campag wheels - shamal or bullet 50s?

grahamoregan

I'm looking at upgrading my wheels from a set of Zondas that have served me very well to either a set of Shamaals or Bullet 50s. I normally do shorter, quicker rides so where my average pace would be ~35kmph* but I also venture down to the Surrey hills where we ride a lot of the short and steep climbs.

What would you guys recommend, a good set of climbing wheels that would be lighter and stiffer than the Zondas or would I be better off getting an entry/mid level set of aeros?


* the guy i normally ride with upgraded to dura-ace c50s and reckons he gained ~2kmph on our rides, he has been flogging me ever since

drlodge

Bullet 50, just cos I like deep section wheels. They'll also be fairly good going uphills too, even better going downhill!

Chap I ride with has Dura Ace 50s on his Dogma, the deeper section doesn't seem to cause him a problem with side winds etc. and of course the aero is a help on the downhill side of hills ;-)

theobrixton

Agree with drlodge. The Shamals, while great (I have a set), are not that different to the Zondas. The Bullets will at least give you something different in your arsenal.

And there's no reason you can't use 50mm deep wheels on climbing rides. I used to love doing hilly rides on my C50s.

cycleclinic

There is no such thing as climbing wheels as pointed out so many times saving 100g of you wheels (or a bit more) will not help you climb faster. Therefore deep section wheels are at least a bit more aerodynamic. They have a alloy brake track I think so little worry about over heating apart from the delamination issue which sometimes happens on this type of wheels. still I know someone who had a set of shimano wheels carbon/aluminium and they delimated after 18 months. Shimano/madison gave a full credit He has Renoylds wheels now.

Aero wheels do make a difference but I would not want to quantify it as every week if you train you get fitter so trying to seperate the two is hard.

on-yer-bike

thecycleclinic wrote:

There is no such thing as climbing wheels as pointed out so many times saving 100g of you wheels (or a bit more) will not help you climb faster. Therefore deep section wheels are at least a bit more aerodynamic. They have a alloy brake track I think so little worry about over heating apart from the delamination issue which sometimes happens on this type of wheels. still I know someone who had a set of shimano wheels carbon/aluminium and they delimated after 18 months. Shimano/madison gave a full credit He has Renoylds wheels now.

Aero wheels do make a difference but I would not want to quantify it as every week if you train you get fitter so trying to seperate the two is hard.

Arent lighter wheels better for climbing? If not, we may as well all be riding Fulcrum 7s and throw them away when the rims wear out.

drlodge

Lighter wheels are better for climbing, for sure, just as any weight reduction is good for climbing. However:
- weight reduction in the wheels is most beneficial if it comes off the rims/tyres; lighter hubs is just like a weight reduction anywhere.
- weight reduction in the wheels is modest at best.

You'd be better off losing that bidon, or saving weight elsewhere since it will have greter impact.

The easiest weight reduction is to fit light weight inner tubes and tyres.

ugo.santalucia

on-yer-bike wrote:

Arent lighter wheels better for climbing? If not, we may as well all be riding Fulcrum 7s and throw them away when the rims wear out.

Lighter rims accelerate harder, so they are good for criterium racing, rolling courses and on-off the bike situations (as a paradox they are great for urban commuting, if you take it as a race from light to light, rather than an A to B stroll) but they don't climb significantly faster. You might be able to measure a meaningful difference on a serious climb (maybe up to a minute up the famous Alpe?), nothing meaningful round here. Very light rims are not very good in handling, they can be nervous and twitchy on badly surfaced roads and generally speaking not great at descending. I find the happy medium is a rim around 450-500 grams... which incidentally is the average of road rims out there. I also find wide rims handle so much better, than it outweighs any time saving you might make with a lighter rim (if any).

cycleclinic

To climb faster you have to do more than reduce weight on wheels. You have to pull out all the stops and reduce weight everywhere. Take 2kg of your bike and you have a meaningful but small gain. Take 300g off and you will hardly notice on a long climb.

