Standard 'training wheels' versus midprice 'race wheels'

Peter S Wrote:


snip



1c worth

If you go on $ alone, what SuzyJ etc build up seems far better value i
that price bracket and them Elites are not great for the buck. Othe
'factory' wheels at same/cheaper range are lighter/faster (Protons
Alex, Easton-in-particular). Cost to repair (and if youre racing its
big factor, so i have found out! ) is much higher with th
Ksyriums too.

I went from old wheels to protons with same tyre/tubes and then change
over to MichelinCarbonAxials (i know there are lighter faster) and th
difference was HUGE! Then i put in a couple of really light latex tube
and another noticeable leap resulted.

I'd love to do a comparison test with a group and swap wheels ever
half our or so to do a better comparison

--
flyingdutch

Save your money. I've not noticed any difference other than to my wallet. I
had a set of Campagnolo Eurus wheels, which according to a wheel test in
Cycling Plus are almost exactly the same weight as the Mavic Ksyrium SL, and
I built a set of 32-spoke wheels with Record hubs, Aerohead rims, and CX-Ray
spokes. Within the limits of my kitchen scales (about 10g resolution) the
weights were exactly the same between the two wheelsets, and I never noticed
any difference between one set or the other in races with the same tyres and
tubes on both (Conti GP3000 with Michelin latex tubes).

The Eurus wheels new were about three times as expensive as the home built
wheels. I eventually sold them for about 60% of what I paid for them, which
was still considerably more than the other set cost me.

Nick

"Peter S" wrote in message
...
I'm curious to get some feedback from those of you who have perhaps bought
a
set of 'race wheels' and whether you can actually sense the difference in
performance from the wheels your bike probably shipped with. I've only
ever
ridden my bike with the wheels that shipped with it (Mavic CXP 22's with
Michelin Pro Race tyres). We had a round table discussion at "our" coffee
stop after a long group ride this morning and opinion varied. I'm talking
about whether the difference is quantifiable for the amount the you'd have
to spend for even a mid range reasonable wheelset such as Ksyrium Elites.
I
thought I'g get feedback before I start saving and looking seriously at
what's out there.

I'm curious to get some feedback from those of you who have perhaps bought a
set of 'race wheels' and whether you can actually sense the difference in
performance from the wheels your bike probably shipped with. I've only ever
ridden my bike with the wheels that shipped with it (Mavic CXP 22's with
Michelin Pro Race tyres). We had a round table discussion at "our" coffee
stop after a long group ride this morning and opinion varied. I'm talking
about whether the difference is quantifiable for the amount the you'd have
to spend for even a mid range reasonable wheelset such as Ksyrium Elites. I
thought I'g get feedback before I start saving and looking seriously at
what's out there.

Peter S

There was a huge thread in the Equipment section of Cycling Forums

It basically showed weight makes a 0.0X% difference to performanc
whereas aerodynamics has a much larger effect. In the 0.1X% i think
it's been a while since i saw it

It also depends greatly on where your starting and finishing points o
wheel quality are

--
smartie

Peter S Wrote:

I guess that's what I'm talking about - was the biggest difference whe
you
put the Protons on, or when you changed to lighter tyres and tubes
When I
first got my bike it had Michelin Dynamic tyres. After a few weeks
bought
Michelin Pro Race and the difference was very noticeable. I'
wondering
since a lot of the performance is supposed to come from lower rotatin
mass
just how much more I'll notice the difference if I shell out fo
slightly
lighter wheels.

How much of a performance increase comes from 'aero' as opposed to jus
the
weight of the wheel?

Peter S


the wheels beforehand were Atlanta deepVrims so great once wound up bu
just plain heavy climbing, accelerating but the difference from initia
changeover to Protons was like a factor of, say 10 (down to) 6, an
then the tyr/tube change 5. (10 being mtb tyres and 1 bein
un-noticeable

--
flyingdutch

"flyingdutch" wrote in
message ...

If you go on $ alone, what SuzyJ etc build up seems far better value in
that price bracket and them Elites are not great for the buck. Other
'factory' wheels at same/cheaper range are lighter/faster (Protons,
Alex, Easton-in-particular). Cost to repair (and if youre racing its a
big factor, so i have found out! ) is much higher with the
Ksyriums too.

I went from old wheels to protons with same tyre/tubes and then changed
over to MichelinCarbonAxials (i know there are lighter faster) and the
difference was HUGE! Then i put in a couple of really light latex tubes
and another noticeable leap resulted.

I'd love to do a comparison test with a group and swap wheels every
half our or so to do a better comparison.

