Rear Wheels
Used road bike rear wheels on Cranxs come from private sellers across the UK, in lightweight carbon and hard-wearing alloy. The rear wheel takes your pedalling energy and turns it into forward motion, so it carries the drive load, the freehub and most of your weight. Listings cover both new old stock and second-hand wheels.
What should I check buying a used rear wheel?
Spin the wheel and watch for hop and side-to-side wobble, then squeeze pairs of spokes to feel for slack or uneven tension. Rock the rim laterally against the frame to find play in the bearings, and listen for grinding as it spins. On rim-brake wheels, check the braking surface for wear and for a concave dip. Inspect the spoke holes and the area around the valve for cracks. If a wheel needs work, compare the cost of that against a used wheelset.
Which freehub body do I need?
The freehub body has to match your cassette. Shimano and SRAM 11-speed road cassettes use an HG freehub; SRAM's 12-speed road groupsets use XDR, which is 1.85mm longer than the mountain bike XD body. Campagnolo 13-speed and recent 12-speed cassettes use the N3W body. A 10-speed cassette on an 11-speed HG freehub needs a 1.85mm spacer behind it. Some hubs take a replacement freehub body, so a mismatch is not always a dead end.
Rim brake or disc brake?
A rim-brake wheel has a machined or textured braking surface on the rim and no disc mount; a disc wheel has either a six-bolt rotor mount or a Centerlock splined mount at the hub, and its rim has no braking track. The two are not interchangeable. Carbon rim-brake wheels also need the matching brake pad compound the seller used, so ask what pads went with them.
Quick release or thru-axle?
Rim-brake road frames are almost always 130mm quick release, using a 5mm skewer rod through a hollow axle. Disc road and gravel frames use a 142x12mm thru-axle. Measure your dropout spacing and axle diameter before committing, and check the same figures on your front wheel so the pair matches.
Carbon or alloy?
Carbon rims save weight and hold deeper aerodynamic profiles, but they cost more to replace and are less forgiving of kerb strikes. Alloy is heavier, cheaper and easy to true, and an alloy braking surface is predictable in the wet. Deeper carbon sections are more affected by crosswinds. Once you have picked a rim, match the tyre to its internal width and to whether it is set up tubeless.