Wide climbing wheels - what am I missing

[Janosh]

As a little history, over recent years I've riden Mavic ksyrium SL's and more recently some Enve 45's.

I'm on the hunt for some lightweight / climbing hoops and can't help but wonder if all the big manufacturers are behind the times? Everyone seems to agree that 23-25mm is a better resolved (and more aero) rim width yet the 2015 wheels from Mavic and Fulcrum still seem to be narrow...

I find myself stuck between Race 24's from wheelsmith @ £500ish or something like a Zipp 202 @ way too much.... so what am I missing?!

I know Farsports seem to have every base covered, but quality seems to be a little hit and miss so I'd prefer to avoid buying from China.

[nammynake]

Reynolds Attack are just under £1k. Wide rims and 1365g:

http://www.reynoldscycling.com/wheels/Attack

Depends if you want carbon or Alu.

I believe the new Fulcrum Racing Zero Carbon are wide too:

http://www.fulcrumwheels.com/en/collection/road/ca...

Edited by nammynake on Wednesday 5th November 20:53

[esuuv]

Surely the issue is weight? wider rim, wider tyre = more weight = bad for climbing.

Aero and lightweight don't usually go together.

[okgo]

Nothing will be any better than the wheels you have. Don't bother.

[Janosh]

OK - thanks chaps

[Raven Flyer]

If I hadn't bought my Far Sports I would have bought Reynolds.

The Fars have been excellent.

[paulmon]

esuuv said:

Surely the issue is weight? wider rim, wider tyre = more weight = bad for climbing.

Aero and lightweight don't usually go together.

Not quite. The wide rim allows you to run the same tyres as you would have on a narrow rim. The tyre comes up bigger offering more comfort and better rolling resistance.

[JEA1K]

Surely if you want 'climbing' wheels you should be going for simply the lightest wheel available within your budget (and body weight limit!)?

[Rolls]

JEA1K said:

Surely if you want 'climbing' wheels you should be going for simply the lightest wheel available within your budget (and body weight limit!)?

Which is fine if all your doing is riding up the hills...
but most people will want something that will go down the other side too :-)

[Janosh]

So despite the advice and my better judgement, I've been offered a nice deal on some R-SYS SLR's.... (old stock)

Part of my reasoning is that I never used my Enve's in the wet / winter (hence they've now been sold on) whereas I'll be happy to use the Mavic wheels more often than not (when it's not too grim outside!)

Happy to report back if anyone's interested...? Will be keen to see how they hold up..

Edited by Janosh on Friday 7th November 12:31

[Dr Imran T]

Janosh said:

So despite the advice and my better judgement, I've been offered a nice deal on some R-SYS SLR's.... (old stock)

Part of my reasoning is that I never used my Enve's in the wet / winter (hence they've now been sold on) whereas I'll be happy to use the Mavic wheels more often than not (when it's not too grim outside!)

Happy to report back if anyone's interested...? Will be keen to see how they hold up..

Edited by Janosh on Friday 7th November 12:31

You may well have actually sold the 'better' wheelset. That said, the new wheels look great and I'm sure you will not be disappointed with them.

[Janosh]

Dr Imran T said:

You may well have actually sold the 'better' wheelset. That said, the new wheels look great and I'm sure you will not be disappointed with them.

That might be the case, but the new wheels are a little cheaper and I think I'll be less precious about the Mavic wheels... The Exalith coating should be very durable and it'll hopefully mean that I'll use my 'best bike' more.

I didn't particularly like the fact that I only ever rode the Enve wheels when the weather and road conditions were perfect..

[JustinF]

All the new American Classics are wider profile and alsp tubless compatible if you wish to go that route too.

Edit to add that the sprint 350's come in at 1.4Kg for £500..

Edited by JustinF on Sunday 9th November 22:36

[Dammit]

Janosh said:

That might be the case, but the new wheels are a little cheaper and I think I'll be less precious about the Mavic wheels... The Exalith coating should be very durable and it'll hopefully mean that I'll use my 'best bike' more.

