light J-bend spokes. These attach in a two-cross lacing pattern to the high-flange hubs.

Read our review of the Pacenti Brevet Wheels

Scribe Aero Wide 50-D — £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.

I've got another test bike that's wearing a set of Campagnolo Bora 50 Disc wheels, which are pretty old school: a narrow rim and that V-shaped profile I mentioned earlier. Fast yes, but much more twitchy in a crosswind compared to these Scribes.

The Scribes do offer quite a firm ride, although I wouldn't say they are overly harsh, and if my focus was more on speed anyway then I'd be willing to sacrifice a bit of comfort.

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

Pacenti Forza Carbon Disc — £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.

The tyres will obviously do the majority of this, but using the same tyres, pressures and so on between the amount of wheels I get through, you can feel the tiny little differences.

Speaking of tyres, the Forza-C rims are hookless so they are only compatible with proper tubeless tyres, none of that tubeless ready stuff, so that might limit their appeal somewhat to prospective purchasers. You can fit an inner tube if you like, as long as you use a tubeless-specific tyre.

Read our review of the Pacenti Forza Carbon Disc 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.

Tyre widths have been increasing in the road genre over the last few years and rims have been getting wider too, to keep the compatibility. Rim brake frames don't have the clearance of disc brake versions, because of them needing to keep the brake bridge for one thing, so the Forza rim isn't the widest we've seen at 24mm externally (20mm internal). Pacenti does say that it works perfectly with a 25mm tyre and I'd concur, as it gives the tyre a nice round profile rather than that lightbulb shape you get when used with a more traditional rim that is 3mm narrower.

Read our review of the Pacenti Forza wheels

Parcours Grimpeur Disc — £819

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.

Obviously, 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.

Parcours has gone for a build of 24 Sapim CX-Ray spokes front and rear in a two-cross lacing pattern which certainly feels stiff and gave no issues with trueness even after a fairish amount of abuse. Hard acceleration and heavy braking did little to upset them either, from a stress point of view.

Read our review of the Parcours Grimpeur Disc wheels

Just Riding Along Lark Light Road — from £390

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.

I was massively impressed with JRA's Gecko Carbon wheels when I tested them. They offered a solid build while being extremely lightweight and that theme is followed here with the Lark Lights.

Losing 250g from a wheelset always seems, to me anyway, 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 Road wheels

Prime BlackEdition 50 Carbon — £674.99

Prime's BlackEdition 50 Carbon Wheelset represents the brand's first push to compete with high-end performance wheels. They vastly outperform their price-tag, with stable rims, great braking, smooth hubs and easy tubeless setup.

If you're not familiar with Prime, its a brand sold exclusively through Wiggle and CRC. Wiggle is using its buying power to produce a very capable race wheelset at a much better price than many well-known brands.

In the box, you get tubeless valves, carbon brake pads, QR skewers, spare spokes, nipples and a 10-speed spacer. They don't come with sealant, but that's something I'd get when selecting tyres.

The 50mm deep rim brake option on test can be run using both clincher and tubeless tyres. They arrived with Hutchinson's Fusion 25mm tubeless tyres fitted, but I also tested them with Vittoria's 25mm Corsa G Tubeless and 28mm Goodyear Eagle tubeless tyres. All were easy to mount up with a standard track pump.

Read our review of the Prime BlackEdition 50 Carbon Wheelset

AlexRims CXD4 700C Disc TL Ready Centerlock Road — £287.99

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 of the AlexRims CXD4 wheels
Find an AlexRims dealer

Fulcrum Racing 5 Disc — £279.99

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 of the Fulcrum Racing 5 Disc sheels
Find a Fulcrum dealer

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
Find an Edco dealer

Mavic Ksyrium Elite UST — £419.00

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 of the Mavic Ksyrium Elite UST wheels
Find a Mavic dealer

Ritchey Classic Zeta wheelset — ~£335

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 of the Ritchey Classic Zeta wheels
Find a Ritchey dealer

Vision TriMax 30 KB — ~£450.00

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 of the Vision TriMax 30 KB wheels
Find a Vision dealer

DT Swiss PR 1400 Dicut 21 OXiC — £634.39

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 of the DT Swiss PR 1400 Dicut 21 OXiC wheels
Find a DT Swiss dealer

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 of the Just Riding Along Gecko Carbon

BORG50C Carbon Clincher wheelset — from £800.00

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 of the BORG50C Carbon Clincher wheels

Hunt 30 Carbon Gravel Disc Wheelset — £799

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 of the Hunt 30 Carbon Gravel Disc Wheels

Fulcrum wheels are immensely popular, both as original equipment on complete new bikes and when bought after market. The range is broad and a little complicated so here’s our guide to navigating it.

