Halo White Line 700c Wheels

At 1,900g the Halo White Line might not be a weight-saving upgrade compared to the stock wheels you find on an entry-level bike – but they're certainly reliable and smooth-rolling wheels. You also get full tubeless capability and a choice of spoke counts to suit your riding style.

If you are looking to upgrade your wheels any time soon, do check our best road bike wheels buyer's guide that covers wheels from a Halo White Line-like £230 right up to a money-no-object £3,000-plus.

White Line is Halo's entry-level range, offering wheels in various builds including this option for rim brakes. While discs may rule the roost these days, lots of us are still running bikes with rim brakes, so it makes sense.

The price is good at £249.98 (£109.99 front, £139.99 rear) although at 1,900g including tubeless rim tape they aren't the lightest wheels in this category.

But they're less expensive than Fulcrum's Racing 6 and Racing 5 wheels, and a fair chunk cheaper than the CES Sport PT26 and Hunt Race Aero Wide wheels, both of which come in around the £400 mark.

So, they are clearly good value for money, then – but what are they like to ride?

Pretty good in fact. Frankly, their weight was only really noticeable when I was accelerating from a standing start or when I was tackling a steep climb. Apart from that they roll nicely.

Most of us are likely to use these for winter riding or training, when durability and reliability are more important than all-out performance – and it's here that the White Lines do well. We have the 20F/24R-spoke build and even in this lighter build they stood up to any abuse from the local roads, which are currently strewn with a new wave of potholes, and even with poor weather during testing the sealed hubs haven't grumbled from the rain and road spray to which they were subjected.

If you want extra strength, you could go for a front wheel with 24 spokes and a rear with 32. All the builds use double-butted stainless-steel spokes and brass nipples, which resist corrosion better than aluminium ones and are a good choice against salty roads.

The Halos also impressed when it came to stiffness, with no signs of flex under hard efforts, even with the brake pads sitting just a millimetre or so from the rim.

The brake track's machined surface gives plenty of bite from the off, and gets better the more they are used as they bed themselves in. I tested the wheels with both stock Shimano pads and SwissStop Flash Pros.

Overall, the Halos are a good all-round wheelset for those of us on a budget, and the rim's high-gloss finish makes them look more expensive than they are.

The rims are shallow at only 25mm in depth, but their 19mm internal width is wide enough to suit 28mm tyres, which is pretty much the widest tyres you can comfortably use with dual-pivot calliper brakes. The outer rim width is 24mm.

Fitting a range of tyres wasn't an issue with both the 25mm Continental GP 5000 AS TRs and 28mm Vittoria Rubino Pro IV TLR rubber going on easily. With the pre-installed rim tape tubeless set-ups are simple, all you'll need to do is add valves.

And I also found they worked just as well running clincher tyres with inner tubes.

The WL hubs include a freehub that uses three pawls with 27 engagement points, which equates to 13 degrees of rotation. This isn't as quick as you'll find on some hubs, but about the only time you'll notice any 'play' between engagement is when you're trackstanding at the lights.

If you like a freehub with some noise then you'll like this one, as there is a defined click when you stop pedalling, though fortunately without ever sounding too shrill or buzzy.

Value and rivals

At £274.99 Fulcrum's Racing 6 wheels are a little more expensive than Halo's White Lines but those have a claimed weight of 1,760g, while the Racing 5s that Leon tested a while back are lighter still at 1,650g – though at £339.99 they will lighten your wallet by nearly £100 more.

The hand-built CES Sport PT26 all-rounders that I reviewed were 1,720g on the road.cc scales, although they're pricier again at £400.

Hunt, meanwhile, has managed to achieve a very impressive weight of just over 1,500g for its £400 wheelset, the Race Aero Wide wheels that Dave was extremely impressed with.

Conclusion

This is a great wheelset in terms of durability and stiffness, especially considering their modest price. They are well made too, tensioned nicely right out of the box and they remained that way throughout the review period. They are quite heavy though, so they're more for those of us looking for reliability over pure performance.

Verdict

Not exactly light, but their strong build provides plenty of reliability and they're also attractively priced