Pinkbike Product PicksSuperstar Components are close to entering their 9th year in business. From small beginnings selling brake pads out of a bedroom, they have grown to fill 5 warehouses and employ numerous local Lincolnshire staff. Previously sourcing all products from Taiwan, the company is undergoing change as they aim to bring more manufacturing in-house, striving to improve quality, cut lead times and also prices. In-house wheel building has begun, and the first few chainrings and sprockets have been churned out of their new CNC machines.
Superstar Tech 4 WheelsetHenry Ford once mentioned he offered his cars in any colour as long as it was black. Fortunately it's only the black Sapim Race spokes that are compulsory here. Superstar offer five colours of rims and hubs, all hub sizes, wheel sizes and three rim widths. We tested 29" DS25 rims in 15mm front and 12mm x 142mm rear.
Wheel sizes: 26/27.5/29
Colours: Black/Blue/Lime/Red/Silver
Hub adaptors: Front QR, 9mm, 15mm or 20mm
Rear QR, 10mm x 135mm, 12mm x 142mm and Syntace X12 and 12mm x 150mm.
Rim Widths Internal: TR21mm, EX23mm and DS25mm
Freehub body: Standard alloy or steel/SRAM XD
Pair weight - 2002g 26", 2057g 650b, 2106g 29" (claimed)
Price: £184.99 - £195.99 ($290 - $306USD)
The Switch Front hub. Adaptors can be changed easily, just take them out and push in the new ones
The Switch hubs are CNC machined, feature SKF bearings and 27 pickup points with 4 pawls in the free-hub for a fast pick-up. The DS25 rims are Tubeless Ready, and are supplied with a standard rim tape, but no tubeless tape or valves. They feature a LOKR bead which is a small ridge which helps to prevent the tyre being pushed inwards away from the rim and allowing burping. Superstar owner Neil Wilkinson says "I personally see them as our entry level wheelset which undersells them hugely, price wise they are entry level but performance wise they are easily comparable to £400 wheelsets."
All component parts are sourced from Taiwan, the hubs are laced by hand in Lincolnshire, then built by the latest robot technology available, in-house to a 0.2mm tolerance, with no spoke twist and perfect tension. Also offered is a Lifetime Truing service, just post them back to Superstar and they will come back in a straight line free of charge. A 2 year warranty and a lifetime crash replacement scheme is included for the original owner. If you manage to break a wheel, pay for a new rim at the price of £30 (48USD approx) and Superstar will rebuild the wheel with new spokes and nipples for free. The return postage and labour is all included. Basically £30 for a complete new wheel build, which wouldn’t even cover the cost of spokes in some bike shops! What I would have done for that a broke, Junior downhill racer.
Slightly more complicated at the rear, two 17mm cone spanners are needed to replace axles and adaptors
Pinkbike’s Take | After taking them out the box, they were as straight and well tensioned as expected. The end caps were really easy to change using a soft vice, without a vice some form of grips would be needed. I easily mounted tires on to the rims using my standard split tube, ghetto tubeless set up. On the trail they were similarly responsive as my previous wheels (Stan's Flow EX on Hope Evo hubs) After shredding the Specialized Enduro on various downhill tracks, plus many hours of trail riding the wheels are still true, no dings yet and the spokes barely needed tweaking after the bedding in period. The bead set was tight and didn't lose any pressure slapping corners.
After my previous long-term Hope wheelset these were very quiet, if you like a decent click from your free-hub, you might have to look elsewhere and splash more cash. Weight weenies may also be looking elsewhere as 2109 grams for this 29" wheelset is not the lightest, but you will be doubling your outlay to lose 100g or so?
Superstar are offering the best mix and match wheelsets in the business. Combined with the Lifetime Truing Scheme, Crash Replacement policy and bargain prices, the value is unparalleled. This service could become invaluable for young racers or bike destroyers. They're not as fancy as some of the big brands, and not as refined or light as some, but if you want a solid set of wheels at a very sensible price tag then these could be for you, and they can also be chosen to suit your 1990's anodized colour matching fetish. - Paul Aston |
Superstar SiteStraight to the Tech4
The USA thing is not personal, its just alot of UK insurers are twitchy about selling there because of suing each other liberally. we are working on them to jump through a huge amounts of hoops so hopefully in the long run we will be able to open up to selling there.
If any of you are having an issue please let me know, we are here and we do sort out everything as fast as we can. I know we had a few customers with waits on tesla rebuilds if they had a problem, it was caused by huge demand for the hubs wiping out our stocks and 3-4 month manufacturing lead times if you wanted a specific colour. We even resorted to chopping complete wheels up to release the hubs for warranty to get it done ASAP! All of them were sorted under warranty albeit not as quickly as we would both have wanted.
