How strong are Chinese carbon road bike wheels, and why are they so much cheaper?

Buying your carbon road bike wheels directly from Asia could save you a pretty penny... but are they up to the job? We wanted to find out, and if there are any compromises when you pay less. 

We get loads of cool wheels turn up at road.cc from the biggest brands in the business: Roval, Zipp, Enve and Princeton Carbon Works to name a few. We’ve ridden them all and they’re mostly very good, but this latest set has seriously sparked our interest…

They have a 50mm deep carbon rim, they weigh about 1,350 grams for the pair, they have a very interesting feather pattern rim design, they have ceramic bearings hiding in DT Swiss hubs, and the super thin carbon spokes are 4.4mm deep.

So how much do you think they cost? Nope, they're not £3,000 like lots of other flagship road bike wheels, more like £1,200. So, what’s the catch?

Well, it’s little surprise that these are coming directly from Asia, and therefore plenty of people might be thinking they thinking they will break as soon as I fit them to a bike...

Superteam, though, say they have used high quality materials and advanced manufacturing technology to ensure durability and stable performance. They’ve also let me loose with a pair to see just how strong they are. Let’s get testing!

Set-up

Buying direct from Asia certainly doesn't mean that you have to compromise on features: wide rims, carbon spokes, even a solid rim bed, it's all the latest tech. Very often you'll find these latest features on direct-to-consumer wheels before the big brands get there.

As my ride may or may not be sticking to the roads, I think it’s a pretty good idea to set the wheels up tubeless. Thanks to the solid rim bed there’s no need for rim tape, which is very great news for me, because if there's one bit of bike maintenance that I’m not very good at, it’s taping up wheels.

I know that lots of readers will also be very happy to see that these wheels have a hooked rim design, which does make that sub-1,400-gram weight even more impressive.

This particular set that we're testing, the new Superteam S-All Carbon Evo II, have an internal width of 23mm and an external width of 30mm, which is just about perfect for the 28mm tyres that most of us now use on the road. Many people like to use the 105% rule, where a rim that is 105% of the measured tyre width is considered the fastest and most stable.

On the Superteam website, you also get all the usual freehub body options, and you can also choose whether you want a 6-bolt or centre-lock hub for the disc rotors. Ours are centre-lock, and there’s a 36T Dt-Swiss ratchet system hiding in the rear one, so plenty of engagement points for what we’ve got planned for them today!

On the road

You might be wondering why you would want to upgrade to carbon wheels. Well, compared to a stock aluminium wheelset, carbon wheels are lighter, they’re more aerodynamic and they’re stiffer, and that means I can go faster for less effort. Oh, and they also sound absolutely mega when climbing out of the saddle!

When it comes to speed, these wheels certainly feel fast. They feel stiff during accelerations too, with the carbon spokes playing their part here.

Obviously what we don’t want though is to trade off durability or robustness for this performance, and so today this is going to be no ordinary road test. I want to see just how strong carbon wheels really are!

Strength testing

Just to clarify, this is a road wheelset. The wheels are UCI-approved for road use, but to speed up this durability test we thought we'd better venture off the beaten track.

After taking the wheels on a spin around some rather bumpy woods, hammering along fire roads and bashing through potholes, it was clear that we'd have to try harder than this if we were to upset the Evo IIs. In fact, they were still running just as true as when they came out the box.

I checked and they were perfectly true, which is hardly surprising given how many quality control checks Superteam clearly did before shipping us the wheels. 

Upping the ante

The thing with carbon fibre is despite being light, it is also extremely strong. Yes, we’ve seen horror stories, but you just need to look as far as Formula 1 or spacecraft to see just how bulletproof modern composites are. Actually, they do make bulletproof composites, don’t they…

The other great thing about carbon fibre is that you can create really interesting shapes. That feather pattern that we touched on earlier, according to Superteam, increases the structural strength and rigidity of the rim by helping to disperse the pressure and reduce the stress concentration points of the rim during use.

It’s also said to reduce air resistance, improve the aerodynamic performance of the wheelset, and make riding more efficient, especially at high speeds. Maybe we’ll test that in a future video.

Having decided that the wheels could easily cope with anything me and my road bike could throw at them, we decided the best course of action was to fit them to a gravel bike complete with dropper post, and borrow a youth with absolutely no sense of self-preservation...

Seeing the wheels being jumped (and occasionally cased) at Wind Hill Bike Park certainly left me confident that they’re not going break on me on the road any time soon. Carbon wheels are certainly strong!

I reckon the myth about all wheels coming directly from China being fragile is just that… a myth. While we wouldn't recommend jumping or abusing wheels meant for the road in this way, it does just go to show that they can withstand a lot more than your average Sunday club run.

Let's not forget, this is a lightweight road wheelset. They're designed for smashing up climbs and long rides, and yet Superteam is so confident in their manufacturing that they offer a three-year warranty on the rims, a one-year warranty on the hubs and lightweight carbon spokes, and they let us jump a pair in the woods. 

How are Superteam wheels so much cheaper than other flagship wheels?

My final question to Superteam was: how can they keep their prices low without compromising on quality? Superteam explained:

1. They don’t have the same markup as wheels from more established brands

2. There are no middlemen here. You’re buying the wheels straight from the manufacturer which cuts out some costs

3. There are far less storage costs, because these wheels are basically made to order in whatever specification you wish. They’re not sitting in warehouses or shops losing value.

And that is how, if you’re prepared to wait just a few weeks for them to be delivered, you can get wheels that are made by people who have been making OEM wheels for years at a fraction of the cost.

If you want to find out more about these latest S-ALL Carbon EVO II wheels then head over to the Superteam website and use code RC05 for 5% off your first purchase