Touring Wheelset Guide

By David Meadows

Introduction

Touring wheels are something we have offered since the beginning of DCR Wheels. They are what originally captured my interest in cycling many years ago and indeed my interest in wheels, as I was given a pair to test for the CTC magazine (now Cycling UK). I still have the article somewhere and most of the parts of the wheels, which have since been retired, after around 10,000 miles and 3 rear hub rebuilds. They transformed the bike’s capability, stiffness and braking performance. On countless occasions they took Iona and I up hills with her sitting on the rack and our luggage mounted on a low rider on the front. We often used to get around that way. They even moved me house once – over the course of something like 12 trips fully loaded. A good touring bike has to have a pair of good touring wheels.

What is a touring bike?

I am aware there is a risk of this turning into a real essay, so I will try to be as concise as possible. I don’t want to overlook anything fundamental in pursuit of keeping this article brief though…

Let’s start by defining a touring wheelset and what someone should expect of it. Well, traditional touring would normally mean mudguards, rack, panniers, maps, perhaps a tent and stove and food and water. However, there is also a lot of growth in credit card touring, bikepacking, adventure and endurance cycling. I want to draw a distinction between credit card touring, endurance cycling and some adventure cycling with what I consider to be traditional touring. If you want to have a set that suits the former, we can certainly cater for that, however what you are looking for is more likely a standard road or mountain bike wheelset with built in serviceability, durability, reasonable performance and reliability. Touring wheelsets though, are heavily burdened and need to be built to accommodate that to keep them reliable You may get or have got lucky with a different set up until now, but it is best to get something fit for purpose.

Even when it comes to traditional touring, rider weight plays a huge part. A 110kg rider with 40kg of luggage is quite a different load to a 55kg rider with 40kg of load. One definitely needs specific touring kit and the other would probably suit conventional kit as well. The sets we will discuss here can all take a minimum of 130kg for rider and luggage – some, considerably more. That makes them suitable alternatives for heavier riders as well, especially for those on mountain bikes, touring bikes or hybrids. Touring wheels generally work well as commuting and winter wheels too.

Wheel diameter

Well, the chances are you already have the bike, so I would imagine that is already determined. The majority of touring bikes are 700c (622 dia) and that is absolutely fine. However, a smaller number of normally more trekking focused bikes, where luggage is taken off road in the most extreme conditions, 26” (559) is generally favoured. 26” wheels are stronger, but 700c generally rides better, especially on the road.

Brakes

There are alternatives out there, but for decades touring bikes have had either something like a cantilever brake for good clearance and easy use of mudguards, although other rim brakes are still regularly used. Alternatively, there is a major growth in the use of disc brakes – commonly mechanical because they are easily serviced by the roadside; a bodge is more likely to work and they are easier to get fixed across the world. It is also easier to carry spares for them. For the most part, when it comes to wheelsets, we can do either and there is generally a sound alternative for both. It just needs to be specified what brake type you have. If you are doing full touring and you are using disc brakes I would strongly advise a minimum rotor size of 160mm.

Axles

We have an article here called ‘axle interfaces and rotor type’ which will provide more detail but the use of through axles is rare on touring bikes. Generally axles are rare on a touring bike. Despite their being perfectly straightforward to accommodate on a wheelset and their being generally actually stronger, they are less easy to fit in a steel frame. So I am going to assume quick release for all of these wheelsets. Traditionally touring bikes would have come with forward facing dropouts and 126mm spacing with a screw on freewheel. I would strongly advise in the interests of strength that a minimum of 130mm is used and ideally 135mm with a freehub bodied system rather than screw on freewheel. If you do want to do laden touring on a freewheel I would only advise the Royce screw on freewheel hub. The 17/4 steel axle used there is about as strong as any you could find anywhere.

Dynamos

You don’t have to run a hub dynamo. However it is a neater, more effective, more efficient and more reliable system. A dynamo historically would have provided very limited lighting. However now it can easily power bright front and rear lights. The brightest front is probably the Bulsch and Muller IQX, however the Cyo IQ Premium is also a great alternative. There are nice lamps from Supernova and Schmidt too.

When you are not using the dynamo for powering lighting the drag is greatly reduced (at least on the decent hubs it is). There is still some drag – if you turn the axle it will feel like a lot. That is because the magnets repel and attract in succession, so it feels like a lot more than it is. If you spin the wheel in the fork, it should run quite freely, although not for as long as a conventional hub would. Instead of leaving the hub to run freely, you can instead tap off the capacity and run a charging system. That can charge some devices on the fly, although some sort of electronics is required to do this. Ideally, you would also have some sort of bank battery that can receive a trickle charge from the dynamo and dump charge your device, be it a phone, garmin, or potentially even some laptops. However, you must remember the hub only provides 3 watts of power, so if you do want to charge a thirsty device it will take a lot of pedaling! The best device really for this purpose is the Bulsch and Muller E-Werk with Cache battery.

A dynamo is a great option for anyone who is going to spend a long time without power but requires devices to keep running. It is also a good option for anyone who wants very reliable lighting, so it does also work for winter wheels and commuting wheels.

When it comes to hub choice, in my opinion, there only is one choice really – Schmidt. I often say that if Schmidt made rear hubs, I’d probably sell loads of those too. Schmidt is probably the most reliable hub we sell as a hub generally. It happens to also deliver 3w of power whenever you need it. When you are looking at dynamo options you are looking for maximum reliability. So choose a hub that is reliable and builds into strong, stable wheels. I run a Schmidt on my tourer/winter commuter. It is on it’s second rim already. Schmidt say you should service your hubs ideally every 50,000km, however you can push that to 100,000km if you need to. It is a bold claim and a perfect hub for long mileage in all conditions, often with loading. It is a great choice.

For more information on Dynamo hubs, see this section of our ‘hubs’ page

Hubs, rims and spokes

You may not find yourself using a conventional hubset at all – partly because of the use of a dynamo and potentially with the use of an IG hub – we’ll get to that in a bit. However, assuming you do want a front and/or rear conventional hubset, here are some things to consider:

I now disagree with the use of cup and cone bearings on pretty much any wheel. I can appreciate they play a role in cheaper wheels, however they do require adjustment, that requires cone spanners which is an annoying thing to take around. That can quite easily be done wrong and I have seen incorrect adjustment undertaken even by professional mechanics. Incorrect adjustment can lead to damage of the balls, cones and cups or even crush the hub. When it comes to cones, balls and cups, the first two can be replaced, the final cannot. Normally you will only find cup and cone bearings now on very cheap hubs or shimano hubs – and my advice is to avoid them. We have built with them over the years but in my experience, if you are touring, you don’t want to be worrying about play in your hubs when you could have thousands of miles left to go.

Given that, I would also rule out anything other than a radial cartridge bearing. There are some very good hubs out there that do use angular bearings which have a preload on them. Angular contact cartridge bearings are definitely a better option because if they are damaged, the whole unit can be replaced, however ideally it wouldn’t need to come to that because you have a cartridge which eventually wears out and then can simply be replaced at convenient intervals.

For more information on hubs, rims and spokes, see our dedicated pages: