New wheels

yiannism

I just bought Bianchi infinito CV, and i am looking on the next months to upgrade my wheels, but i dont have enough knowledge about them. I am a weekend warrior around 83kg, and i do rides up to 160km, with lots of climbing. I am not interested to race, at least in the next near future. Rim brakes, i dont ride a lot in the rain, my country is pretty dry. My budget is around 800 eu. Any suggestions?

ugo.santalucia

I'd say before you open the wallet you should find out what is wrong with your current wheels and then you can address it, if needs be... Are they too heavy? Is the braking inadequate? Do they flex going uphill? You hate the way they look? Are you under peer pressure to upgrade?

yiannism

ugo.santalucia wrote:

I'd say before you open the wallet you should find out what is wrong with your current wheels and then you can address it, if needs be... Are they too heavy? Is the braking inadequate? Do they flex going uphill? You hate the way they look? Are you under peer pressure to upgrade?

I have Fulcrum Racing Sport Road, that are too heavy, 1900gr, and i am looking for something lighter. Braking is good enough. I dont care about the looks as soon as they are working.

Are that reason justifies to invest some money on them? or its just my idea since i dont do competitive races?

ugo.santalucia

YiannisM wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

I'd say before you open the wallet you should find out what is wrong with your current wheels and then you can address it, if needs be... Are they too heavy? Is the braking inadequate? Do they flex going uphill? You hate the way they look? Are you under peer pressure to upgrade?

I have Fulcrum Racing Sport Road, that are too heavy, 1900gr, and i am looking for something lighter. Braking is good enough. I dont care about the looks as soon as they are working.

Are that reason justifies to invest some money on them? or its just my idea since i dont do competitive races?

Are they too heavy according to whom? I build my own wheels, which typically end up being 1700 grams or a bit over. They are not heavy, they don't feel heavy.
IF however, they do feel heavy and hard to bring up to speed when you stop... then you might want to try something lighter within reason, you are not a feather yourself.
Campagnolo Zonda or Mavic Ksyrium will save you a pound or so

yiannism

ugo.santalucia wrote:

YiannisM wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

I'd say before you open the wallet you should find out what is wrong with your current wheels and then you can address it, if needs be... Are they too heavy? Is the braking inadequate? Do they flex going uphill? You hate the way they look? Are you under peer pressure to upgrade?

I have Fulcrum Racing Sport Road, that are too heavy, 1900gr, and i am looking for something lighter. Braking is good enough. I dont care about the looks as soon as they are working.

Are that reason justifies to invest some money on them? or its just my idea since i dont do competitive races?

Are they too heavy according to whom? I build my own wheels, which typically end up being 1700 grams or a bit over. They are not heavy, they don't feel heavy.
IF however, they do feel heavy and hard to bring up to speed when you stop... then you might want to try something lighter within reason, you are not a feather yourself.
Campagnolo Zonda or Mavic Ksyrium will save you a pound or so

As i said i dont really know enough about wheels, i never ride on expensive, and i am not sure what to expect really, but everybody is telling me that it will help me on climbing and on acceleration. My wheels are brand new, and i dont use trainer since we have a lot of sun here even at the winter.

ugo.santalucia

YiannisM wrote:

but everybody is telling me that it will help me on climbing and on acceleration. .

Very marginally... a lot less than your rosey expectations. We are talking a handful of (that is up to 5) seconds up a climb that lasts 10 minutes and maybe UP TO a minute up a climb that lasts an hour.
If you can lose a pound of fat, it will have a very similar effect.

yiannism

ugo.santalucia wrote:

YiannisM wrote:

but everybody is telling me that it will help me on climbing and on acceleration. .

Very marginally... a lot less than your rosey expectations. We are talking a handful of (that is up to 5) seconds up a climb that lasts 10 minutes and maybe UP TO a minute up a climb that lasts an hour.
If you can lose a pound of fat, it will have a very similar effect.

So you believe that i dont need a new wheels? if yes, i will happily save some money

fenix

Yiannis - can you lose weight yourself ? That would be a lot better than a small amount of weight off your wheels.

yiannism

Fenix wrote:

Yiannis - can you lose weight yourself ? That would be a lot better than a small amount of weight off your wheels.

Iam 180/83kg. I am trying to go to 80, and i already lost 13 the last 2 years that i am an in to cycling, and thats it. I cant imagine my self going less than 80 given my built.

fenix

I always think this was an interesting test : http://www.training4cyclists.com/how-mu ... lpe-dhuez/

Carrying an extra 1800gr of water up Alpe D'Huez and it doesn't make as much difference as you think. So slightly lighter wheels would not make a significant difference. I'd be keeping my cash.

ugo.santalucia

Wheels are consumables that at some point will need to be replaced. That is the time to upgrade. If you upgrade now, your current wheels have virtually zero resale value and unless you find some use for them, it seems a waste.

