Campag Zonda wheels

cswitch

Cogidubnus wrote:

How do the Zonda's compare to the Shimano RS81 C24 thats available from Ribble for £329.99? Both wheels seem a good price and would be a decent upgrade to my Aksiums

I've had both. Both ride nice. I would say the zondas are stiffer, a little heavier, overall they seem more robust (well other than a spoke snapping for me but from what I gather that's not common). The RS80s lasted a couple of years including 2 winters before the rims were pretty worn and the rear bearings seem to be going. They were always more likely to go out of true on a big pothole (they were re-rued a couple of times) but the zondas seem to be bombproof as far as staying true. The Zondas are 1.5yrs old and there's seems to be loads of life left in them. The RS80s do have a very nice smooth ride, transformed a crappy aluminium bike I put them on for a bit. I believe the rims are the same as the Dura ace c24s (or used to be). It may be a very light rim as they seem very responsive when changing pace on climbs.

I'd say for a cheap(ish) all round race wheel then RS80 are a good choice unless you're a big'n in which case they may be a little flexy, though I never noticed flex. If you want an all round commuter, training, racing good and bad weather wheel I'd go the Zonda regardless of running Shimano which I do. I just remove the stickers. I bought mine for £260 ish from Merlin some time ago. which I think is a great price.

cswitch

...scrap that price wiggle has them for £246! though no shimano

cogidubnus

Cheers for the advice. I'll see if I can track down some Zonda's. If not the Shimano's look good as well.

arlowood

arlowood wrote:

Shimano fit Zonda's now back in stock at Wiggle.*

Just ordered a set for my build project but likely to be a month or so before I can test them on the Genesis Equilibrium frameset.

Will definitely have a go with them on my Trek 5200 build which I completed earlier in the year

viewtopic.php?f=40044&t=12958886&hilit=Trek

although it might be seen as sacrilegious to swap out a set of Ugo's excellent handbuilts (Open Pro/Novatec) in the process.

* EDIT: Just checked and they are out of stock again. Got the stock alert email on Tuesday and swithered about ordering. Glad I did as they don't seem to hang around. A steal at the Wiggle price IMHO

Quick update from this old post.

Zondas arrived last Friday from Wiggle. Strangely the outer packaging had a large "Chicken Cycles" label on it so I guess Wiggle must use them as wholesalers.

Everything very well packaged and wheels look great out of the box. Fitted them up with some Michelin Pro 4 SC 25mm tyres I've had since buying them at some irresistible price a few months back. Tyre fitting not noticeably more difficult than with my existing Open Pro rims.

Swapped them onto my Trek 5200 yesterday and went for a brief ride today (15 miles)

Main observation was the sound of the wheels when running. I can only describe it as whooshing/ringing sound, maybe a bit like wind blowing through some telegraph wires. Guess that's the product of the bladed spokes and the slightly deeper hollow section rims compared to my Open Pro wheels.

Didn't notice any major differences on that short ride but will plan a longer ride later with a bit more climbing involved. They are excellent wheels but I did not experience any sudden Damascene wow moment when compared to my existing handbuilts.

What I did notice was a definite reduction in road buzz through the bars. Whether that was due to the wheels or the tyres or a combination of both , I don't know. My Open Pro's have Schwalbe Ultremo ZX 25mm tyres fitted.

holiver

Chicken are the distributor for a load of Italian brands.

Nice feedback.

jolmes

+1 on the feedback, just bought a pair of these now they are back in stock with the shimano hubs.

kafkathedog

What is the rim width of the zondas please? they are not a wide rim 23mm are they?
also the (shimano) ones wiggle are selling off are 10 speed only I presume?

something to think about if you are considering upgrading group at any point.

arlowood

kafkathedog wrote:

What is the rim width of the zondas please? they are not a wide rim 23mm are they?
also the (shimano) ones wiggle are selling off are 10 speed only I presume?

something to think about if you are considering upgrading group at any point.

Can't comment on the width as I haven't measured them. I'm sure someone will be along to comment in due course.

Can confirm that the Shimano fit wheels I received were definitely 11- speed and come with the required spacer to accept 10-speed cassettes (+ their existing spacer as required by some). I am running a Tiagra 10-speed 12-30 which does not need an extra spacer so I just added the one provided with the Zondas and all went together with no problems and no need to tweak the indexing.

ugo.santalucia

kafkathedog wrote:

What is the rim width of the zondas please? they are not a wide rim 23mm are they?

No, old fashioned 20

snipsnap

kafkathedog wrote:

What is the rim width of the zondas please? they are not a wide rim 23mm are they?
also the (shimano) ones wiggle are selling off are 10 speed only I presume?

something to think about if you are considering upgrading group at any point.

So tempted for a pair of these for my new Focus Cayo Evo

The fulcrum 7s on it are fine for now, but I know a pair of these would probably transform the ride.....

cycleclinic

If campagnolo used a wider rim, which would be stiffer and ensure improved handling, the wheels would gain weight and sales would drop. The market demand low weight above all else. It also demands racing wheels for non racing use.

Some Zonda's will mega miles, some will not, most will lie in the peak of the bell curve at 5000-7000 miles. If these wheels were used for the purpose very low spoke count wheels should be used for - racing the life span would be short but that does not matter. I am not sure when 5000 miles became good for a wheel as in my book that is poor as would be going through 1 1/2 sets a year.

Don't get me wrong for a cheapish very low spoke count wheelset the Zonda's are decently stiff and are as long lived as you could hope but surely we want more than that from a wheelset. I think they are great for a bit of cat 4 racing and yes they will go up an alp and come down well but so will a stiffer higher spoke count rear wheel with a wider rim, in fact it will do it better.

secretsam

thecycleclinic wrote:

If campagnolo used a wider rim, which would be stiffer and ensure improved handling, the wheels would gain weight and sales would drop. The market demand low weight above all else. It also demands racing wheels for non racing use.

Some Zonda's will mega miles, some will not, most will lie in the peak of the bell curve at 5000-7000 miles. If these wheels were used for the purpose very low spoke count wheels should be used for - racing the life span would be short but that does not matter. I am not sure when 5000 miles became good for a wheel as in my book that is poor as would be going through 1 1/2 sets a year.

Don't get me wrong for a cheapish very low spoke count wheelset the Zonda's are decently stiff and are as long lived as you could hope but surely we want more than that from a wheelset. I think they are great for a bit of cat 4 racing and yes they will go up an alp and come down well but so will a stiffer higher spoke count rear wheel with a wider rim, in fact it will do it better.

So what would your recommendation be as an alternative?

rolf_f

thecycleclinic wrote:

Some Zonda's will mega miles, some will not, most will lie in the peak of the bell curve at 5000-7000 miles. If these wheels were used for the purpose very low spoke count wheels should be used for - racing the life span would be short but that does not matter. I am not sure when 5000 miles became good for a wheel as in my book that is poor as would be going through 1 1/2 sets a year.

thecycleclinic wrote:

Don't get me wrong for a cheapish very low spoke count wheelset the Zonda's are decently stiff and are as long lived as you could hope....

So are they long lived or short lived? I don't believe they are short lived. Campagnolo put a decent amount of metal in the rims and, IME (as a light person to be fair), they don't go out of true.

My Khamsin rims, used in all conditions every day are probably a few thousand off scrap at about 17k - it would have been a few thousand more than that if I'd been more zealous in cleaning them. Obviously heavier than Zondas but much the same spoke arrangement. Yes, once the rims are dead that's it but it seems disingenuous to suggest that most such wheels will normally have a very short mileage life. If your bell curve centres on 5000-7000 miles you are basically saying that a lot of people will do well to get even 3000 miles out of them. I suspect this far from the truth.

There's lots of good reasons to go the handbuilt route without needing to unfairly malign good factory wheels no matter how good your business justification to do this might be . As far as I can see on here, the Zonda is reckoned to be an excellent purchase.

cycleclinic

I never said they were short lived far from it. I did say wheel mileage to failure for population will form a bell curve. There will be a few that do mega miles but most never get that far before something, spoke failure, crash e.t.c get them. If they are ridden alot through winter then rim wear may get them well before the spoke fatigue. If they are ridden by a light sympathetic rider during dry days then huge miles will be possible. some heavy riders may get huge miles but there won't be many of these. you fail to understand a bell curve with your statements. There will only be a small number of people who get low miles before failure as bell curves can be skewed and can have a non zero start and experience shows that the bell curve is heavily skewed for the mileage wheels do to failure.

I never set out to mailgn the Zonda, if you read my post I do say they are as stiff as a low spoke count wheel could ever be and as durable as you can hope what wrong with that exactly. They are also quite cheap. I did not belittle them one bit they do the job they are intended and like Shimano, fulcrum and many other off the shelf wheels they do it quite well which is why people buy them. they do not however regularly do 17K miles that is exceptional and not the norm.

johngti

I've just ordered some so I'm hoping they're as good as they sound on here! I'd think that I'll do around 1000-1500 miles on them per year so they should go for a while...

rolf_f

thecycleclinic wrote:

I never said they were short lived far from it. I did say wheel mileage to failure for population will form a bell curve. There will be a few that do mega miles but most never get that far before something, spoke failure, crash e.t.c get them. If they are ridden alot through winter then rim wear may get them well before the spoke fatigue. If they are ridden by a light sympathetic rider during dry days then huge miles will be possible. some heavy riders may get huge miles but there won't be many of these. you fail to understand a bell curve with your statements. There will only be a small number of people who get low miles before failure as bell curves can be skewed and can have a non zero start and experience shows that the bell curve is heavily skewed for the mileage wheels do to failure.