Tubless kit and valves are not included... why? Easy, not everyone wants to run tubeless so we dont charge everyone for the parts whcih would put another £20 on every wheelset. So if you do want them just add them to your basket and everyones a winner.
We are bringing alot of our production inhouse to get round the leadtime problem, and it will let us do some cool stuff which isnt possible with normal subcontractors. We have a few big things up our sleeve for 2015 so check us out on facebook for the latest news.
Any questions let me know, Superstar Components
Unfortunatley your rim didnt last one day on my weekend ride, the rods were the two halfs are pressed together practically popped out and was being held in my the spoke tension.
Cant say I was pleased as website says its for downhill and the CS team said to send it back but no guarantee at all id see my money or my postage money back.
Not trying to worm something out of you guys as I have other components from you that have lasted years (hubs, pedals brake pads etc), but relaying real world use back through to you..
cheers guys!
I havent seen anything about your case so forgive me if i get the wrong end of the stick from yoru description, but crash damage or poor customer wheelbuilds are not covered under anyones warranty. A pin joint rim like the DHX is held together with the spoke tension, and the joint will not come apart in a propperly built wheel. The only way it can split is a big crash or a bad build, hence its not a fault witht he manufacture of the rim itself.
If you have any questions please let me know, Superstar
I can see your point, however ive built wheels for a while and this is the first one thats failed in this manner without a crash, only noticed the failure when i was changing tyres.
However when i took the wheel apart (after being in touch) to salvage the hub, the rim came apart more on the pin joints, not completley apart, but worse than when it was built.
Cheers
I agree its expensive but in the past we were making huge losses on normal mail going missing causing reshiping and refunds. So now we only will ship with UPS so you are guarenteed fast and efficient service.
Outside of Europe UPS shipping is very expensive, we charge the same price as it costs us to send it to you. We arent huge so we cant force companies to offer huge discounts like other big stores can.
We are looking at other options, but nothing hugely differnt in price so far sorry.
If you have any questions please let me know, Superstar
Is the postal service an option?
UPS is the worst shipping company to deal with, at least over here. The only time I have ever had a missing package, it was because of UPS. They are quite expensive as well.
Either way, thanks for looking at other options!
so you guys must have sold close to that number of rims? Yet the fault must lie with me? Maybe the hub failure was the customers fault too?
Thanks anyway superstar.
We buy our spokes direct from the sapim factory hundreds of thousands at a time.
Regards superstar
The most recent set of wheels i purchased from you the freehub started slipping as the engagement points stripped out and the rims ran out of true in a few rides. Rode them until i couldnt bare it anymore then got rid of them. Replaced with a pro 2 and stans wheelset... No problems.
You pay for what you get, buy cheap buy twice.
You did let people know before you took their money? I understand that they are equivalent but that is still no excuse to not let your customer know what they are getting.
I love your brake pads and tools but I would now think twice about anything more complex now.
And to answer Richard01s question, no the customer most certainly was not told before his money was taken :s
Real nice Superstar....
My point is, in this case and others (as superstar have confirmed). People did not get what they pay for. (lets say superstar didnt tell people about the change in spokes, as we dont know this for all cases. gabriel could have been a one off error somehow)
I could go on about how superstar could remedy this past error but thats unreasonable. What you could do is learn from this mistake and not ship the wheels, unless the customer is happy with the change.
Note - the spokes are of exactly the same specification, from the other big brand, and are actually considerably more expensive. So i do not understand why this would be a problem and the customer is more than welcome to return the wheelset if that was a problem.
So its really a non-existant problem in real life.
If i could post pictures i would send a picture of our store room with 1.2 million sapim spokes which we have instock now....
If you have any questions please let me know, Superstar
Even if you buy a wheelset from The Big Swiss Wheel maker you can always have issues. And a joined rim will always get a bigger crack at The joint, simply Due to the normal function of a wheel. As The Wheel will deform under Loads and would Look like a ellipse rather than a circle. Given this fact The small Gap at The Pin joint is logical.
If you don't like it just buy a welded rim and you are good to go.
I still don't understand what is not "strictly true" about what I am saying. My mate emailed them to ask why his wheels came with the wrong spokes, no hate, no demanding a refund, just wanting to know what had happened and they called him a liar and refused to respond further. He may well have kept the email I do not know. Would you like me to ask him? When someone has just taken your money, this lack of customer service is not ideal. I expect more from a company. Perhaps I am just too used to dealing with companies like Hope.
If your wheels are like that then you havent had good quality pressed rims before man. Should be flush. Always.