Fulcrum is a sub-brand of Italian component manufacturer Campagnolo. It makes wheels that are compatible with Shimano/SRAM systems as well as with Campag’s own products.

This isn't a test, although we do reference our reviews where relevant. This is simply an overview of the range to tell you what's what and help you decide what's most suitable for you.

Prices are for wheels with Shimano/SRAM-compatible freehubs.

Racing 7 DB 2Way-Fit — £219.99

Fulcrum has dirt riding in mind with the disc-brake version of the Racing 7. It boasts rims with a 19mm internal width to work with tyres up to 62mm wide, and hubs that can be easily adapted to work with the various quick-release and through-axle standards.

Because the rims are shallower than the regular Racing 7's the claimed weight ends up slightly lower at 1,740g. That said, Fulcrum still lists a non-disc Racing 7, but we've been unable to find a dealer that has them in stock.

The  2Way-Fit designation indicates that the Racing 7 DB works with tubeless tyres, but there's a catch: Fulcrum says only Schwalbe Pro One and G-One tyres should be used with any of its  2Way-Fit (Road) wheels. They're great tyres, but Fulcrum really needs to tweak the design for greater flexibility.

There's also a 650B version, Racing 7b (£179.99), as the gravel-bike alternative of smaller wheels with really fat tyres continues to gain traction.

Read our review of the Racing 7 DB  2Way-Fit wheels

Buy if: You want tough, fairly light wheels for your gravel bike — and you really like Schwalbe tyres

Racing 6 — £149.50

The Racing 6 is very similar to the Racing 7 but has an over-sized, drilled-out, drive-side flange on the rear wheel. Fulcrum's website in fact no longer lists the rim-brake Racing 7 at all, so the Racing 6 looks to effectively replace that model in the range. Like the Racing 7, the rims are 23mm wide (17mm internal) and slightly deeper on the rear wheel: 27.5mm v 24.5mm up front.

Fulcrum claims a pair of Racing 6 wheels weighs 1,760g.

Buy if: You want reliable, no-frills wheels for everyday riding and training.

Racing 6 DB  2Way-Fit — £219

The disc-brake version of the Racing 6 has a claimed weight of 1,690g a pair, shaving 50g off the Racing 7 DB thanks to 26mm tall rims with 17mm internal width. These are therefore more road-orientated than the Racing 7 DB.

Buy if: You want very sensibly priced disc-brake wheels for the road, and don't mind the Schwalbe-only rule.

Racing 5 — ~£220

When we reviewed the Racing 5s (RRP £289.99) we said, “They're strong and not too heavy, and have shrugged off months of wet miles with nary a whimper.”

Rather than round spokes, the Racing 5s come with double-butted steel spokes that are aero profiled – in other words, they’re flattened to reduce drag. They’re also straight-pull – there’s no bend.

Check out our Fulcrum Racing 5 review

A £270 disc brake version of the Racing 5 (RRP: £349.99) is also available. As well as the ability to take rotors (6 bolt or Fulcrum’s AFS – Axial Fixing System – design), the wheels have disc-specific rims with a 24.5mm external width for the easier fitting of fatter tyres. As with other disc-braked, tubeless-compatible wheels from Fulcrum those tyres will have to be Schwalbe if you're going tubeless.

Read our review of the Fulcrum Racing 5 DB 2Way-Fit wheels

Buy if: You want solid commuting or training wheels that roll well and don't cost the earth.

Racing 4 — £250.70

Racing 4 is the new name for the wheel formerly known as the Racing Quattro, with 35mm-deep rims and a claimed weight per pair of 1,725g. The idea is to improve aerodynamics and “increase torsional and lateral stiffness compared with a conventional profile, for improved high speed stability.”

