New wheels arrgghh

friedpizzainbatter
friedpizzainbatter Posts: 166
edited June 2012 in Road beginners
So I fitted my new RS80s to my allez at the weekend, thanks to some suggestions from the good people here, have been out twice, this morning beating my best time on my regular circuit by three minutes with a much higher average speed. Now how much of this is due to me being any fitter, and how much is it due to my shiny new wheels??? :)
Trek Domane 4.3. Merida One.forty 7.700. Merida CX 3. Voodoo Bizango
"When the vulture flies sideways the moon has hair on his upper lip"

Comments

  • navrig
    navrig Posts: 1,352
    And how much of it is due to you THINKING you are faster because of your shiny new wheels.
  • Bobbinogs
    Bobbinogs Posts: 4,841
    I'm just off out on a nice flat 50 miler on an expensive Specialized machine with RS80s...I can confidently predict that I will be a lot slower than when I did the same route the other night with a 15 year old steel framed bike with some old handbuilts.

    Today I am taking it easy :)
  • thescouselander
    thescouselander Posts: 549
    Navrig wrote:
    And how much of it is due to you THINKING you are faster because of your shiny new wheels.


    I'm with this theory. Mechanically the difference made by better wheels should be pretty marginal. On the other hand the mental difference from a nice bit of bling might just get you somewhere.
  • iPete
    iPete Posts: 6,076
    That's a big difference but Ive also got RS80s on the Allez with light tyres and tubes they certainly feel much nicer to ride than my old commuter wheels.
  • sam9490
    sam9490 Posts: 11
    I have a set of RS80s and the other day the rear was in the shop as I had snapped a spoke so I went for a ride with my really heavy Alex wheel from my Allez instead. I thought it would feel awful compared to the RS80 and I would be noticeably slower than usual. Once I was on the ride it actually didn't feel too bad, it wasn't quite as nice as the RS80 but it wasn't awful. It didn't even seem to slow me down that much as I got 2 Strava KOMs on the ride too!
  • mitchgixer6
    mitchgixer6 Posts: 729
    The placebo effect of having any new/lighter kit will help you go faster, as you will be expecting to go faster anyway with the new gear.

    Wheels will be the one place that you should feel a noticeable difference though. I have RS10's currently, and during a club 10 the other week a fellow member let me borrow his Aeolus 9.0 wheels for the race. I felt a huge difference even leaving the car park heading for the start. They spun up so much faster and once at speed the deep sections rims help me keep the speed. I obviously still had to put the big effort in during the race, but my effort was rewarded with higher speeds and a new PB by 30s!

    Wheels I think are one area where I think you can notice a big difference. Especially in my example going from a £150 set to £1000 set!

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