I bought these for the purpose of upgrading my Schwinn Boundary to a cassette rear, as the come stock with a 7-speed freewheel. For the price it made more sense than to replace the stock hub with a cassette.
Fit, form, and finish were good for this price range, and the stock 160mm brake rotors fit without issue. I did buy a SCRAM 7-speed cassette, which fit fine, although you will need to get a set of spacers for this gear set. If you go 8-10 speed, I don’t believe you will need this.
I do most of my own maintenance, so I always take new bearing sets apart to clean grease and adjust to where they need to be. These had ample grease in the bearings from the factory, however the axels were a little too tight. Not a major issue, I’m just very particular.
The wheel set was relatively true, and on par with the price. I did not detect any loose spokes.
These are machines for a schrader tube, where I would rather have the smaller Presta valves, but the Schrader valves do seem to go more with the lower cost.
I’m planning on trying to go tubeless with this set if I can make it work. Its not a deal breaker, but that would make it really shine at the price point. The rim decals are a little gaudy for my taste (I prefer a more subtle approach) so I was relieved to find the decals are just stickers that can be removed with a little work.
The only negative thing I can bring up was the packaging. It was effective in the fact I did not receive damaged parts, however the box had holes in them where the hubs were exposed. A little extra packing might have helped this from happening. The shipping companies do not care if a package becomes damaged, nor do they treat them with care, so over packing is not a bad idea when dealing with such fragile pieces. I feel lucky they weren’t damaged.
So in conclusion, I feel they are worth the money to upgrade an older or budget minded bike, where extreme riding isn’t going to be the norm. Comparing them to a set of high end rims isn’t fair, or realistic. These are cheap, but will work fine for me. No complaints.
