Cyclocross and Road Disc Wheelsets

Words by Mark Tearle

Picking up where we left off in The Disc Brake Revolution Part 1, it’s clear from Eurobike, Interbike and our own Cycle Show at Birmingham’s NEC, that the Disc Brake Road and Cyclocross ‘revolution’ is not just a tide but is in fact a Tsunami of new innovations with every other bike displaying a disc brake option.

As you can see from our Discs to dominate cross article, the revolution is well under way; SRAM are fully backing discs for the US professional cyclo-cross scene with their Red 22 HydroR system and in ‘conservative Europe’ Shimano discs recently took the first two rounds of the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup.

We looked at the actual disc brake options currently available in Part 1, of which there are quite a few, but as disc brake equipped cyclocross bikes are showing up in ever increasing numbers at local ‘cross races, we were left wondering about wheel choice: has the range of disc ready wheelsets managed to keep up?

A local wheel builder will build you a set of wheels with the rims, hubs and spoke options of your choice, usually with the help of a bit of friendly advice, but what if the hand built option isn’t available to you? What is out there, straight off the shelf? Rather than a complete guide, the following is a flavour of what’s available to suit various budgets and various applications, hopefully showing us how healthy this sector is… Read More>