The 21 rear spokes are arranged according to what Fulcrum calls its 2:1 Two-to-One system, with 14 on the driveside and 7 on the non-driveside. Fulcrum says that this limits the loss of rim tension when you pedal.

“Slackening and torsion are limited and the transfer of the athlete’s power is much more effective,” it says.

When we reviewed the Racing Quattros we said, “A lot of wheel for not a lot of money. Fast and durable, a great all-rounder.”

Check out our Fulcrum Racing Quattro review.

Buy if: You’re looking for something that’s strong and durable with a little extra rim depth.

Racing 4 DB 2Way-Fit — £299

The disc-brake version of the Racing 4 has 35mm deep disc-specific rims and a claimed weight of 1,690g. Like most of Fulcrum's disc-brake wheels it uses what Fulcrum calls Monoblock Hub For Disc tech, in which stiffening ribs inside the hub convey braking forces to the tangential drive-side spokes to reduce twist on the rotor side.

Buy if: You want semi-aero wheels for your disc-braked bike.

Racing 3 — £389.99

Racing 3s (RRP: £550) are quite a lot lighter than Racing 4s (the claimed wheelset weight is 1,560g) partly because of shallower rims – the front is 26mm, the rear is 30mm. The latest version gets an upgrade to rims with 17mm internal width to accommodate wider tyres.

Fulcrum no longer lists a 2-Way Fit version of the Racing 3, but they're still listed at £425. You can fit either standard clinchers or go tubeless because there are no holes in the rim.

Check out Road Tubeless: Everything You Need To Know and also our Buyer’s Guide To Tubeless Tyres.

When we reviewed the 2-Way Fit version on road.cc, we called it, “A good wheel choice if you're taking the tubeless plunge – responsive, strong and well-made. Stylish too.”

Disc brakes? Yep, there's a disc brake version of the Racing 3 (£439.99), and it has a 2-Way Fit rim for tubeless tyres.

Buy if: You’d like stiff and responsive wheels for training, sportives, and even racing duties.

Read our review of the Fulcrum Racing 3 2-Way Fit wheels

Racing Zero — £606.40

It’s a large step up in price to the Racing Zero (RRP £799.99), but this is a high-level aluminium wheelset with a 25mm-deep front rim, 30mm-deep rear rim, carbon front hub body, and USB ceramic bearings. Fulcrum claims these are 30% lighter, 40% more resistant, and 50% smoother than standard steel bearings.

The Zero wheelset is light at a claimed 1,495g.

Fulcrum no longer lists the 2Way-Fit rim-brake version of the Racing Zero (£824.99), but there are still a few in retailers.

Fulcrum has applied a plasma electrolytic oxidation treatment to the rims of the £759 Racing Zero Nite (RRP £1,049.99) that was unveiled a couple of years ago.

“The Plasma Electrolytic Oxidation process both hardens the metal, increasing its resistance to wear, [and creates] a surface that improves braking performance in both wet and dry conditions,” says Fulcrum.

Buy if: You’d like a lightweight aluminium wheelset and are prepared to pay for high performance.

Racing Zero Competizione — £866.70

Here's Fulcrum throwing almost all their technologies at a set of high-end go-faster aluminium wheels. They feature 2Way-Fit, 6082 T6 aluminium rims, hubs with carbon-fibre centre sections, CULT ceramic bearings, plasma-treated freehub body and weigh a claimed 1,475g. The rear rim is 30mm deep, the front 27mm and both have 17mm internal width.

Buy if: You want light, fast wheels with a splash of colour.

Racing Zero DB 2Way-Fit — £649.80

With 19mm internal-width rims and a claimed weight of just £1,590g these are Fulcrum's entry in the high-end do-everything wheels category. The rims are made from high-strength 6082 T6 aluminium, joined to the hubs with aluminium spokes, and like the rim-brake version they roll on USB ceramic bearings.

Buy if: You want light, modern tubeless-compatible disc-braked wheels

Racing Quattro Carbon — ~£820

The Racing Quattro Carbon wheelset (RRP £1,099.99) is designed to be aerodynamically efficient and reasonably light, weighing a claimed 1,555g. It has 40mm deep carbon-fibre rims that are 24.2mm wide to support tyres from 25mm to 32mm. Fulcrum no longer lists them, but there are still a few in the shops.