Aero wheels are of benefit everywhere on even long climbs if you can keep the speed up. I worked out once for me at 80kg on a 10kg bike going up a 10% gradient at 250W if I switched to a 8 kg bike I would save a whopping 5W. Meaningful sort of on a very long climb but not on a very short one and in the U.K climbs are pretty short. I know I am faster on my race bike simply because of the deep wheel compared to my other bike of the same weight which has wheels that are 300g lighter. however I only use the deep section wheels for competitive racing and TT's.

neeb

The Zondas are already good all-round clinchers, so I agree that you wouldn't notice much (anything?) upgrading to Shamals. It would only make sense if you had another bike that was going to get the Zondas as a hand-me-down.

On the other hand, I think if you shop around you could get something far better than the Bullets for the same or not much more. If you are looking at the standard Bulllets they are really pretty heavy, and the Bullet Ultras, while a much better weight, are fairly expensive.

If I was you I would get some 40-50mm full carbon tubulars. If you shop around you might be able to find some less trendy narrower ones for not much more than the Bullets, e.g. last year's Reynolds 46. They will weigh 2/3 of what the Bulllets do and be far more exciting. Tubulars are not as much hassle as some people make out if you use tyres with moderate puncture protection and you will still have the Zondas to use in wet weather (when punctures are more likely) or when you are re-gluing a tub...

grahamoregan

Thanks for all the replies, looks like I should have another look around for a better set of deep sections then. I'm keen to stick with an alloy braking surface so I could swap back to the zondas when conditions are poor without having to swap brake pads too, I've got green swissstops on at the moment which are too hard for carbon rims AFAICT.

Back to trawling for alternatives

theobrixton

No need to shop around, the Bullets are excellent. You won't do much better for 50mm deep carbon clinchers with an alloy brake track in my opinion.

A set with USB bearings is still cheaper than a set of clincher Shimano Dura Ace C50s for example. And the standard steel bearings version is no heavier and costs about the same as the Shamals. Shimano RS81 C50s might be a good option if you don't want to spend as much.

neeb

theobrixton wrote:

No need to shop around, the Bullets are excellent. You won't do much better for 50mm deep carbon clinchers with an alloy brake track in my opinion.

A set with USB bearings is still cheaper than a set of clincher Shimano Dura Ace C50s for example. And the standard steel bearings version is no heavier and costs about the same as the Shamals. Shimano RS81 C50s might be a good option if you don't want to spend as much.

The standard bullets are 300-350g heavier than the shamals! Even the ultras are 150g heavier..

theobrixton

You may have misunderstood me. I was saying that the standard Bullets are no heavier than Dura Ace C50s, not Shamals. The OP has clearly stated he wants 50mm carbon alloy clinchers and I was providing a point of comparison.

ivanoile

Why not some Fulcrum wheels? Aren't they cheaper than Campagnolo but come from the same factory?

theobrixton

You're almost right, except that Fulcrums are usually a little more expensive than their Campag equivalents.

Bar Shaker

Bullet Ultra are great wheels.

rolf_f

Oh I'm getting a headache now! I'd just got used to the wheel gurus telling me that there was no point 'upgrading' to deep section rims unless I was racing because there's no gain unless I'm going really quickly and then only seconds and I'll only care about that if I'm racing and now I'm being told that there is no point 'upgrading' to light, low profile rims unless I am racing because they don't really make it any easier to climb and the only difference is better acceleration and I'll only care about that if I'm racing!

ugo.santalucia

Rolf F wrote:

... and I'll only care about that if I'm racing!

Or commuting...
That's my experience, Rolf... I'd love to be able to say that my lighter wheels climb faster than the heavier ones, it would be beneficial for my pockets, but it's not the case.

Bar Shaker

I wonder if something has been missed here. If I look at my speed when on the flat, it can stay nailed for quite some time.

If I am climbing a steep hill, it is like a wavy line on a graph, varying by up to 20% between the peaks and troughs of my pedal stroke power output. When climbing, I am accelerating my wheels with every pedal press.

I appreciate that some of this is my less than elite pedalling style but even a pro would have the same problem, albeit less than my 20%.

When I climb, rim weight matters.

ugo.santalucia

Bar Shaker wrote:

When I climb, rim weight matters.

