New Wheels (for the dry days when they come)

I’m No Fan of Aero Wheels
If the wheels are going to be for general riding duties, I find the deep section of aero wheels tends to make them a real handful on breezy days.

Side winds can have you really hanging on and concentrating on just keeping a line, so the benefits of the aero section can also be a real drawback.

I am a fan of Mavic SL’s (the ES replacement), my set are okay as far as aero dynamics go, the spokes are good, but the rim is pretty square so overall they are just okay in that respect. They are light enough to be a decent wheel on climbs, but stiff enough to corner and sprint well and extremely durable so that you can happily use them everyday and not have to worry about them going out of true. They also perform well on windy days, and don’t drag you all over the place.

But then I really liked my R-Sys wheels despite what people seemed to say about them, that was until they morphed into a pair of Askium’s! Roll on March 31st….

Ah so aero *is* the way to go
Ah so aero *is* the way to go then … especially since I can drop considerably more than the mass availible in total on my wheelset from this here beer filter 😉 Especially since wheels tend to do this spinning around thing which frames don’t tend to so much …

So if I can build/buy a nice aero wheelset that weighs in around 1500 grams for around 600-700 sheets I’m onto a winner. I wonder what my open pro/ultegra set weigh.

*wanders off to find kitchen scales*

Good question dave, ideally
Good question dave, ideally I’d like a wheelset which has a better aero performance and which is lighter, but it all comes down to budget. The aero component is more for road racing, whereas the etape is probably more likely to be a one-off. Besides, I’m pretty sure I’ll be running a compact or a triple.

Cheers for the link cactuscat, I’ve requested a quote, be interesting to see what I could lace my own up for.

Étape
Since the Étape involves mainly climbing, I’d go with a lightweight set of wheels any day. Even with my 13st bouncing around on them (my Xero XCR-1s do bend a bit when I’m out of the saddle), I reckon that’s more beneficial that heavier, but more aerodynamic wheels.

I’m a bit of a convert to handbuilts, and have a friend who has started his own wheelbuilding business. I shall be running a pair of his wheels (nothing fancy: open pros on 105 hubs) during the Tour of Flanders sportive. That’s if they survive the winter commuting….

With £600 you could get something pretty damned light and handbuilt from the likes of Pete Matthews or Paul Hewitt.

Apologies for butting in, but
Apologies for butting in, but I have this conundrum too. I have a pair of robust and faithful open pros on ultegra, but I felt last year in the local road race league that something with a degree of aero-ness about them would have really helped. Plus, this year I’m doing the etape – and I think I’ll need all the help I can get there 🙂

I think clincher is gonna have to be the way to go, but I can’t decide if it is worth spanking cash on something ‘aero’ like the Reynolds Attack, or the Easton EC70s, or even the DA 7850’s, or try to build my own up. I can build wheels pretty well, though I’ve pretty much only ever built 3x, my open pros are 36 spoke 3 cross (bombproof!), so if I got a nice rim and laced a pair up radial/half radial with low spoke count, bladed spokes, would they be comparable? Can you get ‘aero’ rims on their tod? I don’t mind a bit of a fiddle.

Lightweight hoops

Mavic Open Pros (425g) are hard to beat, in my opinion, and readily available. DT Swiss RR 1.1s are 10g lighter but pricier. If you can find anyone who’ll sell you an American Classic CR350 rim then they weigh in at 350g and I don’t think you’d find anything lighter. Hen’s teeth though.