Are carbon wheels worth it anymore?

[cmaguire]

OK, I haven't ridden it yet as the wheels are still out of the bike so the actual improvement remains to be seen.

However, the weight reductions quoted to me and the reality are somewhat disappointing and at this stage have me questioning whether I could have spent the money on something more useful.

GSXR 1000R 2017 Standard Rear Wheel complete with Bridgestone RS10 15.1 Kg
BST Rear Wheel complete with Continental Sp.Attack3 12.1 Kg

Actual weight loss 3 Kg Quoted 4.1

Standard Front Wheel RS10 11.7 Kg
BST Front wheel SA3 10.2 Kg

Actual weight loss 1.5 Kg Quoted 2.8


The Continentals didn't strike me as particularly heavy when loose.
Front wheel particularly disappointing.

[graeme4130]

The main difference is in rotational mass, which is what creates the gyroscopic effect of how easily a bike tips in
A carbon wheel has its mass in the centre rather than on the outside rim like a traditional wheel, so it’ll help the bike tip in better

[Tall_Paul]

4.5kg of unsprung, rotational weight lost? That's huge! I think you'll be surprised just how quick and easily the bike will tip into corners with light wheels.

[ChocolateFrog]

You've gained a 2-3% weight reduction from the whole bike and its come from the most important area, that sounds pretty good to me.

[cmaguire]

1.5 kg off the front wheel is pretty lame imo

At least it has got rid of the pin-striping, but at some expense

[Steve Bass]

As Graeme says, the loss is in unsprung rotational mass. As Such, it'll make a big difference between the two.
Regarding the quoted weights, take the tyres out of the equation. Depending on the manufacturer you'll get huge discrepancies there. Maybe consider which brand and model of tyre the cf wheel manufacturer references and whether it's a road legal tyre or not? Your Conti's may be a particularly heavy carcass?

Finally, don't forget to slow down the suspension a bit, especially rebound. Lighter weight wheels can make the forks too fast and the bike will feel nasty if not adjusted for.
But in all, lighter rims make a huge difference. Braking, acceleration and direction change are all massively improved. Enjoy.

Edited by Steve Bass on Sunday 18th February 14:22

[cmaguire]

Minor delay anyway, they managed to send the wrong rear sprocket. Two teeth smaller for some reason.

[graeme4130]

Steve Bass said:

As Graeme says, the loss is in unsprung rotational mass. As Such, it'll make a big difference between the two.
Regarding the quoted weights, take the tyres out of the equation. Depending on the manufacturer you'll get huge discrepancies there. Maybe consider which brand and model of tyre the cf wheel manufacturer references and whether it's a road legal tyre or not? Your Conti's may be a particularly heavy carcass?

Finally, don't forget to slow down the suspension a bit, especially rebound. Lighter weight wheels can make the forks too fast and the bike will feel nasty if not adjusted for.
But in all, lighter rims make a huge difference. Braking, acceleration and direction change are all massively improved. Enjoy.

Edited by Steve Bass on Sunday 18th February 14:22

Exactly that, they track bumpy surfaces much better. When I ran them, it was night and day in how much power you could put down on a less than perfect surface as the lighter wheel tracks the bumps so much better. I didn't ever change the suspension settings between the two sets of wheels I had on my bike, but that was on the track, whereas on a crappy road surface, you might find you need to.
In saying that, having broken a Carbon wheel, I'd never race on one again, but I'm sure they're great road wheels, and they look and feel very cool

[orangefzr]

Longevity is a question, that is the first thing I thought when I saw your post, I understand with magnesium wheels you have to periodically get them x rayed to check for cracking / faults, is this the same with carbon ?
I'd imagine as previous posters have said the bike will handle a lot better but as just purely as a weight loss exercise you could have laid off the pies and the beer and achieved the same weight loss in a few months

[FazerBoy]

graeme4130 said:

In saying that, having broken a Carbon wheel, I'd never race on one again, but I'm sure they're great road wheels, and they look and feel very cool

That sounds a bit scary! How did it break - was it a single impact or fatigue over a period?

