School me on wheels

There'll be no significant difference between the Mavic wheels that you have and others in that price range. Sometimes it's the case of "better the devil you know..." as some machine made wheels that are a couple of hundred bucks do have a tendancy to not be all that reliable.

Upgrading wheelsets is easy, you'll swap entire wheels so no need dive down into rebuilding wheels or hubs or spokes, just buy a new set of wheels, swap over your cassette or buy a new cassette if you want to change gearing while you're at it, mount rim strips, tubes and tires and you're good to go. Unless you go with one of the newer wide rim designs you shouldn't need to make any big brake adjustments or anything else though it's always good to double check rear derailleur cable tension and stop adjustments in case there's any differences in where the cassette sits relative to the derailleur which sometimes happens depending on the rear hub design.

In the price range you're talking about you can get some decent wheelsets but it won't likely be a massive jump in performance from the way your bike shipped. Williams and Boyd both have nice wheels near your price range and there's the Reynolds Solitudes or Easton Ea70s that can be found for around that price. Neuvation has some decent wheels that aren't too expensive which you can also buy and almost always on sale as the Performance branded Titans.

You might shed a bit of weight (which isn't as important as many folks will tell you), you might get a slightly more aero set of wheels if you're currently running low profile box rims and you may upgrade to slightly nicer hubs. But for real big changes in any of these areas you generally have to spend a lot more than you've listed as your budget. Whether it's worth saving for a bigger jump depends a lot on what you're currently running and what kind of shape their in. If they're true, round with good bearings and a freehub that operates reliably and they're not absolute boat anchors in terms of weight then it might make more sense to keep riding them and save for something a bit higher end with much nicer hubs paired with light and deep hoops. Hard to say since I've got no idea what you have now and what you hope to achieve beyond aesthetics with the upgrade.

BTW, upgrading tires and tubes is often the best bang for your buck way to improve ride quality and performance again depending on what you're currently running.

-Dave

daveryanwyoming said:

Upgrading wheelsets is easy, you'll swap entire wheels so no need dive down into rebuilding wheels or hubs or spokes, just buy a new set of wheels, swap over your cassette or buy a new cassette if you want to change gearing while you're at it, mount rim strips, tubes and tires and you're good to go. Unless you go with one of the newer wide rim designs you shouldn't need to make any big brake adjustments or anything else though it's always good to double check rear derailleur cable tension and stop adjustments in case there's any differences in where the cassette sits relative to the derailleur which sometimes happens depending on the rear hub design. In the price range you're talking about you can get some decent wheelsets but it won't likely be a massive jump in performance from the way your bike shipped. Williams and Boyd both have nice wheels near your price range and there's the Reynolds Solitudes or Easton Ea70s that can be found for around that price. Neuvation has some decent wheels that aren't too expensive which you can also buy and almost always on sale as the Performance branded Titans. You might shed a bit of weight (which isn't as important as many folks will tell you), you might get a slightly more aero set of wheels if you're currently running low profile box rims and you may upgrade to slightly nicer hubs. But for real big changes in any of these areas you generally have to spend a lot more than you've listed as your budget. Whether it's worth saving for a bigger jump depends a lot on what you're currently running and what kind of shape their in. If they're true, round with good bearings and a freehub that operates reliably and they're not absolute boat anchors in terms of weight then it might make more sense to keep riding them and save for something a bit higher end with much nicer hubs paired with light and deep hoops. Hard to say since I've got no idea what you have now and what you hope to achieve beyond aesthetics with the upgrade. BTW, upgrading tires and tubes is often the best bang for your buck way to improve ride quality and performance again depending on what you're currently running. -Dave

Circle gets the square. You can easily get a set of wheels built with Mavic or Velocity rims, great spokes, and Shimano hubs for about the price you're talking about. You should, however, think about just riding your current wheels into the ground before changing.

Is moving the cassette over easy? How do you do it?

jwroubaix said:

Is moving the cassette over easy? How do you do it?

Dead easy. Here's how it goes: 1. Put a Shimano Cassette Tool (if you have Shimano or SRAM cassette) on a ratchet and insert into cassette locking. Here's a Shimano Cassette Tool made by Park: [IMG ALT=""]http://www.cyclingforums.com/content/type/61/id/270869/width/500/height/1000[/IMG] 2. Place a chain whip on the large cog of the cassette so that the cassette will not turn when you loosen the cassette locking. Here's a chain whip: [IMG ALT=""]http://www.cyclingforums.com/content/type/61/id/270870/width/500/height/1000[/IMG] 3. Remove cassette taking care to keep everything in order. Some cassette's are all fastened together. Some aren't. On the ones that aren't, it's important on some to keep the spacers between cogs in their proper places because on some cassettes (like Campy's) the spacers vary in thickness. 4. Put cassette on new hub. The cassette is keyed so that it can only go on in one particular way. 5. Thread on cassette lockring, hold tire or rim, and tighten lockring to appropriate torque. Of course, the Park Tool Repair section does a much better job than me explaining how to do this. Likewise, there are loads of YouTube vids that make the process very clear.