Are Handbuilt Wheels Still Worth Buying?

Simon Smythe weighs up the pros and cons of getting your hoops made to order

- Simon Smythe

Mavic is often credited with, or blamed for — depending on your point of view — ending the era of handbuilt wheels and ushering cycling into the age of the factory wheel. Its distinctive red Helium wheelset, introduced into the pro peloton in 1995, could be bought by anyone from any Mavic dealer, complete and without requiring any of the wheelbuilder’s dark art to be performed on it in a small room at the back of the shop.

Although Mavic has continued to sell its Open Pro rim, probably still the most popular choice for a handbuilt wheelset, it’s hard to deny that buying a factory wheelset is more convenient. It takes potentially bewildering choices about spokes and hubs out of the equation and since factory wheels are built and trued by machines — to varying degrees depending on the manufacturer and model — their performance and reliability ought to be identical, making it possible to do accurate online research before hitting the ‘add to basket’ button. Not only that — wheelsets mass produced in the Far East with a minimum of human interaction will inevitably be cheaper.

Which begs the question: Is there still a reason to buy handbuilt wheels?