From your name and your currency I am inclined to think you do not need "winter wheels"

yiannism

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Wheels are consumables that at some point will need to be replaced. That is the time to upgrade. If you upgrade now, your current wheels have virtually zero resale value and unless you find some use for them, it seems a waste.

From your name and your currency I am inclined to think you do not need "winter wheels"

Indeed, i dont need winter wheels, i live in Cyprus. The raining days are far and between, good for some rest. No snow at all in my area, only at the mountains, but there i will use my MTB anyway.

I guess that you saved me a lot money from purchase that i dont need.

Thanks to all for your responses.

ugo.santalucia

YiannisM wrote:

I guess that you saved me a lot money from purchase that i dont need.
.

I'll send the consultancy bill over to you

thiscocks

I used to think spending a lot on some £1500g, more expensive wheels would make me quicker but having being racing (mainly in flat criterums) for more than a year on Campagnolo Khamsins (v similar to your Fulcrum sports) I found out that my results are very similar to what they were on more expensive Zondas with similar training. I wouldn't say they feel any slower other than possibly when accelerating as hard as you can up an incline from slow speed. When I did a couple of hilly road races last year there were a couple of guys at the sharp end with Khamsins and they didn't seem to be slowing them down! Its nice to buy new (sometimes lighter) wheels but certainly not essential if your current ones are working well.

Maglia_Rosa

I remember my first road bike had some crappy Alex rims on which I upgraded to Fulcrum Racing 7 and the difference was ridiculous. I guess that difference become less noticeable the more higher end so personally I’d stick with the ones you have and get some good use out of them.

haydenm

I'm going to go against the grain here and say I went from my rubbish stock (2.2kg+) wheels on the supersix to these and the difference is quite noticeable:
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/prime-rr-38-car ... heelset-1/

I have saved ~10% of the weight of the bike but then I'm short and fairly light so it's probably going to make more difference to me proportionally. More importantly, they look amazing

mfin

Maglia_Rosa wrote:

I remember my first road bike had some crappy Alex rims on which I upgraded to Fulcrum Racing 7 and the difference was ridiculous. I guess that difference become less noticeable the more higher end so personally I’d stick with the ones you have and get some good use out of them.

If you felt that difference you'd be in for a treat because the difference from Fulcrum Racing 7 up to something modest like Campag Zondas is really noticeable too. Fulcrum Racing 7 are very basic and feel dead as well as heavy.

w00dster

I'm pretty sure I notice the difference between my wheelsets.
I have shallow rim wheels, approx. 1450 grams, 40mm posing wheels that are about 1650 grams and a set of 55mm deep wheels. From a speed perspective I would say I am faster on the deeper rims, most of my rides are 50 to 60 mile rides and about 2500 to 3500 foot of ascent. The 55mm deep ones are faster in my view.
I prefer the 40mm wheels though as they just look better on the bike in my opinion. I ride in the mountains of Snowdon quite a lot but I don't find any real difference with the light wheels compared to the aero wheel.
I race on the 50mm wheels, I don't think there is any need for the aero benefit for my racing as most of the time I'm in the bunch, but the placebo factor helps mentally (same as my aero lid and clothing).
Personally my advice would be to get a pair of aero deep rim wheels. The wheels look better, sound better and you will notice the marginal gains they give.

step83

A semi decent wheelset would be between 1500-1600g so that's going to be 4-500g that's 1.1Lbs. you could pay upto the 800 EU for a new set of wheels, or loose half a kilo an have the same effect.

w00dster

Or the OP could lose weight from himself (if he wanted to its his choice) and he could also buy the nice wheels as well.
This isn't an either or choice.

Personally I much prefer riding a bike that I like the look of and "whooshing" along on aero rims makes me happy!

I'm not saying the OP is going to be a lot quicker on aero rims, nor am I saying that the speed isn't the most important factor. I'm just merely saying I notice a difference in my speeds with aero wheels and I really enjoy riding them.

Nice new bike, aero wheels, latex tubes and nice fast tyres - jobs a good un.

yiannism

For me its all about to justify the money that i will spend, its not about the ''feel'' or the looks. For example going from my alu Orbea to the infinito the deference was huge, and i felt that it was well worth spend money.

From your answers it seems that is not worth it for now.

haydenm

Definitely worth it, it's all about the bike. For reference, my new wheels came after an 8 day scottish tour on a very very heavy bike so fitness may or may not have been a large contributing factor to the huge gains I saw...