Best brands for carbon wheels from China

By points

Spread on the scale from 5 to 26 points: bar from the weakest to the strongest wheelset of the brand, tick at the median, dot at the average.

By points relative to price

Bar: distance from the expectation, to the right more points than the price suggests, to the left fewer.

The maths, for nerds

Points per wheelset

P = Σ ratings + extras, 0 ≤ P ≤ 26

Per rating green 2, yellow 1, red 0, grey 1; grey for weight, internal width, duties, shipping and accessories 0. Extras: +1 for carbon spokes with a source, +1 for a ratchet freehub with a source, +2 for a UCI approval as claimed by the manufacturer. Exactly the calculation the list is sorted by.

Where the points come from

11 ratings = 7 for shop and brand + 4 for the wheels

Shop and brand: duties, shipping, delivery time, returns, warranty, crash replacement, accessories. Wheels: weight relative to depth and internal width, internal width, external width, load capacity. None of them measures stiffness, durability or speed.

Who gets a rank

n ≥ 5 and avg. grey₀ ≤ 2.5

n is the number of the brand’s wheelsets in the table, grey₀ the number of grey ratings among the 5 that count 0 when grey. If on average more than half of them are grey, the rank would mostly come from missing data. The brand then follows without a rank, by name.

Order

sorted by (−avg. P, −n, name)

Descending by average points; on a tie the brand with more wheelsets first, then by name. In the second table ± expected takes the place of avg. P.

Price

p = “price from” in €

The cheapest offer as in the list, without shipping and import charges, converted at the ECB reference rate, with a Feast Cycles discount code the price with the code. Wheelsets without a price only count by points.

Expectation

E(p) = 15.9 + 1.57 × log₂(p ÷ €1,000)

Least squares over all 1,702 wheelsets with a price, points over the logarithm of the price. Meaning: at €1,000 you can expect 15.9 points, each doubling of the price adds +1.57. R² = 0.13, so the price explains 13% of the differences, the other 87% depend on something else.

± expected

± = avg. (P − E(p))

Average over the brand’s wheelsets with a price. Positive means more points than the price suggests. The second table is sorted by it.

Points per €1,000

avg. (P ÷ p × 1,000)

For reading only. Nothing is sorted by it, otherwise the cheapest wheelsets would simply come first, whatever their points.

All values are statements of the manufacturers and shops, as of 15 Nov 2026, recalculated with every data run.

How the comparison works All brands with number of wheelsets and price range Compare all wheelsets in the list