These wheels from popular British wheel builder Harry Rowland are excellent for general purpose road racing and sportive use. They follow the classic 32-hole/three-cross design on which all road racing wheels were based before radical new designs such as the Rolf Vector and Mavic Ksyrium arrived.
Rowland normally builds with Ambrosio hubs but we asked for Italian PMP cartridge bearing hubs that are also a Rowland favourite, together with Excellight rims that have spoke eyelets to reinforce their wafer-thin aluminium construction.
In preference to DT’s Race spokes we specified the lighter Sapim Laser butted spokes that have a greater ‘glint’ factor in the sunlight than the others – plus they’re of a length that is stocked by most bike shops, making crash repairs a relatively painless process.
The thin spokes did give rise to brake rub on steeper climbs, but the small amount of vertical compliance was welcome over poorly surfaced roads and the wheels remained perfectly true during the test period.