I never set out to mailgn the Zonda, if you read my post I do say they are as stiff as a low spoke count wheel could ever be and as durable as you can hope what wrong with that exactly. They are also quite cheap. I did not belittle them one bit they do the job they are intended and like Shimano, fulcrum and many other off the shelf wheels they do it quite well which is why people buy them. they do not however regularly do 17K miles that is exceptional and not the norm.

I do understand distribution curves. Yes, they can be heavily skewed but if you think that the average life of a Zonda is going to be about 5000 miles, it is going to have to be very skewed indeed not to have a significant number of failures at well below that mileage (if the curve really was as abrupt as you suggest, I think if I had a pair of Zondas on 4999 miles I'd be scared to go out on them anymore!). And that might infact be the truth but I doubt that we can find any data to prove it - you'll need a lot of customers with a lot of broken wheels giving you a lot of information about their weight, mileage, riding conditions etc before your assumptions are anything more than guesswork. Mind you, you are in a nice position to be able to collect that data if you want and prove your point. It just might take a while!

The thing is, I've never heard anyone suggest on here that Zondas are short lived (I can't reconcile your comment that you haven't said that they don't last long with your comment that Zondas will tend to average 5000 miles and that you yourself don't think that that is good mileage) so I just find it hard to believe that they are that poor.

Obviously, my own experience can't reflect that of the heavy rider. But, the 17000 or so I have got out of my Khamsins so far can't be exceptional givne the conditions they have to endure. If I only rode them in dry conditions, I would suspect I'd get twice that out of them before rim wear became an issue and I have heard people say on here that they have got well over 30k out of a pair of rims.

Ultimately, the only difference I can see with these rims to handbuilts is that you take a gamble that you don't damage the rim in a crash or on a pothole - and they are tough wheels so it's probably not too big a risk.

Mind you, not so long ago, I was going to dump £600 on a set of Shamals. Instead I spent £200 on a set of Kinlin XR200s and the lightweight Novatec hubs and am making the wheels myself. And that's a much more satisfying way to spend money!

bluemoon17

thecycleclinic wrote:

I never said they were short lived far from it. I did say wheel mileage to failure for population will form a bell curve. There will be a few that do mega miles but most never get that far before something, spoke failure, crash e.t.c get them. If they are ridden alot through winter then rim wear may get them well before the spoke fatigue. If they are ridden by a light sympathetic rider during dry days then huge miles will be possible. some heavy riders may get huge miles but there won't be many of these. you fail to understand a bell curve with your statements. There will only be a small number of people who get low miles before failure as bell curves can be skewed and can have a non zero start and experience shows that the bell curve is heavily skewed for the mileage wheels do to failure.

I never set out to mailgn the Zonda, if you read my post I do say they are as stiff as a low spoke count wheel could ever be and as durable as you can hope what wrong with that exactly. They are also quite cheap. I did not belittle them one bit they do the job they are intended and like Shimano, fulcrum and many other off the shelf wheels they do it quite well which is why people buy them. they do not however regularly do 17K miles that is exceptional and not the norm.

Is there anything you could recommend as an alternative to the Zonda?

secretsam

Bluemoon17 wrote:

thecycleclinic wrote:

I never said they were short lived far from it. I did say wheel mileage to failure for population will form a bell curve. There will be a few that do mega miles but most never get that far before something, spoke failure, crash e.t.c get them. If they are ridden alot through winter then rim wear may get them well before the spoke fatigue. If they are ridden by a light sympathetic rider during dry days then huge miles will be possible. some heavy riders may get huge miles but there won't be many of these. you fail to understand a bell curve with your statements. There will only be a small number of people who get low miles before failure as bell curves can be skewed and can have a non zero start and experience shows that the bell curve is heavily skewed for the mileage wheels do to failure.

I never set out to mailgn the Zonda, if you read my post I do say they are as stiff as a low spoke count wheel could ever be and as durable as you can hope what wrong with that exactly. They are also quite cheap. I did not belittle them one bit they do the job they are intended and like Shimano, fulcrum and many other off the shelf wheels they do it quite well which is why people buy them. they do not however regularly do 17K miles that is exceptional and not the norm.

Is there anything you could recommend as an alternative to the Zonda?

I've already asked that and was answered with a discussion about mathematical modelling

drlodge

Pair of handbuilts..archetype rims, your choice of hub.

rolf_f

SecretSam wrote:

Bluemoon17 wrote:

Is there anything you could recommend as an alternative to the Zonda?

