FSA XC-300 Wheels
FSA's top-end wheelset tested
- FSA XC-300 Wheels
- £259.95
- www.fullspeadahead.com
- From Windwave (www.windwave.co.uk)
The XC-300 is FSA’s flagship wheelset, intended (as you'd probably guessed) for mainly XC usage. The wheels are handmade with Danza AL6061-T6 aluminium disc-specific (but non-tubeless) 20mm rims. Six-bolt disc-specific hubs feature 7075 alloy axles and roll on double-sealed cartridge bearings - still silky smooth after several months of testing. The medium-height flanges have as much excess material removed as is possible to trim the weight. The rear hub has a steel cassette body with, um, "deep throat" (it says here) wiper seals.
Holding the rims and hubs together are 24 Wheelsmith double-butted spokes front and rear. They’re laced two-cross on the front and three-cross on the back, and in a further effort to save weight, aluminium nipples are used. SpokePrep ensures the spoke heads don't work loose. FSA’s own Scatto QR levers are easy to operate and complete the package nicely.
At 1,880g a pair, they're not the lightest wheels available. To give you an idea of how they fit in to the market, Mavic's CrossRide wheels are 1,970g (with Centerlock rotor mounts, lighter than the traditional six-bolt standard) for £120. Or there's the £300 CrossMax Enduro wheels which are marginally lighter than the XC-300s at 1,750g.
We’ve been riding (abusing) them for several months on Project Pipedream and they’re still as true as the day we took them out of the box. They do display the merest hint of flex when pushing them hard, but we’ve haven't needed to get a spoke key on them yet – they’re still evenly tensioned throughout. And they look great.
Ups and downs
 Good balance of weight and strength, durable, look great
 A bit overweight for the price, not tubeless-ready
Verdict
A perfectly adequate wheelset from FSA, but we’re struggling to see where they fit in with the competition. Compared to rival offerings they look a little overweight for the money (or expensive for the weight, whichever way you want to look at it). They do look great however, and are very tough and have needed absolutely no attention as of yet.
Ratings
I saw these on Wiggle for 1/2 price Ex Demo ones, got all excited googled thought YES and sadly no longer available  So no one else fall for this Confused over the price to, FSA are normally mid priced where as these are high priced really.
Posted: 28/08/2007 13:45
Paid £106 for the crossrides, similar spec but 100grams more, depends on how important 100grams is I guess to you. Prefer the Crossrides straight pull spokes ( until 1 snap ofcourse ) and sealed hub thats adjustable to take play out. And the Price, but I do like FSA Kit
Posted: 28/08/2007 13:55
Get the Crossrides, Wiggle £106, nice wheels DAMN cheap even if mine did need attention. Hub and Freehub I think is better than XT's, just a cheap but strong heavy rim on them.
Posted: 28/08/2007 14:25
Comes as std on Kona HEI HEI been fine all year so far, a bit flexy when pushing on though !
Posted: 29/08/2007 22:51
Vegeeta, I think Not, the Crossrides weight is without aswell ( I weighed them ) * ahhhhhh for the time to ride ***
Posted: 29/08/2007 23:52
If they are £260 as the article states then I think they may be pricing themselves to highly. I've got these on one of my bikes which were about the same price, are tubeless ready, lighter (I weighed them at £1,800 grammes inc. skewers) and having tanked them quite hard seem very stiff.
Posted: 31/08/2007 11:00
Seriously, I've not done that yet, but I've stopped a few times cause I couldn't remember sticking it in the car!!!! I did leave a plastic ice climbing boot outside the once though I left my phone on the roof and it was still there 15miles later 
Posted: 24/09/2007 21:09
Only used my ice climbing boots twice, not had a need to use them since sadly, which something. Shit happens.
Posted: 25/09/2007 20:11
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