Wheels for RAAM

Gavinus

Hi everyone,

I'm a late replacement for a 4 man team competing in RAAM this year and raising money for Asthma UK (https://www.justgiving.com/GavinWilliams2016).

My current wheels are a set of custom Hed Belgium Pluses (laced 20/24 to industry nine hubs). I was thinking about getting a pair of aero wheels about 60mm deep like Swissside Hadrons or Hed Jet plus. I'll be about 66 kg come June and have never ridden deep wheels before (my disc brake Aileron wheels being the closest thing to surface area).

For your information I'll be riding a road bike with clip ons and due to possible constraints with luggage space I might only travel with 1 set of wheels (unless anyone knows how to sneak a spare wheelset past Virgin Atlantic), so assume that I have to climb and descend mountains with them.

So what do you suggest, getting a pair of 60mm wheels, something shallower or sticking with my current wheels?

Gavin

ugo.santalucia

How can you do 3000 miles in a week? That sounds wrong.
Anyway... it's big mileage, so anything that saves you precious watts will be welcome and aero wheels might just do that

drlodge

Aero wheels will save you watts, but not too deep if you expect cross winds. I wouldn't go over 50mm, may be nearer 35mm is a good compromise.

3,000 miles in a week is 18mph average the whole time, so I assume the team are taking it in turns to ride near threshold pace?

singleton

If you're going with one set of wheels then I'd agree with drlodge - maybe something a little shallower would be a better option for the mixed terrain. There are others, but if you want something wide then these may be worth considering:
Hunt 38 carbon - 38mm deep, 1485g, 26mm wide. Availability may be an issue, but they may be able to speed things up for such a deadline.
Reynolds Assault - 41mm deep, 1515g, 25mm wide
Walker Brothers Fleet - 40mm deep, 1515g, 26.5mm wide

Bobbinogs

...the common sense voice in me says that 3,000 miles could wear some decent wheels out (depending on the weather) or at least start the gradual downwards slope so you might want to consider how much cash you want to drop on this. Might be worth looking at some reasonably dependable 35s, maybe even something simple like the Fulcrum Quattros...When you are riding through the night, no one will be able to see the lack of bling.

Whatever you decide to take, make sure you get some miles in on them first (and you need to add those onto the 3,000)!

EDIT: Then again, just reread and given that the RAAM can be a 4 man team event with just one person riding at anyone time, the distance covered per person is closer to 800 so wear won't come into it. Lot of climbing though, total of 170,000 feet. Hence, the 35mm option looks about right to me.

slowbike

the OP isn't riding 3000 miles - he's riding closer to 250 miles (depending on how long/far his turns are ... I'd chose just the downhill legs if it were me! )

18mph average for the week - that's good going for 250 miles - hence the clipons I guess ... anything aero is going to make life on the flat/dh easier ..

Mind you - at 66kg - the OP is probably earmarked for the climbs ...

Good luck - and enjoy (!) it ...

imatfaal

Private Message nic_77 - his sister is Shu Pilkington who completed it solo last year and became the first british woman to do so; I am pretty sure he might be able to pass on some invaluable advice

viewtopic.php?f=40002&t=12966892&hilit=raam&start=80#p19636564

ugo.santalucia

if it's only 250 miles, it's not worth bothering with a new pair of wheels, any will do

Bobbinogs

Not sure where the 250 miles quoted comes from?? ~3,000 miles for the event, 4 in a team...

drlodge

See his just taking page "This June, two teams, consisting of twelve cyclists will take on one of the toughest cycling races on the planet in aid of Asthma UK"

slowbike

Unless it's 2 teams of 12 - split into 4 man groups - so 3 groups (of 4) per team - so 1000 miles per rider - but ridden as a TTT

?

Gavinus

Thanks for the replies.

To clarify the Antonia's friends group is formed of a team of 8 and a team of 4 all using separate crew and the such. I'm a member of the team of 4 so I'll be riding a nominal 750 miles.

marcusjb

I know nothing about wheels, but a little about 4 machine teams from some friends who were part of a tandem team last RAAM.