I personally had no issues with you guys up until about 2 years ago. i had a set of superstar trizoid hubs on the AM rims bought new pre built from yourselves, had them on the bike for about half a year with no issue and then they started making a weird noise while free wheeling. i took a video and tried to email you guys multiple times about the issue as i felt it was under warranty... no replies. I must of emailed you about 10 times in one month always double checking the email address and checking my junk and spam email inbox just encase your replies ended up there. then one day i decided i would not email about my warranty issue but instead email you about a product i wished to buy... the very next day i received an email telling me about how to order them with your token idea for shipping... so obviously you were getting my emails but just ignoring them. i ended up selling the wheels on for cheap (still under the year warranty which means nothing to anyone clearly) and to this day i will discourage anyone i know from buying your products. here is a link to the video which you probably have seen a good few times by now. i can only assume it was a bent axle or something. a cheap fix that could of been resolved in a week or two if you had bothered to uphold your warranty
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axo8vOM6AIs&list=UU0Msqcj_0FTLR3fHoaUpBQA
far happier with my new hope pro 2 evo hubs now anyway which have been on my bike for 2 years with no issues.
Rebuilding your broken wheel for just the rim cost, OTOH, is awesome.
Just think outside The box
Spunked almost £300 on a Tesla/Pacenti set 8 months ago, their most expensive hub I think? The freehub lasted a couple of months before 3 of the 72 teeth sheared off leaving me with it slipping and jumping. Fair do's, suppose its best a replaceable part fails rather than the whole hub itself. 13 weeks later my wheels come back, I sent lots and lots of emails during this time but never once got a service that would encourage me to use them for anything with a moving part again!!!
Good luck peeps
I'll never be running their wheels again but I love their pedals...
I think there are a lot of tesla wheelsets hanging up in sheds across the country!
Maybe the Tesla hubs aren't intended for the kind of riding you guys do?
Try the Switch Hubs. They last and are cheap!
Tesla hubs wouldnt last 2 minutes on my son's balance bike
If you are having a problme please return them for the warranty guys to sort. We dont leave people in the lurch and every problem we have recieved has been sorted FOC under warranty.
We have sold thousands of Teslas and tens of thousands of Switch hubs so far, so you will get the odd broken one which we sort under warranty if we are made aware of the problem.
Regards, Superstar
@Stralov , mine are specced with downhill rims so should be more than capable of the natural trail riding I do(Lakes, Peaks, NWales)
p.s. Thanks Superstars for the apology to myself, @broadyvrs & @er043 ref the troubles we have had with your product
Out standard warranty turnaround time is under a week from date we recieve them, ive looked at the stats and less than 4% of people have waited longer than that for service this year. Unfortunately if we have no hubs left in your particular spec/colour we will contact you and offer other options. Its the problem with offering millions of options, occasionally we run out of stock.
Any questions please let me know, Superstar
The freehub is not coloured, and as a replaceable item stock should be available ALWAYS. Funny enough, the steel freehub is out of stock now suggesting 1 of 2 things.......
1.You havent learnt your lesson and have still had insufficient amounts ordered for stock.
2. Tesla hubs are failing quicker than you can build freehubs.
Either one of above is poor after service in my opinion. Dont worry tho, I've already bought my Superstar wheels so you have a chain and ball around my ankle. On a positive note, we'll keep the postal service in business sending wheels back and forth every month or so
The problem we are having is that the manufacturer takes 3-4 months to manufacture a batch so reacting to demand is hard. This is standard lead tiem for most manufactures at the volume we buy.
The steel vs alloy freehub issue only relates to the part where the cassette fits, the actual teeth are steel on both models so the steel freehub is no more durable than the alloy one and weighs twice as much. We only hold a few steel ones as we only sell a few, 99% of hubs go out with alloy freehubs. You can fit a alloy one to solve the problem if your waiting.
We have more in shipping at the moment arriving in 3 weeks.
Any questions please let me know, Superstar
We we dont know what the issue is propperly until the warranty guys have a look at it for you? If you dont send it back we cant really sort your problem. I would send it back and see what happens.
If you have any questions please let me know, Superstar
I understand what the steel and alloy refers to, the reason I wanted alloy is so the cassette doesnt eat into it and become a pain in the arse to remove. By the way, I did ask for a alloy one while I wait then I would return it but was told It would be one or the other(this is where I thought the customer service is rubbish) I understand there is a cost issue but the end of the day it was YOUR product that failed, yet it was ME that went without for most of what little summer we get in the UK. If what your saying is right ref there being less than 4% of people waiting longer than a week then its not that many to take a hit on is it? Please dont think I'm just attacking because I'm not, this is constructive criticism. I'd love to be on here now raving about my wheelset but the honest truth is, I'm frightened to use them to their potential and regularly put Hope/Bonty wheels on if I know its gonna get rough.