I didn't particularly like the fact that I only ever rode the Enve wheels when the weather and road conditions were perfect..

Anecdotal I know, but everyone I have known who rode their Exalith rims in the wet found that the coating stripped off pretty rapidly.

For whatever reason it seems to strip off the rear first - no idea why.

I'd recommend having a look at the Flo30 wheelset - "properly" aerodynamic, light, and very affordable.

I run them when it's raining and some HED Stinger 4's when it's not.

[ALawson]

On the subject of wheels, I have been running Fulcrum 3's for the last 18months, they were second hand at £150 and replaced the specialized axis 2.0 that the bike came with.

Today I put the winter tyres on the axis as I planned to run them through winter, having fitted them to the bike I noticed the rear has an annoying buckle (I did get them trued in the summer and they did say they could remove the buckle). I took the rear back to PedalHeaven today and the mechanic couldn't straighten it (apparently a shape in the rim).

Anyway that leaves me with running the 3's over winter. So I am now thinking about just relegating them to permanent "training/winter" role. I will sell the axis 2.0 on eBay if I can find some to buy them with a declared buckle. Question is do I simoly get another pair of new 3's? They are light ish, 1550g apparently, and they go ok.

I obviously would like some deep carbon rims, but frankly I cannot justify them on the basis that would they really make any difference to a weekend /'sportive warrior! I see that there are a few options for ebay/Chinese supplied carbons wheels, how do these compare cost wise to the 3's slightly heavier but more aero?

I do have a friend who works for a cycle chain which sounds like a doctors, he can pass on good deals, although even Zipp 303s at 50-55% rrp are bloody expensive.

So what are people's thoughts lightweight traditional wheels vs carbons trickery......Budget is obviously flexible deepening upon what deal I can get.

[okgo]

The more I ride the more I am less bothered by wheels (on road bike) I've had some of my better results this year on average qaulity tyres on shallow rims vs my zipp 303 tubs.

Get some fulcrum 1's or similar, they're going to be 99% the wheel that the zipps are.

On the time trial bike every second counts so I do make allowances for that but on road bike I don't think it makes a vast amount of difference even in races let alone leisure riding/sportives.

[Dammit]

Can't say that I agree, I think different wheels have very different characteristics.

I've got 23c tubs, 25c tubs, 25c clinchers on ultra wide rims that come up as 28's, and some medium wide rims with 25c/28c clinchers on, they all have quite distinct rides from each other.

[Janosh]

IMO - there's 2 sides to this and every wheel discussion... Speed vs Comfort / 'happiness'

The Enve's 45's were without doubt faster on the flat at around 20mph, I would guess that they added 1-2mph. However over the course of a usual lumpy club run, they were 'fun' but ultimately they didn't make much difference. Certainly you could not say that they offer value for money!

Having switched to my old Kysiruim SLS last weekend, the most noticable thing was comfort. I could not believe how much smoother the ride was on the Mavic alloy wheels!

At this point I agree with Okgo, to an extent wheels make little difference to road riding, however I don't think that we can dispute that comfort is important...?

Comfort ties in with nice wheels making you feel good. When kit doesn't feel like it's holding me back, I enjoying my riding more and therefore having tried a wide range of wheels I suggest that something like the SLS, Fulcrum Zero, etc is absolutely everything you need in a wheel.

Hopefully that makes some sense, bottom line is I think I did the right thing by going for the R-SYS (as I got a good deal and like the look of them )... which I'll be using whenever the weather isn't ste...

[okgo]

23mm alloy wheels, they're about the sweetspot for everything. I've got Archetype on Royce hubs as my training wheels, I use them for everything. The zipp firecrests are perhaps a handful of seconds faster up a longer hill but not worth worrying about outside of competition.

[Janosh]

That's probably the type of build that I should have gone for (and was aiming for), but just got sucked back in by the Mavic marketing hype

Oh well, next time!