As with Fulcrum’s other non-disc carbon-rimmed wheels, the Racing Quattro Carbon has a 3Diamant surface treatment on the braking tracks. This is machining that, according to Fulcrum, “Eliminates the imperfections caused by the non-homogenous resin deposits and allows the brake pad to work directly on the woven carbon fibres.” The idea is to improve the braking performance in both wet and dry conditions.

The Racing Quattro Carbon is also available in a disc version (£850-£890, RRP £1,199.99). When we reviewed them we described these wheels as “Light, fast, stiff and strong, and very, very versatile.” However, unlike other disc-brake Fulcrum wheels they're not tubeless compatible.

Read our review of Fulcrum Racing Quattro Carbon Disc wheels.

Buy if: You’re after lightweight and stiff wheels in a versatile depth.

Racing Zero Carbon — £1,225

The Racing Zero Carbon Clincher combines 30mm-deep/24.5mm wide carbon rims with aluminium aero spokes and carbon bodied hubs. The bearings are USB ceramic. The wheelset has a claimed weight of just 1,358g but the pair's supposed to cost a hefty £1,799.99.

There's a £1,257.10 disc-brake version too.

Buy if: You want high-quality carbon wheels in a shallow depth.

Speed series

Fulcrum's top-end hoops, the Speed wheelsets have all-carbon aero rims for racing and against-the-clock efforts. There are five models of spoked wheel, plus the Speed 360 one-piece disc rear wheel.

Speed 40C — ~£1,500

The Fulcrum Speed 40C wheels offer buttery smooth ceramic bearings, stable rims and brilliant braking thanks to a what Fulcrum calls AC3 — All Conditions Carbon Control. They spin up effortlessly, handle well on windy days and weigh just 1,420g a pair. The only thing not to like is the price.

There's also a £1,782.47 tubular version — Speed 40T— which weighs just 1,213g a pair and it's available in a disc-brake version too.

Read our review of the Speed 40C wheels

Read our review of the Speed 40T wheels

Buy if: you're racing or going fast really matters to you, and it's hilly or windy

Speed 55C — ~£1,650

As above, but with 55mm deep rims for better aerodynamics. At a claimed 1,470g they don't surrender much to the Speed 40C wheels though we'd expect them to be a bit more susceptible to getting knocked off course in side-winds.

You can also get the 55C rear wheel in a pair with a 40C front for £1,584.62. Claimed weight is 1,450g.

If you prefer to glue on your tyres, there's a tubular version for £1,499 — Speed 55T— which weighs a claimed 1,280g a pair.

Disc brakes and tubulars? No problem. You want the Speed 55T DB you do. New stopping tech meets traditional tyres will set you back £1,711.32 and the pair is claimed to weigh 1395g.

Buy if: You're racing

Racing Speed XLR 80mm Carbon Tubular — £2,499.99

If you're doing a time trial or the bike leg of a triathlon, it's a calm day and you've a serious need for speed, then you want the deepest rims possible.

Buy if: You're racing against the clock

Speed 360T — £2,999.99

Finally, for those whose need for speed is only outstripped by the depth of their pockets, there's the 360T rear disc.

Buy if: You're racing against the clock and want to be ready for that perfect float morning

Wind series

Fulcrum calls its cheaper deep-rim aero wheels 'Wind' rather than 'Speed'. They have 2Way-Fit carbon fibre rims for tubeless compatibility.

Wind 40 DB — £999

Like its deeper sibling the Wind 40 has a rim with a 19mm channel to provide support for fatter tyres. That's the most obvious difference between the Wind and Speed wheels; the latter have 17mm rims, so the Wind wheels reflect the trend to fatter tyres. In fact Fulcrum says these wheels will take tyres up to 50mm wide, which opens up the possibility of using them on some gnarly-looking monstercross bikes as well as various go-faster applications. Claimed weight is 1,620g.

Buy if: You want to run tubeless tyres on a disc-braked race bike

Wind 55 DB — £999

As you can no doubt guess from the name the Wind 55 DB has a 55mm-deep rim, which is about as deep as you can go and still get decent handling in moderate crosswinds. The extra rim depth costs just 60g over the Wind 40DB for a claimed weight of 1,680g.

