Norco Fluid HT 4 27.5
I understand it's considered entry level but Its a massive upgrade to what I had before.
I've allready upgraded the fork to a suntour raidon much lighter than the coil spring that came stock. Added a dropper as well
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Ok, that's good to know. It's not entirely about how much you spent on your bike, but it's also useful to know what the manufacturer specs for the top trim for that model. If the top trim for the model is $500, I sure wouldn't be spending $300+ on a new wheel. But considering that the bike you have is just a lower trim of a bike that Norco sells for as much as $1700, that's a good reference and points to it being a more upgradeable platform.
You still need to figure out a budget for this, though.
With 9x141 hub spacing, your hub options will be limited. Not many budget hubs will fit that spacing. Boost hubs with swappable end caps will do it (even if the hub isn't sold in a specific 9x141 trim, swapping the thru axle end caps for qr end caps for a boost version of the hub should work).
For example, it looks like the Bitex hubs I referenced don't have swappable end caps. Battery should be able to confirm, since he says he has some. But for those, I don't see a 9x141 option. DT Swiss does swappable end caps. Hope does. Industry Nine does. That makes them all easy to fit into a 9x141 frame. But they're also much more expensive hubs that'll result in a much more expensive wheelset.
It's also worth noting that the bike looks to be a 27.5+ bike. Looking at the spec, I can't tell who makes the rims. "Alloy XD26" is pretty meaningless. Might be worth getting a whole wheelset because better rims could certainly be worthwhile. Spec does say that they're 30mm internal width, which is on the narrow side for plus rims, too. I'm using 30mm rims with 2.6" tires, and a fair number of people say that I should even be using wider rims. If you went with new rims on both wheels, you might be able to get wider ones (say, 35mm) for the same weight, or keep the same width rims and get lighter ones.
Of course, all this pushes the cost higher. Is getting a better-engaging rear hub worth this expense for you? What are you willing to spend?
You've certainly dived into the rabbit hole of upgrades. This is why I've just bought a frame and built it up how I like to begin with for my last 3+ bikes (I say + because my commuter has been rebuilt through a few iterations as my needs have changed over the years, and I think I might be changing the wheels to suit other needs soon).
