Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

i went from ksyrium elites to a hand built set from Greg at TWE. MASSIVE improvement. Had been looking at the RS80 myself, glad i sent Greg an email. Cannot recommend them enough.

sdnelson19 wrote:i went from ksyrium elites to a hand built set from Greg at TWE. MASSIVE improvement. Had been looking at the RS80 myself, glad i sent Greg an email. Cannot recommend them enough.

what did you pay and how much do they weigh? standard or deep dish? TWE have no prices on their site.

PawPaw wrote:

sdnelson19 wrote:i went from ksyrium elites to a hand built set from Greg at TWE. MASSIVE improvement. Had been looking at the RS80 myself, glad i sent Greg an email. Cannot recommend them enough.

what did you pay and how much do they weigh? standard or deep dish? TWE have no prices on their site.

+1 also very interested in what you bought from TWE

Well among the wheels you listed it's quite a mixed bag of attributes. Bear in mind that the Zipp Firecrests are full carbon clinchers so the braking won't be great on long/steep decents and worse in the wet. So these would be better suited to racing if you regularly do long/steep descents on recreational rides. If you do a lot of climbing and descending then I would go for the RS80s (and even better the Dura Ace C24s which can be had for less than $800 a set). Another point is that the deep dish rims are a lot stiffer so you will feel the bumps and bad roads.

roreybellows wrote:

PawPaw wrote:

sdnelson19 wrote:i went from ksyrium elites to a hand built set from Greg at TWE. MASSIVE improvement. Had been looking at the RS80 myself, glad i sent Greg an email. Cannot recommend them enough.

what did you pay and how much do they weigh? standard or deep dish? TWE have no prices on their site.

+1 also very interested in what you bought from TWE

there are no prices on his site because he's too busy building wheels to update it- and there are too many diff combinations or rims/hubs/spokes... anyway, mine are 38mm alloy clinchers, about 1600g (i weigh 95kg so cant have anything too light) and were just over a grand (delivered). That was with his best hubs/spokes. Flick him an email (greg@ridetwe.com.au) with a budget in mind and he'll be able to tell you what he can do. I told him initially i wanted to spend a grand, weigh 95kg and ride mostly flats.. this is the combination that we came up with....

from order to delivery was under 10days too (and i live in country SA)

They look great. Well done!

Also dealt with Greg and he is great.

gassyndrome wrote:They look great. Well done!

they ride even better.... (and 2 weeks after i got mine a mate was so impressed he got some of the 30mm deep version)

Im curious if the TWE custom wheels would be any better off than cheaper Dura ace C24s which are cheaper and lighter? I would expect the hubs and spokes of the C24s to be equally top notch...

I guess it depends what you want out of a wheel.. Personally i like the fact that if i break something i only have to send it back to Greg for a (relatively) cheap fix, the wheels have been built for ME and not the general public.. After 1 ride on these i came to the realisation that i'd happily have paid more for them.

For my weight/power, anything lighter would've broken far too soon for my liking.

But for me, the biggest thing i can say about them is that i'd happily talk friends into buying from him- and would happily buy from him again myself.

(and they look freakin' awesome)

Lots of great info in this thread, cheers guys

Got a great deal on Mavic Kysrium SL at the LBS and honestly I know they aren't the lightest fastest wheels out there, for the riding I do they are already overkill! Would have liked the Campag Shamals but was working out to too much extra $$$ to change cassette etc... Anyway thx for all the info guys.

Nice outcome. You got the ones you wanted, which is always good.
My Shamals arrived on Friday, so I'm sharing the excitement of new wheels.

Greg's TWE wheels are fantastic. I've got a pair of XR380 clinchers - beautifully engineered rear hub with aero spokes, 1350gms per pair including skewers & rim tape. These wheels have done more than 26,000km with no problems. Rims still in good condition - I look after them and use Koolstop Salmon pads. Both wheels are still within 1mm of true - I've ridden long distances on some very rough roads in regional WA. Rear free hub purrs quietly and can not be heard after greasing.

I've just ordered another set - XR200's which come in at 1300gms and $900 including postage to Perth (I'm 68kgs)
Keep in mind that you may not get this price as it's a discounted 'returning customer' price.

Dr.Nate wrote:Got a great deal on Mavic Kysrium SL at the LBS and honestly I know they aren't the lightest fastest wheels out there, for the riding I do they are already overkill! Would have liked the Campag Shamals but was working out to too much extra $$$ to change cassette etc... Anyway thx for all the info guys.

What did you pay for the SL's?

PawPaw wrote:

toppity wrote:I'm about 100kg. I've had a set of RS80s that came on my CAAD9 for 18 months now. They have done a heap of km's and are still great. I've raced and trained on them with zero problems.

Forget talking in months. How many km's ya got on tha RS80s; and what kind of of terrain? how many pot holes have you jumped? how much gravel road? etc.

I've probably done 8,000-10,000km's on them. Terrain is a mixture of good to fair roads. I live in Country Victoria so we get all types of roads. I had the spokes retensioned about 1500km's ago. Not because thy were out of true, but because I was noticing some flex. The retension did the job. I have only ever trued them once apart from that when they got a little out of true. probably never done more than 100kms on gravel, but jumped, and hit a few pot holes.

Where does TWE source their rims and hubs - what make are they?

cavebear2 wrote:Greg's TWE wheels are fantastic. I've got a pair of XR380 clinchers - beautifully engineered rear hub with aero spokes, 1350gms per pair including skewers & rim tape.

Wow, that weight is unbelievable. AFAIK, Greg's xr380 rims are alloy and weigh 550g each. = 1100g.
Are you sure your XR380s weigh 1350 grams? That's pretty much impossible with 550g rims.

idler wrote:Where does TWE source their rims and hubs - what make are they?

Another builder reckons the alloys come out of the same factory as KinLin's. They certainly look the same, with TWE stickers; and have similar model numbers.

Makes sense... He is a wheel builder... Not a manufacturer after all. Has to source his parts from somewhere.

PawPaw wrote:

Dr.Nate wrote:Got a great deal on Mavic Kysrium SL at the LBS and honestly I know they aren't the lightest fastest wheels out there, for the riding I do they are already overkill! Would have liked the Campag Shamals but was working out to too much extra $$$ to change cassette etc... Anyway thx for all the info guys.

What did you pay for the SL's?

I paid $600 for the pair... But had to give the LBS the RS 30's .. I did want the RS80's but they didn't have any in stock and its a little difficult for me to get to the LBS as i'm up in the blue mountains so I settled for the offer of $600 for the kysrium SL.