How to Replace Your Old Aluminium Wheels with 10PLUS Carbon Wheels

Why this is an easier upgrade than it looks

Plenty of good road and gravel bikes leave the factory on basic aluminium wheels, which is why a carbon wheelset is such a popular first upgrade. Deeper rims bring an aero benefit, and a wider rim lets your tyre sit fuller, so you can often run slightly lower pressures for more comfort and grip.

The good news is that it's mostly a transfer job: your rotors, cassette and often your tyres move across to the new wheels, and nothing on the frame or groupset has to change. For reference, 10PLUS lists the Road T Series from about 1580g and the Road E Series from about 1385g per set, with the Gravel T and E Series starting at around 1560g and 1440g. If you know what your current wheels weigh, that's your real-world saving.

This guide covers the whole swap: checking fit, the tools you'll need, inspecting the new wheels, moving each part across, tyre setup and the adjustments to make before your first ride.

Step 1: make sure the new wheels fit

Do this before you order, not when the box arrives. 10PLUS wheels are disc-brake only, so a rim-brake bike is out. The usual disc standard is 12x100mm front and 12x142mm rear thru-axle, with Center Lock rotor mounts, and the freehub can be Shimano HG, Shimano Micro Spline or SRAM XDR.

If you plan to reuse your cassette, order the freehub that matches it — the cassette decides, not the bike brand. Our 5-minute compatibility checklist and freehub guide cover this in detail.

What you'll need

• A cassette lockring tool and a chain whip.
• A Center Lock lockring tool. Lockrings come in an internal-spline type (it uses the cassette tool) and an external-spline type (it uses a bottom-bracket-style tool), so check which one your rotors have.
• A torque wrench — not strictly essential, but it takes the guesswork out of the lockrings and thru axles.
• Plastic tyre levers.
• A track pump, plus a tubeless booster or compressor and sealant if you're going tubeless.
• Center Lock rotors or 6-bolt-to-Center Lock adapters, if your old wheels use 6-bolt rotors.
• A pad spacer (or a folded piece of card) and some light grease.
• If you're running tubes: long-valve tubes, or valve extenders for tubes with removable valve cores.

Step 2: unbox and inspect the new wheels

Check the new wheels while they're fresh out of the box, before any of your parts go on. Squeeze pairs of spokes all the way round to make sure none are obviously loose, spin each wheel in your hands and watch the rim for wobble, and turn the axle to feel that the bearings are smooth, not gritty or loose.

Look over the rims, spoke holes and hubs for cracks, dents or damage from shipping, and check the rim tape runs straight down the middle of the rim without lifting anywhere — that matters most if you're going tubeless. Put any spares from the box (spokes, valves, lockrings) in a sealable bag so they don't go missing. We recommend a proper true-and-tension check on any new wheelset: an independent teardown of a 10PLUS T Series wheel found spoke tension that varied more than it should out of the box.

Step 3: take the old wheels out

Shift onto the smallest chainring and the smallest cog before you take anything apart — it gives the chain the most slack and makes the rear wheel much easier to remove and refit. On electronic groupsets, shift one gear at a time.

Open the thru axles (or quick-release levers) and drop both wheels out. Once they're out, don't squeeze the brake levers: with no rotor between them, hydraulic pads can close up and you'll have to push them apart again. Slip a pad spacer between the pads to be safe.

Step 4: move the rotors

If your old wheels already use Center Lock, remove the lockring, slide the rotor off and fit it to the new hub with the rotation arrow pointing forwards. Make sure the hub interface is clean and that no plastic transit spacer has been left on it. Some wheelsets come with their own lockrings, so check whether yours need the internal- or external-spline tool.

Tighten the lockring to the figure printed on it or given in the rotor maker's instructions — Cycling Weekly's setup guide uses 40Nm for a Shimano-style Center Lock lockring. With internal-spline lockrings, the rotors and cassette often use the same tool and the same torque, which keeps things simple. If your old wheels use 6-bolt rotors, you'll need Center Lock rotors or a 6-bolt adapter (it only works that way round). Either way, keep the same rotor diameter, because your calipers are mounted for that size.

Step 5: move the cassette

Hold the cassette with the chain whip, undo the lockring and slide the cassette off in one piece if you can. If the cogs come apart, don't worry: on 11- and 12-speed cassettes the splines only line up one way. Put a thin film of grease on the new freehub body and the lockring threads first — it helps stop creaks and makes the cassette easier to remove next time. Slide the cassette on, lining up the wide spline, start the lockring by hand (the threads can be delicate) and tighten it to 40Nm, the figure both Cycling Weekly and other workshop guides use for Shimano lockrings. If any cog still moves once it's tight, a spacer or cog is missing.

