bigger bonus than expected - which wheels for £1K ?!

must-tri-harder

Good news, just had confirmation i have £1000 to spend on some new wheels ?!

Probably several other things i should be considering other than wheels but if i dont do it now i never will.

Do i just settle for the Dura Ace 7850-C24-CL ?!

Or is it really worth me splashing the cash on aero wheels:

Hed Jet 6 ?
Dura Ace 7850-C50-CL ?
Mavic Cosmic Carbone SL ?

Or something else even more groovy I cant think of right now.

Down the Road

Cosmics are the best value performance wheelset on the market. Plus they sound fantastic at all speeds.

Monty Dog

Most importantly, how heavy are you, what is your riding style and what do want to use them for? For a grand you could buy a pair of top-notch training / all weather wheels and a pair of deep-rim carbon wheels for racing. Cosmics, for example are relatively heavy, so I wouldn't recommend them for a 60kg climber.

must-tri-harder

mmm.. cosmics are pretty, but they're all pretty that's the trouble.

Weight: approx 74KG - 164 lbs
Height: 181 CM - 6' 1" ish

Riding style is ummm fairly aggressive i suppose, i'm not scared of hills and can turn a crank. I'm mainly riding for 'fun', odd TT's and racing triathlons so speed and durability are essential. Currently knock out around 150-175 miles per week.

cheers.

Down the Road

Cosmics it is then

FransJacques

Cosmics are ok, I rode a pair with the continuous carbon spokes for a 160km mountain ride - alright but take a look at the HED C2 40s or 60s from labicicletta. The beauty of the HEDs is the C2 rim which stretches out the tyre to make a more rounded shape - check out cyclingnews's review on the ardennes. I've had Ardennes for 2 years and love them

the C2 40 and 60 are basically ardennes with 46mm (don't let the model name fool you) and 60mm carbon caps on them. There's a C2 90 with a 89mm cap on it.

The wheels are £1050 and you can mix and match which is great - I was thinking of going 40 front 60 rear for flat road races and flat sportifs like the Ch'ti.

If you want it for Tris or TT then you could go 60-90 or the killer 90-90 but the 90s are rather heavy at almost 1900 grams (manu's numbers) for the pair.

rokkala

HED C2 rim wheels do seem to be really good, but i keep seeing the same comments popping up now and again about the bearings in the hubs being pretty poor regards durability.

Any issues yourself with that?

must-tri-harder

for no particular reason i've always had an infatuation with HED wheels, maybe its because your default clone with too much money just buys zipp, so i'm anti that. you dont see a lot of HED wheels about, not round here anyway.

in a silly moment i had been thinking HED 60 front + 90 rear, although it's a little over budget, i really could not blame my performance on the wheels could i, that would be a plain killer set of wheels.

and lets face it, i'm unlikely to need to replace them within 3 years and they're only coming out to play on sunny days and/or races so they should last well ... hmmm.. decisions decisions ..

i would like something a bit different.

rokkala

Why not.

If your into your TT's and triathlons then they would be putting a big smile on your face everytime you used them, which is what it should all be about really!

Only thing against that really is the weight, about 1800grams, which is still around same weight as low-mid range aluminium box clinchers, so not exactly the end of the world if you did have to climb with them.

Besides if you break them, always got your home insurance to claim on

Just go with what you really want i say.

on-yer-bike

Campag Bora Ones. But you'll have to use tubs which will add to the cost. 1350 g, strong and the DBs

Anonymous

I'd get an aero front, a Powertap rear on an open pro rim and a disc cover for the powertap rear for races...

Wheelspinner

These are apparently pretty decent too... and only marginally above your 1K

http://www.totalcycling.com/index.php/product/parts_accessories/wheels_road/WH_F5R_240.html

or these?

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=26439

giant_man

For a grand I would have 2 pairs of wheels deffo!

davidcambridge1

Wheelspinner wrote:

These are apparently pretty decent too... and only marginally above your 1K

http://www.totalcycling.com/index.php/product/parts_accessories/wheels_road/WH_F5R_240.html

My God!! Those are the sexiest skewers that I have ever seen!! It is worth the £1100 just for the skewers!! :P

FransJacques

No issues with the Hed hubs at all. I'm 78-82 kgs depending and have ridden them in everything including 7 hours of peeing rain on 2 occasions. Why do other people have these issues? Not sure. Mine are just golden.

TTing should be steady state in terms of speed unless you're on a bendy course. I read a german article about micro accelearations and decelerations related to wheel intertia. He built a model to calculate it based on different spoke, hub, rim, and tire combos. He also tried to do some real life testing which was almost impossible due to the differences in SRM readings being a similar order of magnittude as the SRM's own error. Unsurprisingly his model showed that heavier wheels had smaller micro accelearations and de-accelerations than lighter wheels. His conclusions were, net net, there was little benefit in most cycling scenarios for light wheels, apart, notably, from races with constant attacking, or situations requiring repeated changes in tempo. He didn't deal with the obvious Grade 8 physics question that work done = mass x acceleration and at the end of the day heavier wheels weigh more so work done is higher which requires higher wattage for similar speed and time hence higher colories etc etc etc.

But readers can draw their own conclusions and can also, if you want to, ride differently by applying power in a smoother curve when accelerating heavy wheels to not burn too many of one's precious matches. Same principle to going easily on your car's accelerator.

Anyone else read this? It was news 2-3 years ago. I'll dig it up if I can.

Just remember that the early 90s Shamals and Cosmics that Bartoli, Berzin and Riis all rode were 1700 gram boat anchors. So are we really killing ourselves with similar weight wheels? The dollar to benefit curve drops off quickly for light wheels, meaning that the £500 I spent on 1400 gram Ardennes is likely as far as I'll ever go.

wildmoustache

I like the cosmic suggestion. they are good value these days. the weight is a bit of a wash really unless you want a bike for the scales. they are aero and tough.

bearings could be better, though you can fit aftermarket ceramics.

matt.rochfort

If you get a fancy deep section carbon wheelset just make sure that you don't get overtaken by a 40 year old on a fixie worth a quarter the price of your wheels as it makes the sound of the carbon deep sections sound like hollow laughter! Getting fed up of towing £5-6K bikes round Regents Park on a £350 fuji!

No, seriously what about some handbuilts from wheelsmith or something like that, £1000 would get you tune hubs, etc, etc.

airwise

The Shimano wheels are remarkably good - just not sexy enough for some.

They are one of the lightest clinchers on the market and one of the most comfortable to boot - vastly more so that Ksyriums and the like. On hills they are only IME bettered by really good tubular setups.

Your choice. They have the "wow" factor. It's just they make you shout "Wow" rather than your fashion concious riding buddies.

must-tri-harder

cheers for the input, i'm almost 90% sold on the hed jet 6/9 idea, that would just be a dream wheelset, they're only coming out to play for TT/Tri racing (and maybe the cornwall tor next weekend if they're here in time) and ought to transfer to the next bike and/or TT bike should that ever happen.

i'm going to have the biggest grin on my face ever when i unwrap a set of HED wheels, i just don't think that a set of shimano's or mavic wheels would have the same effect, and at the end of the day this is all about me enjoying riding my bike even more than i do already, and any perceived or real speed/performance gain is obviously no bad thing.

first deep section rims so anyone care to elaborate on which long valve innertubes are appropriate or do i need valve extenders ?!