[graeme4130]

FazerBoy said:

graeme4130 said:

In saying that, having broken a Carbon wheel, I'd never race on one again, but I'm sure they're great road wheels, and they look and feel very cool

That sounds a bit scary! How did it break - was it a single impact or fatigue over a period?

It was from a tyre change, the rim literally snapped inwards as the tyre was on the machine. I know the guy doing it well, and was stood next to him at the time. Seeing how easily it broke put me off ever having the confidence in Carbon wheels again.
I'd had the wheel since new, and it was around 8months old, and had maybe 20 tyre changes in it's life, so not exactly old.
The problem with anyone buying 2nd hand carbon wheels, is you just don't know the history of them despite what the seller might tell you. One big impact and you can damage the structure of it that you might not be able to see by looking at it, no matter how well you inspect it. I know loads of people race on them without problems, but I couldn't again as it'd always be in the back of my mind.
I use Oz Piega R wheels now, and they're not far off as light as the carbon wheels, but they're made a material that I can see if it's damaged or not

[f1nn]

I've had BST Carbon wheels fitted to a GSXR1000K7, and we all know the benefits but actually found them hard work on the road as the bike was more susceptible to following imperfections in the road, although on track they were great.

I fitted a set to a ZZR1400 gen 2 late last year and they work far better on that bike IMO.

I weighed them before fitting and lost 7.4kgs over the standard wheels.

[cmaguire]

It looks like the 2017 Gsxr has pretty light wheels already, and it is far and away the quickest steering and twitchiest bike I've owned.

I'm considering dropping the forks through the yokes 10mm anyway, but I'll leave that a while to see how these wheels pan out.
The st roads around here don't help and it was something I mentioned to HPS when ordering regarding whether the wheels would take it.

[hebegb]

..? Quickest steering and twitchiest bike so far ..... and considering dropping the forks down some more .....?
Do you think that will help ...?
Just asking - I really have no idea about this sort of thing

[cmaguire]

You're getting your dropping and raising confused.
Dropping forks raises the front end.

[hebegb]

Ok . Thanks .

[Biker's Nemesis]

cmaguire said:

It looks like the 2017 Gsxr has pretty light wheels already, and it is far and away the quickest steering and twitchiest bike I've owned.

I'm considering dropping the forks through the yokes 10mm.I found my R1 turned

I found my R1 turned quicker than anything I had ridden before, I dropped the forks by 10mm too which made it better.

I have another 10mm left, so I'm going to drope them further.

Seems the wisdom for my bike it to raise the whole lot. (front/back)

[moto_traxport]

cmaguire said:

You're getting your dropping and raising confused.
Dropping forks raises the front end.

One of the mags (PB I think) did a thing on the GSXR's geometry. Cooper's Superstock bike was intially a standard model and it had fork lengtheners fitted to allow a fork drop of 25mm or so.

The RR version can be adjusted in such a way more easily as the swanky forks in that are longer and poke up above the top yoke quite a distance.

[cmaguire]

moto_traxport said:

One of the mags (PB I think) did a thing on the GSXR's geometry. Cooper's Superstock bike was intially a standard model and it had fork lengtheners fitted to allow a fork drop of 25mm or so.

The RR version can be adjusted in such a way more easily as the swanky forks in that are longer and poke up above the top yoke quite a distance.

I could drop them 16mm and then they would be flush with the top yoke.

The bike looks visibly low at the front to the naked eye. And is very prone to headshakes.

[cmaguire]

Biker's Nemesis said:

I found my R1 turned quicker than anything I had ridden before, I dropped the forks by 10mm too which made it better.

I have another 10mm left, so I'm going to drope them further.

Seems the wisdom for my bike it to raise the whole lot. (front/back)

When setting the sag I took two turns off the rear shock preload as it had 5mm of static sag to start, so at the moment I have effectively dropped the rear about 6mm. Unlike my 750 the spring appears to be OK for weight on this as I now have 12 static and 32 rider, although I am considering a revalve later to improve the high speed damping (unlike the shock on the 750, the 1000 has only one compression adjustment on the BFF, so no hi/lo separation)