Modern vs retro wheels

[ultrazenith]

The time has come to replace my 'best' rear wheel, and I was about to build an identical one as the last (XT hub, 36 DB spokes because I'm not light and like my wheel to stay true), but I'm pretty sure there are better options available now which I don't know about. I look at pre-built wheel packages on the web and see various options, Crossmax, Shimano, etc., but have no idea what's good, what's reliable, what's worth the money, blah blah.

What do you recommend? What should I stay away from?

 

[tpe666]

I weigh 96kg, changed my wheels recently to Magic cross max, not the lite ones. Stayed true despite my efforts to bend them by riding like a ****.

 

[firedfromthecircus]

I'm not sure what is available in modern factory built stuff, but I just built a new rear wheel for my 29er and it is a 36 DB spoked XT hub. A hand built DB spoked wheel in 32 or 36 hole flavour is still about as close to perfection as you can get in my mind. Choose your rim and hub to suit your budget and requirements but the old standards can still cut it for me.

 

[Raging_Bulls]

Re:

After finding pitting in my cups and cones, I temporarily replaced my Scott's M730-732 wheels with some generic wheels consisting of 36h Quando hubs with double butted Rigida ZAC2000 rims.

The hubs didn't spin properly until I replaced the grease. The original stuff was as hard as silicone. A couple hundred miles later they are working okay but I am always expecting the flanges to snap or the bearings to eat themselves at any moment.

The rims themselves are pretty good though. So good in fact that I plan to get a second set of those and lace both sets onto NOS M730-732 hubs.