During my time riding bikes I’ve gone through my share of wheels, my latest ones being the very affordable Superstar Tech 4 wheelset DS25 . At under £200 these are some of the cheapest wheels I’ve ever bought and when you consider that they weigh around 2057g for the pair it is pretty good for that kind of money!
Looking for wheels I had two criteria in mind, #1 they had to be tubeless #2 they needed an internal width of at least 25mm. When I saw that these wheels matched this and came in well under budget I thought I’d have to take them out for a spin! After having Superstar hubs before, I opted for the steel freehub as alloy tends to get shredded pretty quickly – something others have experienced as well as these hubs sell out very quickly.
After nearly 1000km of riding, here’s how I’ve found these wheels:
Superstar Tech 4 Wheelset Review
First impressions were really good, the wheels felt relatively light the bearings were smooth and they ran true, which is more than I can say about some other wheels I’ve ordered. The decals were minimal and can be easily removed – if you want the complete black stealth look – or you could order a wide range of colours to match your needs.
These ARE NOT tubeless straight out the box. I thought they would be as they claim to be Tubeless Ready, but they’re actually supplied with rim tape rather than tubeless tape, so you’ll need to apply this before trying to mount tyres.
That said, once the tape was on I managed to pop a Maxxis High Roller 2 and Maxxis Ardent on with absolutely no dramas. They lost a bit of air overnight, but nothing major and have now been tubeless for a good old while with zero issues apart from one very sketchy landing that resulted in a burp.
Overall
I’ve been quite surprised with how durable this wheelset is, managing to take pretty much everything at BikePark Wales, Afan, Cwmcarn, Forrest of Dean and all my local trails in its stride. There are a few scrapes on the rim from rocks and a ding or two from heavy landings and low pressures, but the wheels are still running true. I’ve had no issues with the freehub being chewed up like I had with the alloy version, and the engagement is pretty good – 27 points of engagements, so it’s relatively quick.
You’ve got several options in internal rim widths, 21mm, 23mm and 25mm and they come in 26″, 650b and 29er forms. I tested out the 650b and have been massively impressed with these wheels so far and I doubt that opinion would change anytime soon.
The only negative I could possible have is the weight, as it does add a substantial amount to my bike although for the money you really will not get better. In fact, the Hope Tech Enduro wheelset is only around 50g lighter and will cost you twice as much… sorry, what was I complaining about again? These wheels are bloody brilliant for the money!