Yes... but very little
Let's put it this way. The heaviest rim you might be tempted to ride is around 600 grams, the lightest around 350... the difference is not enough to make a significant impact.
However, if you had a 900 grams rim, that would be a different ballgame altogether.
The thing is 90% of the road rims on the market are within + or - 50 grams

IrishMac

Bullets evertime, a lad in the club had Shamals and went to Dura Ace deep rims, says he's faster on the flats, sounds way cooler and doesn't even notice the weight difference on the climb, he says you would literally want to do a climb with one set and swap wheels straight away and do it again to notice any difference

neeb

I've seen various people claim using complicated physics that the whole inertia of the rim and accelerating the wheels thing is so small as to be irrelevant, but light wheels certainly /feel/ snappier under acceleration. Maybe it really is all in the head, or maybe there is something the models aren't taking account of. There is still some things about bicycle physics that aren't fully understood. At the very least, light wheels are one of the best ways to save weight on the bike, there is half a kilo or more between a good set of carbon tubulars and an average set of alloy clinchers.

How Far is too Far

I have a pair of Fulcrum Zero and a Pair of Red Wind XLR Cult, so very similar wheels to what you are thinking about.

The Zeros are great wheels very responsive and roll well, I used Elites S before these and I much prefer the ride of the Zeros. The only problem I have had is the Ceramic bearings were a bit noisy, but a re grease seem to have solved it.

But the Redwinds are even better, they roll very, very well and climb good as well. They are very stiff and respond well to a sprint out of the saddle. Not too much of a weigh gain either. Also they are proper carbon wheels not like many of the Mavics which are just a faring. I have used older Cosmics and they did not feel as nice as the Redwind. The Cult bearings are simply the smoothest bearing I have ever used.

I tend to get more PR,s on Strava with the Redwinds :-)

cycleclinic

How far is too far All wheels roll well they are round you know. Power consumption of hubs in the order of 1-2W at speed. Given rolling resistance is an order of magnitude above that and air resistance is more than 100 times greater - the resistance in hub is something only top TT riders need to worry about.

All wheels climb well if you put enough welly into it. My carbon wheels weigh in at 1.65kg and I can assure you on a hill I am not hanging about however... There was one chap at last nights TT on an old steel framed bike (a low rent one from the 80's) with wheels built from Rigida chrina rims 36H (I sold him the rims) which he used to replace the steel rims he was using last season. His time on the 8.3 mile Acton course was 21:11 that a full 30 seconds faster than my time - he did have aero bars and I do not have those (I just sit on the drop). The point is Redwind wheels maybe quite decent and the aero effect is real but it is the rider that makes a wheel fast not the other way around strava or not.

Neeb
also light rims/wheels do feel "snappier" the super champion Arc de Ceil tubular rims on my old Alan weigh 340g and my they feel lively but that does not translate to extra speed I can assure you. With 500g carbon rim I am a fair bit quicker and that is true of everyone.

If you have the coin for Enve 1.45 tubular rims 300g and 45mm deep then you can have all the marginal gains - low weight and aero but those are for folk with deeper pockets than most riders and most of those don't race either.

I think we all need to realistic about the marginal gains we chase - some are more marginal than others.

neeb

thecycleclinic wrote:

Neeb
also light rims/wheels do feel "snappier" the super champion Arc de Ceil tubular rims on my old Alan weigh 340g and my they feel lively but that does not translate to extra speed I can assure you. With 500g carbon rim I am a fair bit quicker and that is true of everyone.

Certainly agree that lighter wheels probably aren't going to make you any faster over a timed course, but that snappier acceleration might just help a little in road race when you are trying to hang on to a quick acceleration in the bunch.

As far as the OP's dilemma goes, it probably comes down a lot to the prices you can find things at, which can be pretty variable. When I was saying earlier that you could get something better than the Bullets for around the same price that was partially based on my own purchase of some Reynolds 46 tubulars 8 or 9 months ago for about £1000, which was about half RRP. But I now see that they are mostly being sold for £1500 (they have gone up in price despite being old stock!), which is a different proposition entirely. The Reynolds 46s are 1200g, very stiff, have quality hubs and modern brake track / brake pad technology that is only marginally less effective than alloy rims even in the wet. But if you are wanting clinchers and you can get the Bullet Ultras or Red Wind XLRs for a good price by all means go for it, the aero benefit will be just as good.