I guess that's what I'm talking about - was the biggest difference when you
put the Protons on, or when you changed to lighter tyres and tubes? When I
first got my bike it had Michelin Dynamic tyres. After a few weeks I bought
Michelin Pro Race and the difference was very noticeable. I'm wondering
since a lot of the performance is supposed to come from lower rotating mass
just how much more I'll notice the difference if I shell out for slightly
lighter wheels.

How much of a performance increase comes from 'aero' as opposed to just the
weight of the wheel?

Peter S

On Sat, 14 May 2005 20:06:24 -0700, "Peter S"
wrote:

I'm curious to get some feedback from those of you who have perhaps bought a
set of 'race wheels' and whether you can actually sense the difference in
performance from the wheels your bike probably shipped with. I've only ever
ridden my bike with the wheels that shipped with it (Mavic CXP 22's with
Michelin Pro Race tyres). We had a round table discussion at "our" coffee
stop after a long group ride this morning and opinion varied. I'm talking
about whether the difference is quantifiable for the amount the you'd have
to spend for even a mid range reasonable wheelset such as Ksyrium Elites. I
thought I'g get feedback before I start saving and looking seriously at
what's out there.

The other answers are good, but as always, there's more to it

Are different wheels noticable? You bet, are they faster? "it
depends". Same with tyres. If you're doing time trials or
expect to be off the front a lot, aero wheels are a signifiant
advantage, but they're usually heavy, so forget them for criteriums
and hills where you have to accelerate a lot or work against
gravity. If you're a sprinter whos race plan is to keep
out of the wind 'til the last moment, you want
stiff wheels, and who cares about aerodynamics*

CXP22's are reasonably heavy, sturdy wheels, and with
a decent hub and sensible spoking, they're a good
trainer. You've put expensive tyres on, which will
make a lot of difference to the feel of the wheel, and
save you a few grams.

As with all bike bits pricing is very much diminished
returns, forking out $3k for some campag somethings
will get you little benefit over a good set of light wheels made
up by yourself or a good LBS. I'd never buy ksyriums
as they're very expensive, and doubly so when they get
broken - one of my lads has a 2 week old cracknfail R1000 with
ksyrium elites and he was in a minor crash at Crib Pt on
Saturday and two nipples pulled through the rim - expensive to
fix, and they're no faster or lighter or stronger than my DT
RR1.1/hugi 240 homemade wheels that I can get spares for at my LBS
for peanuts.



* - yes, but not at this level.

Carl Brewer Wrote:


...and hills where you have to accelerate a lot or work agains
gravity



Damn! i keep forgetting to switch off the 'Gravity' on my hills
:rolleyes

--
flyingdutch

"Nick Payne" wrote in message
...
Save your money. I've not noticed any difference other than to my wallet.
I had a set of Campagnolo Eurus wheels, which according to a wheel test in
Cycling Plus are almost exactly the same weight as the Mavic Ksyrium SL,
and I built a set of 32-spoke wheels with Record hubs, Aerohead rims, and
CX-Ray spokes. Within the limits of my kitchen scales (about 10g
resolution) the weights were exactly the same between the two wheelsets,
and I never noticed any difference between one set or the other in races
with the same tyres and tubes on both (Conti GP3000 with Michelin latex
tubes).

The Eurus wheels new were about three times as expensive as the home built
wheels. I eventually sold them for about 60% of what I paid for them,
which was still considerably more than the other set cost me.

Nick

"Peter S" wrote in message
...
I'm curious to get some feedback from those of you who have perhaps
bought a
set of 'race wheels' and whether you can actually sense the difference in
performance from the wheels your bike probably shipped with. I've only
ever
ridden my bike with the wheels that shipped with it (Mavic CXP 22's with
Michelin Pro Race tyres). We had a round table discussion at "our" coffee
stop after a long group ride this morning and opinion varied. I'm talking
about whether the difference is quantifiable for the amount the you'd
have
to spend for even a mid range reasonable wheelset such as Ksyrium Elites.
I
thought I'g get feedback before I start saving and looking seriously at
what's out there.

Thanks Nick - I kind of suspected as much but boy there's an awful lot of
talk out there about how good one set of wheels is over another. Since one
of the recommendations here (smartie's post) was about aero shape over
weight I'm now wondering if the ideal wheel has a pronounced 'V' shape. The
higher end wheels such as the Zipp wheels certainly do. I just took time out
to read this

http://www.zipp.com/tech/whrims.shtml

The first 2 paragraphs make interesting reading. Actually the whole article
has the sound of well researched stuff. And from the small amount of reading
and research I've done the Zipp name comes up a lot (then again so does
Ksyrium and Eurus). Seriously top end prices though!

Peter S