wheel set upgrade

tom hall

hi,

just started getting a bit more serious about road biking after enjoying my new bike since October. It came with Shimano R500 wheels at a weight of 1,884 grams. I was looking at upgrading theses stock wheels to some fulcrum racing 5 at 1,690 grams and some continental GP4000 tyres. The question I have is having never upgraded wheels before will I notice the drop of around 450 grams in weight on the new wheel/tyre package? Or would I be better of saving for even lighter ones? My aim is to improve my speed of hill climbing as I live in the mendips. Thanks in advance.

smidsy

450g (although not sure on your maths) of rotating mass is certainly noticeable.

However if you are just starting out hill work (and general bike work come to that) will reap more benefits and cost nothing.

tom hall

Hi,

Maths is based on the new tyres as well which are 125 grams lighter per tyre than the vittoria zafiros that come as standard. In terms of practice I hear you but I am already 3rd and 5th on a couple of strava leader boards for local hills and only just retired from playing amateur football so cardio is still very good, I'm really just looking for something extra to knock of some seconds(the competitive idiot in me).

keef66

So you're seriously willing to part with the thick end of 250 quid in the hope of shaving a couple of seconds off a Strava segment?

Do the hill repeats as hard as you can; performance gains for free! You can be extremely football fit, but still relatively rubbish on the bike (as my 25 year old son found out when we went for a ride after Christmas )

foggymike

That's a fair bit of weight to save and the bike will ride better for it. It's not meant to be a replacement for doing a bit of training, just something to help get the best return out of it.

For what it's worth Tom I'd say try changing just the tyres first (and maybe inner tubes too - big, cheap weight savings to be had there too at the cost of a little puncture resistance). See what you think of the difference that makes and you can then decide what to do next and how much it's worth to you.

tom hall

Thanks,

I was kinda coming to that conclusion too as I just realised changing the tyres alone saves more weight than the wheels and far cheaper!! although I understand it's the stiffness of the wheels that helps up hills as well. Any recommendation on a light inner tube?

markhewitt1978

You should get some new wheels, however wait until the weather is nice; as you don't want to trash your nice new wheels in the salt. So I would say wait until end of April or so