Buy if: You want to run tubeless tyres on a disc-braked race bike and you want every last aero advantage

Rapid Red series

When it comes to wheels for drop-handlebar bikes, it's a stretch to call Fulcrum's solitary gravel bike pair a series, though the Red designation is shared with Fulcum's mountain bike wheels so arguably they're part of a wheels-for-dirt-riding series.

Buy if: You're heading for the dirt

Rapid Red 5 — £314.99

Fulcrum says the Rapid Red 5's 23mm-wide 2Way-Fit rim is suitable for 33-46 mm wide tyres. The 1,700g weight for a air is decent for wheels with wide aluminium rims, and you can have them with standard Shimano 11-speed freehub body or SRAM XDr body.

• 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

Hunt 30 Carbon Aero Disc Road wheels — £799

The 30 Carbon Aero Disc wheelset from UK brand Hunt is unbelievably light, which really benefits climbing and acceleration, especially because achieving that weight hasn't meant any loss in lateral stiffness. These are seriously good wheels at a very good price.

With 30mm-deep rims, these wheels are versatile for all kinds of road riding – racing, sportives, audax or just getting out with mates on a group ride.

At just 1,347g they feel light and responsive whatever the terrain, but it's most notable when you are in the hills. Attack a climb out of the saddle and they'll make the whole bike surge forward as if it weighs nothing, also helped by the instant engagement of the multi-point pawls in as little as 7.5 degrees.

It's the same when it comes to sprinting or hard acceleration: the response is like a switch has been flicked bunging another 100 watts into your legs for free.

All of this is a waste of time if you can't get that power out because of flex, but there are no such issues here. Even full-on sprinting efforts don't see the rims budge a millimetre from side to side.

Read our review of the Hunt 30 Carbon Aero Disc Road wheels

Scribe Aero Wide 38 wheels — £870

In developing the Aero Wide 38 wheels, Scribe has shown that while the disc brake continues to grow in popularity there is still plenty to be done for those of us who prefer rim brakes to stop our bikes. Weighing just 1,401g without sacrificing stiffness, these wheels are fast, hugely versatile and they come in at an impressive price.

Taking them out of the box, the first thing you notice is the weight – or lack of it – which can often give a little bit of trepidation before fitting them to the bike.

I'm not your typical whippet-thin racer and I can put out a lot of power in quick bursts for short, sharp hills or sprinting for lights, that kind of thing, and if a wheel designer has focused on weight rather than lateral stiffness, I'm going to notice it.

When riding the Aera AR55 wheels I could get them touching the brake pads even when they were backed off by millimetres, but thankfully hitting the same climbs on the Scribes hasn't seen a single issue even with pads sitting a millimetre away from the rim.

Acceleration is epic, and when you are riding in unfamiliar places and don't know what is around the corner, finding yourself at the foot of a hill isn't an issue as just a quick dig on the pedals or climb out of the saddle will see the wheels maintain pace much easier than a heavier set.

Read our review of the Scribe Aero Wide 38 wheels

Mason X Hunt 4 Season Disc Wheels — £329

Back in 2015 Stu rated the Mason Resolution featuring the first 17mm-internal-width incarnation of the collaboratively designed Mason x Hunt 4 Season Disc wheelset. He found that 'stiffness is high, you can really notice that when sprinting or climbing out of the saddle yet they don't feel harsh in any conditions'. The second incarnation is also a cracking buy.

At launch in 2015, the Mason X Hunt 4 Season wheels were £349. The 2019 update brings the width out to 19mm, allowing wider tyres and the multiple benefits thereof, for a price of £329. That's about a £55 reduction allowing for 2015-2019 inflation – not bad for a product that's only improved technically.

On the road over three months – be it gravelly, rocky or tarmac – the Mason X Hunt 4 Season Discs didn't disappoint. They felt solid, with no discernible flex likely to create tyre rub if you're pushing the limits of your frame clearance. Talk of 'stiffness' or 'comfort' is pretty much moot with large, soft tyres – so let's just say that the 4 Seasons felt great, steering was sharp under cornering/braking, and the 4-pawl 10-degree engagement freehub felt snappy when accelerating hard. The ratchets are on the loud side, so if you're after stealth maybe look elsewhere. The freehub body is coated with a special treatment that Hunt says provides 'excellent durability against cassette sprocket damage'. Removing my cassette after a fair bit of riding, I couldn't see any sign of wear at all – so it's obviously working.

