Ultimate race wheels

plankton_brain

Decided to do some toy-trading and reckon my stash of obsolete (for me ) toys should just about make £2K. Maybe not ultimate, but should be close.

Focus is road racing and maybe some closed circuit stuff. Not especially hilly around here. 69kg.

Ive found some Mavic Cosmic Carbon Ultimates for just under £1700

What do you think?

okgo

Zipp 303's come reccomended from a chap I know that races, light, stiff, strong, fairly aero, look awesome?

Tom Dean

okgo wrote:

look awesome?

No, Zipps do not look awesome

dave35

Save yourself a fortune and buy my cosmic carbon ssc's,good as new and with 3 new tubs.

oldwelshman

Save yourself a fortune and buy dura ace wheels but not deep section.
Why spend £1500 extra when no need ?
Deep section and disc for TT yes but no need for bunch racing IMO expecially with our crap roads

napoleond

I'd get a used SRM and a set of cosmics or dura ace.

Monty Dog

Zipp wheels and the word 'stiff' is an oxymoron surely? Mavics are fine until you have a mishap - back to the factory. Other alternative would be Enve rims and Extralite or Chris King hubs built with CX Rays - all you need to know on fancy wheels over on Weightweenies. BTW they don't think much of Zipp wheels over there either.

ozzzyosborn206

zipp 303s or mavic carbone ultimates would be on my list, i have a pair on easton EC90s and wouldn't get another pair, i have just bought a rear zipp 404, got it for a bargain on Royals the other week just need to find a front one now.....

racingcondor

My vote goes with Enve and Chris King hubs.

Personally I'm too cheap to afford Enve rims though so I'd look at FFWD 40 or 60mm tubs (rims sold seperately at the FFWD website) on Chris King R45's. Also gives you the choice to up the spoke count to 28 on the rear for added stiffness.

Tom Dean

The unrepairability of the CCUs would bother me - personally I would go for Boras.

If you are a Shimano user the 50mm DA look very nice.

plankton_brain

Tom Dean wrote:

The unrepairability of the CCUs would bother me - personally I would go for Boras.

If you are a Shimano user the 50mm DA look very nice.

If I went down the CCU route I would take the Mavic insurance, dont know how much it costs. Also looking at the DA. Found some for £1200 but +300g over the CCU or 303's.

Found 303's for £1500

VamP

I always found the Lightweight range heart achingly desirable. You might need to save a little longer though

wildmoustache

Monty Dog wrote:

Zipp wheels and the word 'stiff' is an oxymoron surely? Mavics are fine until you have a mishap - back to the factory. Other alternative would be Enve rims and Extralite or Chris King hubs built with CX Rays - all you need to know on fancy wheels over on Weightweenies. BTW they don't think much of Zipp wheels over there either.

Zipp tubular wheels are pretty good these days, and in many respects outstanding. Stiffness of their clinchers however is poor.

Monty Dog

VamP wrote:

I always found the Lightweight range heart achingly desirable. You might need to save a little longer though

The folks I know who tried Lightweights gave-up - they spent more time going backwards and forwards from the factory than they did getting ridden.

wildmoustache

Best option depends a bit on whether you can afford to replace them or not. As montydog says CCUs and LWs have repairability issues.

If you are going all out with the cash then 303/ 404 Firecrests is a good option - durable, aerodynamic, light, superb hubs and ok stiffness. New ENVE rims look nice but are expensive and you'll get a caning on re-sale value with those I expect.

DA are exceptionally good and can be had a bit cheaper than the options above but you might want something a bit lighter I sense.

wheeler585

Save yourself some wanger and race on a pair of standard mavic open pros with dura ace hub's, understated is the key, look so much better winning a road race on some shoddy looking wheels, than a pair of £2000 lightweights, All the gear....... no idea

APIII

Phil Corley cycles have ex-team use Mavic ultimates with Conti tubs and cassette for £1k. At least they did when I was in there. They looked mint too.

okgo

so what are we settled on then?

What is wrong with 404 clinchers then? They flexy you think?

Rodrego Hernandez

APIII wrote:

Phil Corley cycles have ex-team use Mavic ultimates with Conti tubs and cassette for £1k. At least they did when I was in there. They looked mint too.

Ask the team how many sets they went through and had to get warrantied - terrible wheels for the money in my experience.

plankton_brain

Still undecided, but this place helps.

Fancy tubs as havnt ridden them before (no doubt I will regret it, but gotta find out for myself)

303's, maybe 404's,Ultimates, Enve custom builds or dura ace. Might keep an open minded short list then find which I can get best deal on

Rodrego Hernandez

Never had a problem with Zipps but would be tempted by enve. Great rims and great hubs and built well.

pilot_pete

Save yourself a fortune and get some hand built tubulars from wheel smith. I bought some 50mm Gigantex rimmed wheels built on Novatec Superlight hubs, with Sapim CX Ray spokes. They are fantastic. Light, spin lovely, and bulletproof; I hit a huge pothole at over 45mph on a downhill in the Algarve last month. Both tyres blew with the impact and my buddies said they saw my rear wheel buck some 18" into the air. It sounded terrible and I thought that I had trashed the wheels. However, upon inspection there wasn't a mark on them, I was truly gobsmacked. What a fantastic buy for under £700 a pair......

PP

Neil Buckley

VamP wrote:

I always found the Lightweight range heart achingly desirable. You might need to save a little longer though

utterly utterly shite wheels, people think Zipps are flexy (get the hubs done up correctly then!) I know 60kg people who can make them flex so hard they sound like a Rolf Harris wobbleboard, overly expensive, flexy, hard to repair, cant lace anyother hub into them. Crap.

AH53X11

Build your own

APIII

Neil Buckley wrote:

VamP wrote:

I always found the Lightweight range heart achingly desirable. You might need to save a little longer though

utterly utterly shite wheels, people think Zipps are flexy (get the hubs done up correctly then!) I know 60kg people who can make them flex so hard they sound like a Rolf Harris wobbleboard, overly expensive, flexy, hard to repair, cant lace anyother hub into them. Crap.

Agree on the expensive and hard to repair bit, but flexy? Stiffest wheels I've ever ridden.

Lion-O

I have raced mavic cosmic ssc sl's since they first came out, only had to true them once (my fault crashed!) i have since bought a new pair ive raced them all weathers and am 75 kg and have never had an issue (and at £700 too!) my mate had a set of 404s has replaced the whole spokes in the rear wheel twice and ive seen him snap spokes in road races so he had to retire (he is 82kg).

id also go non carbon rims as i don't trust braking in the wet on carbon only rims but all the above is just my humble opinion.

oldwelshman

At the end of the day does the huge difference in price between dura ace and lightweights provide the same percentage performance increase? I dont think so so for that reason would not even consider them.
Again there is no real benefit in bunch racing to use deep section rims yet there are so many people use them.
If it was for TT I would say more benefit would be got from a rear disc and deep front and there are loads to chose from with less cost.

Ron Stuart

plankton_brain

Yes, very stiff

Kona21

Corima's? no issues with mine all last year

VamP

Neil Buckley wrote:

VamP wrote:

I always found the Lightweight range heart achingly desirable. You might need to save a little longer though

utterly utterly shite wheels, people think Zipps are flexy (get the hubs done up correctly then!) I know 60kg people who can make them flex so hard they sound like a Rolf Harris wobbleboard, overly expensive, flexy, hard to repair, cant lace anyother hub into them. Crap.

Really? Oh good, I can stop hankering after them