@makdthed
Same here mate, teeth sheer off n slipped when climbing. Dont worry too much, just keep your eyes open for a cheap spare wheelset just in case
www.haribo.com/enGB/products/haribo.html
m.youtube.com/watch?v=eoX6l6klziU
m.youtube.com/watch?v=9scm3NCIH_E
m.youtube.com/watch?v=MUrftf3ndAw
m.youtube.com/watch?v=qc8vxx6J5Xw
if we used a distributor and shops then we would be the same price as everone else. the reason we are cheaper is there are no middlemen to bump up the price!
By country the US market is biggest but the whole of Europe combined is a much bigger market than the US. The big problem with the US is we would have to ship everythign to the other side of the planet which is expensive and wasteful.
Regards, Superstar
By wasteful i mean shipping each item individually to customers as we only sell direct.
Brands like halo and hope ship in bulk to distributors by the container load which makes more sense, but then you have lots of middlemen bumping up the price. So their parts cost double what our parts do.
Its just common sense.
If you have any questions please let me know, Superstar
So you fancy buying 3000 pairs of pedals or a container full of rims from the factory direct then? ping me your credit card details and ill get it done ;o)
If you have any questions please let me know, Superstar
My go to website for bits and peices.
Owned Delta and Nano pedals, both excellent. N/W Chainring for £15, excellent. Bought a razor 45 stem for 60% of the price my friend paid for the same thing with a different company's sticker on.
Excellent value on brake pads, with a 30 day "don't like them? have a refund/free compound change" offer which is remarkable.
They have a lot of confidence in their products and they should.
And the best thing about buying from Superstar besides excellent value and fast/free shipping? Free Haribo. Boom.
Keep up the good work Superstar. You make it possible for people on little budgets to have sick bikes!
If you ever start doing sponsorships keep me informed
A) free retruing for life.
B) crash replacement service at cost.
C) replying politely helpfully and honestly to the issues raised on here and I'm sure in most other issues.
Those three things you would pay out your arse from a big manufacturer. And would be silly to expect it unless you payed over the odds.
I've had pedals, wheels, seatpoles, seatpole clamps, narrow wide chain rings, bash guards, disc bolts, brake pads, tools, quick release axles. To name a few and for what I paid which is the important thing to me, they are excellent quality products. I'd probably have had to fork out double for these things from elswhere in a similar spec . so all in all I'd be an idiot to complain about anything. It goes against the old "you get what you pay for"and puts other manufacturers to shame as you get a lot more than what you payed for tbh. Great company and as long as they continue on there current standards/ethics I will be a customer for life . as I'm sure a lot of others will be too.
I understand your frustration to have to pay for a new rim, but if we replace the hub and the rim is damaged we cant do a very good build. Would you rather having a bodged wheelbuild which will probbly fail or pay £15 to get a new rim, spokes, nipples and build costs?
If a rim is dented then its hit the floor which is constiderably stronger than an aluminium rim, in which case its considerably weaker than a undamaged rim. Its all abotu quality and safety for our customers
Regards,Neil
i know they're cheap, i know its a small business with a ton orders. i have got a set of pedals from them that are ok and a wide narrow chainring also fine. not trying to hate, just being honest.
1) There are some, maybe not many, but some cases where the Novatec hubs that Superstar uses have QC issues.
2) It is up to us as consumers to dig out information about the products we are going to buy, before we buy. I found out that there were some issues some times so decided not to go for Switch hubs.
3) There are places to get better spec versions of Novatec hubs, similar in prices to Superstar hubs, that have far fewer reported issues. I recommend D881SB and D882SB. They are 4 in one and you can switch between any of the so-called standards since all the bits are in the box. With all the skewers. For the one price.
4) Get some.
5) Get some Stans Flow rims or ones you like.
6) Gte some spokes. Ones you like of course.
7) Build your own wheel; it isn't difficult to learn. If you don't know how, go DL the book: "Roger Musson Professional guide to Wheelbuilding". You will learn to understand you wheel, listen to it, feel it, care for it, nurture it, love it as one of your own. And help Roger put food on the table. Best guide to wheelbuilding I have ever seen.
No need to ever blame anyone for anything except yourself.
9) Life is much better as a result.
10) Sleep in peace and waste less time complaining.
Have a nice weekend all.
The hubs you suggest are basically the ones we sell. Except ours are now fitted with high end SKF brand bearings rather than the standard ones. From what i have seen our hubs cost much the same but are better spec.
