Seeking wheel advice

[cmj7gh]

Happy Friday! I recently relieved DKel of his old Wolverine frame, and now I’m deep in the weeds of researching how to turn that frame into a full bike that I can take on gravel, on overnight trips on the towpath, and to the occasional cross race.

I’ve spent a while talking to the (super helpful) folks at Bikenetic and I think I’m going to end up outfitting it with a SRAM Rival 1×11 drivetrain, and I have almost everything figured out except for the wheels.

They recommended going with some pre-built 29er wheels, but they estimated the set of wheels + tires comes out to ~$850, which would put me over my budget.

I’m thinking about trying to start out with a cheap wheelset that will get me rolling and leave some of my budget left over to buy a framebag or something, with the expectation that I’ll upgrade the wheels soon-ish down the line. I don’t know much about wheels, so I’m a bit in over my head here. I do know that the frame takes quick release wheels and disc brakes, and that the 11-speed cassette requires a special driver. Any advice where I could start looking?

I also like DIY projects and have done a bit of research on building my own wheels. The youtube videos make it look tedious but easy, but it requires some special tools – is that even worth considering as an option to save some money?

Thanks for the help!

Topic

[hozn]

Yeah, I have broken aluminum cage(s). Specialized Rib cages have been invincible and the Performance stainless cages seem to last forever, but don’t hold bottles as well as the plastic Rib cages — so I swapped those out for Monster Cross.

I like the aesthetics of the Arundel Mandible cages, so I picked up a set of used ones for the road bike.

Sent from my LEX727 using Tapatalk

[Author]

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