Read our review of the Mason X Hunt 4 Season Disc Wheels

Hunt 35 Carbon Gravel Disc X-Wide wheels — £799

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.

Out of the box the X-Wides look quite the business – jet black with subtle white branding. With an outside width of 30mm and depth of 35mm (hence the name) they look huge – but at only 1.5kg for the set, there's clearly carbon witchcraft going on inside.

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 me long to trust that they were more than up to the job.

Setting up my now-40mm Steilacooms for about 32psi, no byway or gravelly road was beyond them. I sought out increasingly-lumpy mountain bike trails and footpaths (perfectly legit up here in the Bonnie Republic), the only limits to hand being my own skills and willingness to risk considerable personal pain should things go awry.

The pre- and post-gravel commutes on tarmac amply demonstrated the X-Wides' ability to hold a decent turn of speed, even in a nippy crosswind. Obviously the asymmetric profile is going to favour wind from one direction over another, but I couldn't work out which, even battling along a snaking road over a North Yorkshire moor. No doubt the aero butted spokes help out here, keeping things swishing along.

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

Pacenti Brevet Wheels — £349.99

Pacenti's Brevet Wheelset offers a classic look with modern features and performance that exceeded our expectations. The weight is good, but this is a wheelset all about comfort and style, both of which Pacenti has got spot on.

Ever since carbon wheelsets rudely made an appearance in Paris-Roubaix, my love of a classic box-section rim has grown ever stronger. These days, Enves are more common on the club run than a classic, handbuilt wheelset and that saddens me. I've owned many shallow section wheels, the best of which were Ambrosio's Excellence rims laced with plain gauge spokes to blissfully silent Ultegra 6800 hubs.

Pacenti markets these wheels as classic style matched with modern features, intending them to be used for a retro bike build that you can take to L'Eroica. What I see is a stylish set of wheels for getting the miles in.

The classic style is the main feature for me, and wow do these look stunning. The polished box-section alloy rims are just 15mm tall and have 28 spoke holes holding silver Sapim D-Light J-bend spokes. These attach in a two-cross lacing pattern to the high-flange hubs.

Read our review of the Pacenti Brevet Wheels

Swiss Side Hadron Ultimate 485 — ~£1,600

Swiss Side's Hadron Ultimate 485s take the fight to the bigger players in the industry with a compelling blend of aerodynamics, exemplary build quality and a competitive price. The trademark "whoosh" sound is no more, however. Today's range of Hadron wheels might look similar to those we tested previously, but in fact no components have been carried across – they are completely different.

Swiss Side offers two flavours of its Hadron aero wheelset – the Ultimate and the Classic. What's changed since we tested the Hadron 485s in 2016 is that both ranges now use full-carbon rims. In fact, Swiss Side is quite open about the fact that the current-gen Hadron Ultimate and Hadron Classic use exactly the same rims (in a range of depths and with rim- and disc-brake options). You might look at the pictures and assume that these are effectively the same wheels as the last lot of Hadron Ultimates we tested, but stay with me here – you couldn't be more wrong.

There is an immediate and quite obvious difference when you first start riding. All of the first-generation Swiss Side Hadron wheels made a rather noticeable whooshing sound, like a toned-down version of a disc wheel. This was because of the way the rim was constructed – the deep section was non-structural and so thin that you could flex it between finger and thumb, and this would amplify the vibrations from the road to make a noise. I quite liked it, actually, and I lost count of how many times someone commented on what a good noise they made.

The new Hadron rim is made as a one piece with the deep section thicker than previously, adding a claimed 20 per cent more lateral stiffness to the wheels. This is a welcome move – I found the old full-carbon Hadron Ultimates were less laterally stiff than I would have liked – and the new wheels are better in this respect, allowing me to set the brake pads closer to the rim. A side-effect of this change is that the resonant sound is gone. Rim weight has also increased slightly as a consequence, by approximately 30g per set. We weighed these 48.5mm-deep Hadron Ultimates at 1,529g including rim tape and valves but excluding skewers, exactly matching Swiss Side's claimed weight.