I could not believe how short the pulls each team member did - somewhere around 10-15km but at 35-40kph.

From what I understood, it's seen as quicker for 2 machines to be working together with these short hops and then dive in the van to pass the other machine and get ready to start your next ride. The other 2 riders are resting more completely (and sleeping if appropriate). This seemed to generally be about 2 hours from what I saw. So it's basically 2 hour stints of riding 10-15km at a high pace, jumping in a van and doing it again 20 minutes later! Repeat.

The comment above about Nic_77 is good - Shu Pillinger was the first British woman to complete the ride solo (on her second attempt after taking a bit of a tumble well into the race in 2014). Very nice lady and tough as nails - but may be able to help with advice on RAAM generally (though clearly the perspective of a solo rider is very different to a team rider - that's not to belittle your goals in anyway, but solo RAAM is a whole other level).

Best of luck - I will watch your performance with interest! I have a goal for something similar, but different!

marcusjb

ugo.santalucia wrote:

How can you do 3000 miles in a week? That sounds wrong.

Well indeed. Even the great Cristoph Strasser took 7 days 15 hours and 56 minutes!

Some of the team records (ignoring recumbents) are just over 5 days.

It's all proper hardcore stuff.

fenix

Jeez. What an adventure. But yes I'd be asking people who have done it and know what works and what doesn't rather than on here.

rolf_f

Sounds like the equivalent of less than 2 months of my commuting but probably on average in better weather. I wouldn't even bother to put new tyres on!

dyrlac

I'm doing this as part of a 4 man team in 2017. I may be misunderstanding Marcus, but for teams with sufficient resources (read: 2 cars and a camper/van), the usual process is to split into 2 2-man sub teams. Each member of the sub team is on the road by him/herself for 20 minutes or so (riding at threshold), with the other member of the sub team in the lead car leapfrogging ahead in preparation for his/her 20 minute session. The sub team carries on thusly for a 5 hour (to provide daylight rotation among the sub teams) shift while the other sub team chills out in the van. Assuming the team has practiced its transitions, our coach says this strategy is more efficient than a 2-man TTT approach over 3000 miles, at least for non-professional athletes.

To the OP, our current plan is for each of us to take 2 bikes, a conventional road bike and a TT bike (this expedition is going to be so expensive, entire bikes are rounding errors in the total budget; suffice it to say, it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing), but if we were limited to one, we'd be on 35mm rims.

Good luck and keep us posted!

marcusjb

I think you do misunderstand me - sorry! Pretty much as you describe it is how I was trying to describe it - though the teams I followed worked on shorter than the 5 hour rotations.

Yep, the finances of RAAM are terrifying, particularly solo. I'm working towards TABR in 2017 and that's bad enough!

dyrlac

marcusjb wrote:

I'm working towards TABR in 2017

:shock:

I know you basically wrote the book, well, blog anyway, on riding a bike a long way, but yikes.

Love this from the TABR website:

The course record stands at just over 16.5 days and racers typically are expected to aim for a race time not much more than double, over 40 days and it starts to look more like touring, people are encouraged to be competitive but respectful.

Presumably doing it fixed?

marcusjb

I'd not be in it to win it, but I'd hope to put in a reasonable performance. If I can put it all together, then I'd aim for 25 days (about 280km/day)(hardest thing is owning my own business and arranging with business partners to have 5 or 6 weeks out by the time I've got out there, ridden the thing and relaxed for a while before flying home).

I have a trip down to the south of France and back in a few weeks to test the water - I've never ridden more than 1400km (and that was only 4 days, so 350km/day), so need to see what happens to mind and body after 6 or 7 days of 270-280km/day through some big mountains.

I am back on gears this year - whilst I love fixed and enjoyed doing some big distances on it last year, the thought of descending for half an hour plus in big mountains on fixed makes me wince - my behind hurt enough after 1200km fixed last year!

Anyway - all off topic, but I will pay attention to wheel choice, I might want something new for the ride! I like the idea of deep section aero things on a steel bike with mudguards and bikepacking bags!