Wheel Choice – Advice much appreciated

I know this is about the

I know this is about the benefits of very expensive wheels versus extremely expensive wheels but maybe go for something in the cheaper range and donate the difference to charity? Your money, of course but £400 is quite a lot to many in the season of goodwill.

You’d probably also feel a greater benefit from that too, albeit a different kind.

[With apologies for the sermonising – just trying to offer a wider perspective!]

neilkav1 wrote:

Nixster wrote:

As always its a question of what’s important to you.

…

A shallower front than rear is a theory I subscribe to btw for an all-round wheelset even if it might sometimes be the less than aerodynamically optimum solution.

Hey, thanks very much for the comments and advice.

TBH I also love the look of the reynolds, but not sure I can justify that price point for my first set of carbon/aero wheels.

Am being advised that it won’t make hardly any difference at all to speed, and that power meter and training are the way to go and to forget the wheel upgrade.

My training is very good, training hard through the winter to prepare for quite a few sprint/middle/70.3 tri’s and some sportives next year along with usual local rides.

So I guess I’m now thinking some cheaper or second hand wheels and invest in PM too.

 

These caught my attention, clearly Taiwanese components but built in UK, under half the price of Reynolds;

 

http://www.baxcarbon.co.uk/product-page/5f9c1cf6-d26c-bf23-147d-4c4ddace36d0

 

Could even mix and match front / rear sizes, any thoughts?

Can’t argue with your logic.  I ride far Sports 38/50mm x25mm wide tubular wheels, 1285g real world weight.  Like most generic carbon wheels they are Giantex rims in my case built on Bitex light hubs with CX-ray spokes.  Cost about £500.  Tubs are a bit of a faff, not sure I’d do that again but it meant that the wheels are about 300-400g lighter than clinchers and I don’t have to worry about the ‘my wheels blew up because I dragged my brakes on a descent’ horror stories.  Well, not worry so much anyway.

The wheels you’ve linked to are essentially a UK based version of a generic Taiwanese carbon wheel, less hassle to buy in the UK I’m sure.  No idea how well they’re built but if they’re crap it will be a lot easier to get your money back.

There’s a lot of BS talked about aerodynamics.  I think it was Flo who did a test comparing the effects of different tyre brands of the same size on various ‘aero’ wheel brands.  Turns out that the difference from the tyres was of the same magnitude as the aero benefit of the wheels in the first place (Conti GP4000S were the best tyres btw).  So £50 in tyres could negate the benefits of £2k’s worth of wheels…

What I think we can say with some certainty is that following a thorough training regime based on the effective use of a power meter WILL make you a faster rider.  Harder work than flexing a credit card though 🙂

Like I said originally, it depends what’s important to you.

As always its a question of

As always its a question of what’s important to you.

Of the wheels you’ve listed I would go for the Reynolds because they are lighter and I like a light wheel.  I don’t intentionally go out in prolonged rain so the wet weather braking of full carbon rims isn’t that much of an issue to me and it’s not like alloy rims are great either in the wet.

Aerodynamically Swiss Side probably have the edge but it’s probably not an edge you’ll ever notice over say the Cosines (which have no data to back them up AFAIK).  But the Cosines are lardy and the Bullets lardier still.  So I’d take 200g lighter wheels from Reynolds.

I should probably pay more attention on lateral stiffness- Roadcc rated the Hadrons in that respect but the Reynolds don’t strike me as flexy.

A shallower front than rear is a theory I subscribe to btw for an all-round wheelset even if it might sometimes be the less than aerodynamically optimum solution.

What about the new Mavic

The Mavic wheels you linked to are very narrow at 13 mm. What about the new Mavic cosmic pro carbon 2017 wheels ? Reasonably light, 45 mm deep, a good internal rim width for an Evo at 17 mm ( my Supersix Evo has very limited clearance at the back ),  about 787 quid and Mavic wheels have a 3 year warranty now and crash replacement. If that reads a bit like an ad it’s because I want someone to review these damn wheels !