The combination of Swiss Side's aerodynamics expertise and DT Swiss's production quality yields good results here, and for less than the almost identical wheelset that DT Swiss sells. They are very easy to live with and stable on windier days, so if you're still using rim brakes you could do a lot worse than these. And if you're already on disc brakes, well, you're in luck too.

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

Enve G23 — £2,501.99

Think carbon fibre wheels and it's highly likely Enve is one of the first brand names that springs to mind. The US company knows carbon wheels and has put all its expertise into its first dedicated gravel design, these G23 wheels. They provide phenomenal performance, low weight and impressive durability, but you'll max out your credit card to purchase them.

Enve has built its reputation on carbon fibre wheels since it first launched in 2007 (when it was called Edge Composites) and with the new G Series, it's bringing this experience to the growing gravel and adventure bike market. It is offering the G27 (650B) and G23 (700C) using a rim profile optimised for wide tyres and a unique hookless profile intended to minimise pinch flats.

Despite the obvious vibration-damping qualities of a low pressure 40mm tyre, the Enve rims appeared to provide a bit more 'give' when barrelling along boulder and gravel-strewn paths and gulleys compared with many other wheels I've tested.

They just seem to help take the edge off the hits, whether it's riding along washboard surfaces, hard gravel tracks or taking on bigger impacts from rocks or roots.

It is possible to make a carbon fibre rim too stiff, but Enve gets it right with these. Build a really stiff rim and it'll give a harsh ride feel that can result in less control and more fatigue. The ride quality on offer here is exceptionally good, the rim helping to dissipate energy to generate a smoother ride with more control and less fatigue.

Read our review of the Enve G23
Find an Enve dealer

Bontrager Aeolus Pro 3V TLR — £1,098

 As a company, Trek/Bontrager hasn't embraced the gravel movement as keenly as some of its rivals, but these new Aeolus Pro 3V TLR Disc Wheels aim to address that. They are light and very tough wide-profile carbon rims ideal for big volume gravel tyres, and they are reasonably priced with a good warranty and no weight limit.

Bontrager has considerable experience in the carbon fibre wheel market. We were impressed with the Aeolus XXX 4s and the Aeolus Pro 3s when we tested them last year, and it's the latter that forms the basis for the new Aeolus Pro 3Vs. The V stands for volume; these wheels are designed for big volume tyres.

How are they designed for wider tyres? Internal width is the key; these measure 25mm internally, up from 19.5mm on the road carbon wheels. We're seeing the internal width of most road and gravel wheels increasing over traditional measurements to better suit wider tyres that are fashionable these days. A wider rim provides a better foundation for a wider tyre, providing more stability than a wide tyre on a narrow rim.

One of the reasons you might want to buy carbon wheels for your gravel bike is the durability and strength they offer. These are mightily strong wheels and have stood up to some punishing riding, including on rock-strewn tracks better suited to mountain bikes. Hearing the rim clatter against the rocks does make you wince but the wheels have stood up to it all just fine, with no punctures or damaged rims. I've dented aluminium rims on these same trails but the Bontragers coped with it all just fine.

The wheels display the sort of stiffness you'd expect from a carbon wheel, but assessing stiffness through a low-pressure 40mm tyre is tricky. There is more stiffness detectable when coming from aluminium wheels, though, a generally snappier ride experience especially noticeable when riding singletrack trails with lots of sudden turns.

The high-quality carbon fibre Aeolus Pro 3V wheels are perfectly suited to wide road and gravel tyres, with top-notch performance and durability, backed up by a two-year no-cost replacement or repair warranty.

Read our review of the Bontrager Aeolus Pro 3V TLR
Find a Bontrager dealer

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 — £674.99

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 — £1,998

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 — £1,629

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.

Using disc brakes? You want the disc brake version for £1,610.

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

DT Swiss PRC 1400 Spline 65 — £1,363

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 — £287.99

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 — £849

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 — £749.99

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 — £799

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
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Fast Forward F3R Full Carbon Clincher Wheels — £1295.99 - £1329.99

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
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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
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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
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Vision Team 35 — £166

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
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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 — £275

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 — £289.99

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
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Stan's NoTubes ZTR Grail Team — £575

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
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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
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Swiss Side Hadron Classic 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
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Fulcrum Racing Quattro Carbon DB — £850-£999

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 dealerSpecialized 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
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