The myriad of road wheels on the market today makes choosing something new highly confusing. Do you need something deep or shallow? How wide should your rims be? Clincher or tubular? What about tubeless? Handbuilt or a factory build? Is alloy still relevant?
It can be a bit of a minefield, and not one you would want to navigate solely with advice gleaned from others on your morning ride.
DT Swiss produce a variety of wheels for road, mountain, track, cyclocross, adventure riding and more. Their range is deep and covers options from entry level alloy wheels to high-end carbon.
We’ve just received a set of wheels from their Performance range. The PR 1400 DiCUT OXIC 21 are a bit of a mouthful – but totally on-point for a performance road wheel – regardless of material.
Black on black.
A wheel set can really only be as good as the sum of its parts – as long as it is well built. With an asymmetric rim on the back to even out spoke tension, DT Swiss 240 hubs, DT Aerocomp spokes and Squorx nipples, plus with tubeless tape and valves – this wheel set looks pretty good on paper.
With the spokes offset, the drive side and non-drive side spoke tension is balanced – making for a stronger wheel.
With a claimed 1435g weight (actually 653g for the front and 816g for the rear) the wheels, while alloy, are a similar weight to many mid-depth carbon clinchers. Something like the Shimano Dura Ace C24 would be lighter, but it’s not full carbon.
Is that an issue though?