Budget wheels

New wheels are one of the shrewdest upgrades; we take five great-value models out for a spin

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New wheels offer some of the greatest potential performance gains of any upgrade. Along with the other crucial part of the system – tyres – wheels drastically affect how your bike accelerates, changes direction, and also influence the speed it rolls along a trail.

The basic ingredients of a wheel are an extruded alloy or moulded carbon rim (usually 29in or 27.5in diameter), laced to a central hub (110x15mm at the front and 148x12mm at the rear) by tensioned steel spokes. Spokes can be different gauges (thicknesses) to give differing ride characteristics, and are often butted to save weight. The hub usually runs on sealed cartridge bearings and the freehub is normally modular in case you want to run a different cassette. All told, they’re a vital ingredient in your bike’s efficiency. Different products and designs have different strengths and weaknesses on the trail, the most important of which relate to acceleration, compliance or comfort, and strength.

Individual rim designs resist damage in different ways, and hub flange design, spoke choice (and quantity) and even the way the wheel is laced all affect durability. Which means that a set of wheels can make or break your ride on ride feel alone, and not just if they fail catastrophically – something that’s thankfully rare these days but can still happen.