American Classic Argent Tubeless wheels

The Argent Tubeless wheelset from American Classic is a tubeless-ready road offering at a decent weight and with potentially some very minor aerodynamic benefit over stock wheels. The hubs and rims are of good quality and should last well. They're in an increasingly competitive market, though, and the price looks pretty steep against some competitors.

I've got previous with these wheels, or at least a variant thereof. The Jamis Renegade, which later won our Bike of the Year, was specced at the time with the disc-brake version of the Argent wheelset, and that was a real spec highlight.

> Find your nearest dealer here

At the time I said they were quick to accelerate while capable of taking a pounding off-road, although they were perhaps over-endowed with shouty graphics. During my testing of the Jamis I explored both sides of their character, revelling in the way that the low rim weight gave the bike an unexpected zing when stamping on the pedals, while dishing out regular hammerings off-road and being hugely impressed at the ease with which they coped.

The wheels on test here use a rim-brake-specific design, meaning that both hubs and rims are different to those on the Jamis, and also means that their typical use is likely to be different. Happily, the graphics are a little more grown-up than on the previous version.

I used them almost exclusively on the road but if you were racing cyclo-cross with canti brakes then they may be of interest, although I suspect that if you've got £875 to drop on some new wheels for the 'cross season, you've probably upgraded to disc brakes already.

The rims are designed for use with tubeless tyres, although of course you can use an inner tube if you so wish. I fitted 28mm and 25mm Schwalbe Pro One tyres during testing, and they were a pretty tight fit. Mike found the same with the Sprint 350 wheelset. American Classic tubeless wheels have a fairly pronounced bead hook in the rim bed, designed to prevent air escaping (or "burping"), and I found that this made getting tyres to seat and seal on the rim was more difficult than on some other wheels. My feeling is that a bead hook may be less necessary with smaller-section, higher-pressure road tyres than it is for mountain bike tyres, where tubeless technology originated.

I found it took typically three blasts from an (admittedly unimpressive) tubeless inflator tank to get them to seal. I've had notably simpler fitting experiences with other wheels such as from DT Swiss. I don't think you'd get that tyre/wheel combination to inflate with just a track pump.

I fitted these wheels in place of a pair of Mavic Ksyrium SLEs, which makes for a good comparison as the weight and price of both sets is quite similar. I like the Mavics, especially the Exalith brake surface, but they aren't the stiffest wheels laterally, and they also have an old-school narrow rim section. With the 22mm-wide rims here, plus the option to run a lower pressure when tubeless, I found they offered an immediate upgrade in terms of comfort, even on the same 25mm tyres I was using previously.

My perception was that lateral stiffness was better than the Mavics, but I'd describe it as acceptable rather than class-leading. Running the brake blocks close meant that I could detect some rub when climbing out the saddle, for example. I had no concerns about cornering stiffness when going downhill – the Argents behaved impeccably on even treacherous descents like the Angliru during a recent trip to Spain.

With a 30mm-deep rim, there may be some minor aerodynamic advantage over a traditional box section rim, although I won't pretend I could detect this. Rim width is 22mm with an internal width of 19.4mm. The all-up weight of 1,480g is decent, especially given that they are pretty tough wheels, and due in part to the rim weight given as only 390g. As I mentioned above, my experiences with the disc version would give me confidence that these can also cope with being treated roughly. That said, unless it's for a canti-braked 'cross bike, it's harder to see what sort of off-road use they are really likely to get.

Fresh out of the box, the rear wheel wasn't quite true; a little disappointing. It was a quick job to sort, and they've stayed true since. I did have a spoke go loose in the rear wheel a few hundred km down the road – again, a little disappointing. When new, I noticed that the front wheel spun well while the rear wheel seemed markedly less free. This appeared to be due to overzealous bearing seals, which subsequently bedded in, and now they spin pretty freely. American Classic does offer a ceramic bearing upgrade listed at $150 on its site, although I couldn't easily find a UK retailer for it.

The Argents are built with bladed spokes, 18 radially on the front and 24 at the rear laced 3-cross on the drive side and radial on the non-drive side. There's an unusual rim drilling pattern at the rear with the holes grouped in threes; I'm not aware of any reason beyond cosmetic for this. The brake surface is machined aluminium with wearing indicators – worth keeping an eye on, as these are not the heaviest section rims you'll ever come across.

American Classic offers a very good selection of spares for its wheels, and if you're someone who likes to get years of use from bike bits, this is good news. My only doubt regarding the long-term durability would be how long you'd get from the brake surfaces given that the rims are fairly lightweight extrusions.

> Buyer's Guide: 141 tubeless wheelsets to choose from

All in all, this is still a decent set of wheels. The low rim weight in particular helps them to feel zippy under acceleration, and the 22mm width and tubeless capability combine to give a noticeable improvement in comfort. The market is a different place to when American Classic first launched the Argent, though, and £875 feels like a big ask nowadays. Shops are heaving with nice wheelsets at this price point or lower, such as offerings from Easton, Prime and Parcours, to pick three from our recent reviews. And let's not forget that you can spend really quite a lot less than £875 and get a great wheelset too – the obvious example would be from Hunt, now priced at less than £400.

Verdict

A decent road wheelset but at a price that is likely to be off-putting in today's market