Ritchey's Classic Zeta Wheels retail for $660 a set, and at that price I wasn't going to buy them. But someone on an internet mailing list was letting them go for $250 and was close enough that I could pick them up locally, so I bought them. The pair weigh around 1500g without quick releases, and I mounted the back wheel onto Bowen's bike just in time for this year's tour.
One of the best feature of the wheel set is that the entire driver, cassette, and axle spindle can be removed from the wheel without tools. This is huge for travel! That means the rear wheel takes up much less space in the bike case, allowing you to pack the bike much more compactly. Of course, if you lose any of the parts, that quickly turns into the worst feature of the wheelset. I made sure to put all those pieces together in one ziplock bag and zipped up the ziplock bag tightly. For the front wheel this feature is much less revolutionary, and feels superfluous.
The other feature of this is that this means you can lube the ratchet mechanism with ease. Tom Ritchey clearly thought through everything when design the hub/ratchet/driver system.
The hubs are light, and the wheels came pretty well built, not needing truing for the 1000 miles or so Bowen has put on these wheels. Of course, given how light he is maybe that's nothing special. Nevertheless, the wheelset is as light as a set of wheels built with much more expensive White Industry hubs. The rear rim has an offset spoke bed so it's relatively strong, and the rim tape that came with the wheels are good.
I'm not sure I'd pay for these at full price, but for a travel bike I would definitely look out for these onsale. In fact, now that Jon Neugent has passed, these might turn out to be my go to wheels for new builds if I can source them at a good price.
Recommended.
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