Watch out for spacers. Older 8–10-speed cassettes usually need a spacer behind them on an 11-speed freehub, so if your old wheel had one, check the cassette instructions to see whether the new freehub needs it too. If you're changing freehub standard — HG to Micro Spline, for example — the old cassette won't fit and you'll need a new one.

Step 6: tyres (tubeless or tubes)

The 10PLUS wheels we've looked at arrived with rim tape and tubeless valves already fitted. For tubeless, use a tubeless-ready tyre and add sealant through the valve with the core removed and the valve at about eight o'clock, so the sealant drops into the tyre instead of back out. Hold the valve body while you refit the core so the whole valve doesn't turn. Seat the bead with a booster or compressor, but never over-inflate to force it — a tyre that blows off the rim can cause real injury. Around 60% of your riding pressure plus working the bead by hand usually does it; the moulded line on both tyre sidewalls should sit evenly above the rim all the way round. Spin and shake the wheel to spread the sealant. Keep an eye on pressure for the first couple of weeks: a new tubeless setup often loses air a little faster while the sealant settles in. Our tubeless-ready guide has the full checklist.

You can also run inner tubes: remove the tubeless valve, leave the rim tape in place and buy tubes with valves comfortably longer than the rim depth — 80mm valves are the usual choice for 50–65mm rims. If your tubes have short valves, valve extenders are a cheap fix. When moving your old tyres across, deflate fully, push the beads into the centre of the rim to gain slack, and start levering opposite the valve. To refit, mount one bead first, slip the lightly inflated tube in from the open side, then finish the second bead working away from the valve. Use plastic levers only on carbon, mind your knuckles on the bladed spokes, and check any rotation arrow on the tyre points forwards.

Some tyre and rim combinations are much tighter than others, so it's worth a dry run at home: if you can't get the tyre off without a battle, you won't enjoy doing it at the roadside, and tubeless starts to make more sense. A wider rim also makes the same tyre measure a little wider, so you may be able to drop your pressure slightly. Use a tyre-pressure calculator as a starting point and stay within both the tyre's and the rim's limits — 10PLUS rims are 21mm internal on the Road T Series and 24–25mm on the gravel rims, so check your tyre maker's approved rim-width range too.

Step 7: fit the wheels

Start with the front: guide the rotor into the caliper and tighten the thru axle to the torque your frame maker specifies. On a quick release, close the lever with the bike standing on the ground so the axle sits square in the dropouts.

For the rear, pull the derailleur back, let the chain drop onto the smallest cog and lift the wheel into the frame, guiding the rotor between the pads. Don't force it — if it doesn't go, reset and try again. Many people find this easier with the bike standing on the ground than in a stand. Remove any pad spacers first.

Step 8: fine-tune brakes and gears

No two hubs put the rotor or cassette in exactly the same place, so a little brake rub or a slightly off gear change is normal after a swap — though sometimes everything lines up first time. To check the brakes, put something bright on the floor under the caliper and look down through the gap: you want an even space between each pad and the rotor.

If it rubs, work out whether the rotor is bent or the caliper is out of line. For the caliper, loosen its bolts, squeeze the lever, retighten while holding it, and spin again. (Thin rotor shims also exist, but re-centring the caliper is usually quicker.) A slightly bent rotor can be straightened carefully with a rotor tool; one that's badly warped is better replaced. For shifting, if the chain is slow to climb to bigger cogs, turn the rear barrel adjuster out a quarter to half a turn; if it's noisy on the next cog, turn it back in.

Step 9: check everything before your first ride

Spin both wheels one last time, run through every gear, and confirm the axles, rotor lockrings and cassette lockring are tight. The quality control page shows what the factory QC cards cover, if you want to compare your wheels against them.

If you fitted new rotors or pads, bed them in with a series of firm stops before riding hard. Then take a short test ride and recheck the axles and rotor lockrings when you get back.

Final thoughts

If you're not sure where to start, the Road T Series in 50mm is our all-round road pick and the Gravel T Series in 38mm is our gravel default. Order the right axle and freehub, give yourself an unhurried afternoon, and the swap itself is the easy part.

The fastest upgrade isn't the lightest wheel — it's the one that's fitted properly.