I've already asked that and was answered with a discussion about mathematical modelling

And what better answer could there be! Otherwise as drlodge says. Get Ugo or Cycleclinic to build you something nice. The only downside to that approach is getting your head round the fact that wheels can look nice without weird spoke lacing patterns and fancy milled rim shapes!

ugo.santalucia

The question is space... if you have enough outdoor space, keep your wheels and get a donkey... look, these are lovely and they only cost 200 quid

cycleclinic

And they develop at least a horse power as well.

also any handbuilt that is going to be as light and stiffer than a zonda is going to cost more so Zonda's win on the the price front which is why I have not gone into it as it is kind of pointless really. Their price is part of the reason why Campagnolo sell so many of them.

drlodge

thecycleclinic wrote:

Any handbuilt that is going to be as light and stiffer than a zonda is going to cost more so Zonda's
win on the the price front which is why I have not gone into it as it is kind of pointless really. Their price is part of the reason why Campagnolo sell so many of them.

Zondas @ Wiggle are £246

Hand builts:
2 x Archetype £110
Miche primato hubs £70
Spokes & build £85
Total: £265

So yes, hand builts are slightly more expensive at the outset, but I would argue total cost of ownership including repairs/spoke replacement etc make the handbuilts a better value wheel - and you get a wider (better) rim. That said, the Zonda's are probably the best value factory wheels there are.

johngti

Mine have arrived. First impressions are blimey these are good! Plan is to try them out over the weekend.

(Oh and it's a 6-700g weight saving with a 12-30 ultegra cassette and Michelin pro4 service course tyres compared to giant pr2 wheels, pr3 tyres and a tiagra 12-30 cassette - not to be sniffed at!)

Remarkable

johngti wrote:

Mine have arrived. First impressions are blimey these are good! Plan is to try them out over the weekend.

(Oh and it's a 6-700g weight saving with a 12-30 ultegra cassette and Michelin pro4 service course tyres compared to giant pr2 wheels, pr3 tyres and a tiagra 12-30 cassette - not to be sniffed at!)

Sniff Sniff

thiscocks

Had a spoke go on my front Zonda wheel the other day. Been riding them for about 4 months. Found it very odd as I was on a perfectly smooth bit of road, and the wheel was true last time I checked. Needless to say it was unridable (tyre against fork!). Rear is still fine.

Find them very decent wheels if a little harsh for everyday riding compared to my handbuilts.

cycleclinic

Are you using the same tyres/width and pressures as on the handbuilts if not that could/would account for the difference in ride quality. Interested to know.

My dashboard in my car was fine untill it stop working a couple of weeks ago. The fact it was fine one day is no reason for it not to fail the next day. Spoke fatigue happens and then the spoke will break even on a smooth road. Should take longer than 4 month though unless you do do daft mileage. A damaged spoke is probably the likely cause though.

Crozza

thecycleclinic wrote:

Are you using the same tyres/width and pressures as on the handbuilts if not that could/would account for the difference in ride quality. Interested to know.

My dashboard in my car was fine untill it stop working a couple of weeks ago. The fact it was fine one day is no reason for it not to fail the next day. Spoke fatigue happens and then the spoke will break even on a smooth road. Should take longer than 4 month though unless you do do daft mileage. A damaged spoke is probably the likely cause though.

how does a dashboard stop working?

lawrences

I've been looking at Fulcrum 3's for £300, similiar if not same specs as the Zondas but the narrow width seems a bit old fashioned to me considering everything is moving towards 23mm +

I then looked at Flo 30 but the 25% duty fees, long lead time and £50 ish shipping has put me off those.

What else is there in the price bracket with a roughly 30mm deep rim, 1700 grams and sub 400 pounds? Mavics all seem a bit heavy and the C24 RS81's are a bit shallow for my liking.

thiscocks

thecycleclinic wrote:

Are you using the same tyres/width and pressures as on the handbuilts if not that could/would account for the difference in ride quality. Interested to know.

My dashboard in my car was fine untill it stop working a couple of weeks ago. The fact it was fine one day is no reason for it not to fail the next day. Spoke fatigue happens and then the spoke will break even on a smooth road. Should take longer than 4 month though unless you do do daft mileage. A damaged spoke is probably the likely cause though.

Yes that is on 23mm tyres for both (diff make though). I find the Zondas much better with latex inner tubes though.

I have dropped the bike a couple of times in crits with the zondas so a slightly damaged spoke could explain it. Otherwise they feel very tough and would recommend for a fast bike but for everyday riding Id stick to higher spoke count normal box sections.

Afaik The Zondas are 21mm external width. Certainly a bit wider than my 19mm box sections as I have to pull the brakes in a fair bit when swapping!