We dont include all the adaptors as that is a waste, most people just need one set which we fit at the factory to your choice. if you need more they are super cheap and easy to fit.
Any questions please let me know, Superstar
As for all the adapters etc; I thoroughly recommend people to buy s set with them all in: good hubs should last a lifetime. With grease, maintenance, bearing changes and pawls/freehubs when necessary, they should last. And we all know that that 20mm through front hub we have will, at some point, need a 15mm adapter (and vice versa) and the same goes for the 10mm / 12mm /135mm / X-12 rear end too.
I have happily swapped over wheelsets from one bike to another (that have different axels) and all in the space of a few minutes wth all the adapters.
The peace of mind from knowing that you can handle what MTB life throws at you without needing to rely on "CS" from any company is worth its weight in gold.
I presume they have heard of TFTuned. Anyways, I await your PM with anticipation and see if I can't drum up some business for you. What, after all, have you got to lose?
In the past i had Superstar wheels for 1 year without any problem.
But with the same money i can buy a pair of DT E1900 wheels with the same internal width and 150grm less.
www.dtswiss.com/Wheels/MTB-Wheels/E-1900-Spline-27-5
What do you think?
One thing i will say is have a look at the cost and availibility of spares. I know plenty of people who bought a massively discounted wheelset from a internet shop and 6 months later no spares or backup, chuck it in the bin. We have stacks of spares which we hold in large numbers and keep for years. if we havent got somethign which you need we always sort out our customers with other options.
also do they offer free truing for life, and crash rebuild discounts again for life?
Regards, Superstar
I ran them with a pair of 200mm shimano XT floating rotors and within a race season and 10 days in the alps the discs were worn down to 0.7mm from the 2mm. I think I used 6 pairs over the whole year.
I really got on with the Kevlar pads, super grippy from cold and would never fade. It's good to know on a black run they would bite as hard on the bottom as at the top. But I did go through quite a few pairs.
They're not as fancy as some of the big brands, and not as refined or light as some
Huh?
In what way are they the best then?
It's a design defect and can't even be avoided by going to steel freehub as they remove to much material in the steel one.
That's unfortunate because the hubs are quite good and with extended compatibility.
Made a name doing good pads at good prices, expanded.
Now selling some good value stuff (Pedals, Chain Rings, SS conversion), but truly awful pads.
Trying to expand further and move in-house/design.
No Customer Service.
All my emails with reference to the "bulk buy" pads I purchased ignored. They are beyond rubbish (pads and CS). Why would I return, even if review was excellent? Take your money and run firm.
We took on board that people expected better bearing life, so we now only fit SKF brand bearings. It nearly doubles our cost price for the hub and we have added minimal extra to the RRP of the Switch ULTRA. SO we do listen to feedback and constantly improve our products.
You can buy SKF bearings aftermarket to fit to your hubs, but they are about £10-12 each so £70 for a front/rear set just for the bearings! Quality doesnt come cheap.
If you have any questions please let me know, Superstar
They had Nw chain rings for £15 DEAL OF THE YEAR .
Tough crowd at dirt! They dont make stuff up and big up people, just tell it straight. What i get from that review is that the wheels do what wheels should do and are almost as good as a wheelset costing 4 times the price!
Any questions please let me know, Superstar
I thought yesterday's deal lasted until 8 am of today so couldn't place the order in time, I would be a proud owner now otherwise.
We dont include tubeless tape and valves as that would just mean everyone would have to pay £20-30 more for their wheels! Plenty of people run tubes and dont need the bits. if you need it put it in your basket, again industry leading prices for those bits.
Any questions please let me know, Superstar
We thought we would make some people happy for christmas with that deal!
If you have any questions please let me know, Superstar
Follow superstar on Facebook for daily deal updates - they had a 30% voucher code yesterday (no longer valid) ... and a 30% off custom wheels a couple or so days ago (also not valid any more)
you snooze you loose, that killer offer ended yesterday!
sign up to our facebook for the latest news for offers like this....
Any questions please let me know, Superstar
although they are a massive pain in the arse for tyre fits IMO. almost like they are too big by just enough to make very difficult
If you have any questions please let me know, Superstar
Have a look at the info online in teh returns section.
Original owners of superstar wheels can fill out a returns form, pop them abck and the wheelbuild team will give them a report of anythign which needs servicing, then true/return for free.
Obviously if your rim is beyond repair or if your bearings are shot they need replacing under our crash rebuild discount, we arent going to do a bodge true for you. If your not happy with our quote we just return them to you for you to service.
Its totally up to you
If you have any questions please let me know, Superstar