how's your zipp

[blonduathlongrl]

OK. Duathlon season starts in 4 months for me..this year Im thinking of adding zipp to my wheels.I have been getting info online and at my LBS.. Im just curious.. How much more speed did you guys increase from? If you compare your races before and after getting them, was there a considerable difference? what was your experiences?

[LBonney]

try renting some first. Some placed rent race wheels for the weekend
like:
www.fastsplits.com

[merlinextraligh]

I have Zipp 404's. Compared to a standard 32 spoke wheel, they might be worth 1/2mph on the outside. I ride the Zipp's as my everday wheel for training and races.
For TT's or a triathlon, I use a disc in the rear, and am going to get a Hed 3 tri spoke for the front.

Personally, if you already have a decent set of wheels, and your purpose is duathlons, or triathlons, I would not get 404's. I would get a disc rear, and either an 808, or Hed 3 front. The 404's are good all around wheels, but not truely a tt wheel.

[jennings780]

Also look into Mavic Cosmic Carbone SL. Very similar to Zipps but a few hundred bucks cheaper. Really cool looking.

[blonduathlongrl]

OK, yes.. zipp is another investment but I do like the idea of renting some and see how I like it before spending the money. They definilty improve your speed but I would be curious to see just by how much.

[park]

There are a lot of marketing ploys and hype that make products seem to deliver more than they really can. Lighter, more aero wheels will make you faster but don't expect unrealistically dramatic drops in your times. Depending on the length of the event you may be talking about only seconds. A dramatic difference would be closer to a minute or two. That's it. The biggest factor is your riding position. Basically, I look at all of the toys as one of many variables. If you already have the aero bike, wheels, handlebars, helmet, skinsuit, etc. then those are no longer variables and you don't have to wonder if your performance was due to you or the toys. You are then left to ponder only your training and diet.

[StanSeven]

I just brough Zipp 303s. They are the new model and are 43mm deep. The 404's on the other hand are 58mm. I went out several times and tried to keep all conditions the same and I found that the Zipp 303's give me almost 0.3 mph improvement over Kysriums.

Merlinextralight mentioneded 0.5 mph with 404's so I agree with that based on my experience with the more shallow rim.

I also think a disc or something like 808's will give even more of an improvement but I wouldn't recommend them as your only competition wheel. If the event has strong winds, the last thing you want to do is get blown around by your wheels.

[blonduathlongrl]

This was very informative..thank you and yes, the winds are a factor. I know that two of my races are windy areas. I have all the other "toys" except for this. you had a very good point there "park".. sometimes I do feel as if some people come ahead in races not because thier performance was greater but because they had more "toys" but that's for another subjet..lol Thanks for all the info!:)

[Dubbayoo]

I use Ksyriums as my training wheels. I don't have race wheels because I haven't raced yet. I will probably go with 404 tubs, maybe a disc in back since I could use that on the track also.

[onetimepad]

I have the 404 tubulars. I only race in them and do the rare hard workouts. I treat them the same as my racing flat running shoes...only use for high speed events. I notice about a 1 mph difference. However there are a couple elements to that. It's very rolling and windy where I am and I use heavy cheap shimano rims for everyday work. The 404's fly up the hills...it's easy to tell the difference. Because I uses the Zipps sparingly, I think there is a psychological event in my mind about having my "fast" wheels on. When I put those on my bike I know I'm going to be fast that day period...like taking off the ankle weights and going for a run.

I don't have a disk but I can tell you will feel the wind significantly more on these wheels. I have nearly lost it more than once in 20-30+ mph winds. I can't imagine how much you would feel that with a deeper rim. I do love these things though. I also tried the Cosmic Carbones. The felt very stable (even more than the Zipps) but also felt heavy compared to the 404.

No buyer's remorse here although very expensive little gadget.

[jrennie]

I made the switch to a full tri-bike in the off season and picked up a set of zipp 404's from a guy I was racing with, so I am not sure about the speed increase. I did like the fact that they are 300 grams lighter than my very light AC sprint 350's(80g tubes and 155g tires) vs s3 lites on 404 tubulars. I also think most of the gains will be mental over physical.

[LiteSS]

When considering new wheels, don't forget the fun factor. High end tubulars usually offer a better ride in addition to improving times. I'm not sure where you're looking (LBS?), but I'm moving up to NH from Baltimore soon and just bought a set of Zipp 404s from Naults in Manchester. They have a couple left over 2005s that they are selling for $1100.

[Jaybird]

A friend is building a new tri bike and I posed your wheel question to him. He is building his bike with Reynolds Stratus DV tubular wheelset.

This is what he said, "On the Zipp 404's, each rim is made of 16 different carbon pieces that are molded together. If one goes out of whack the rim is toast. The Reynolds are one piece carbon. Put it to you this way, if the tension of the Reynolds spokes were applied to the Zipp 404 rim it would implode. It cost twice as much to make the Reynolds and they are $100 cheaper. The Zipps are overpriced due to HEAVY duty marketing costs. Dude, it's a no-brainer, the Reynolds blow Zipps out of the water as far as quality. They just dont look as pretty."

BTW, I know nothing of Zipps personally, just forwarding info hoping it will be helpful.

[Triguy]

The only problem is Zipps blow everything else out of the water aerodynamically, except Hed maybe. Especially in the 38-58mm range where there patented rim shape will give significant gains over the V-shape of Reynolds. If you check wind tunnel data, 303s fair about as well most V-shaped 50mm rims. Reynolds are nice wheels and I understand his reasoning but then again most people aren't that hard on their race wheels. Roadbikereview also did a carbon wheel comparison where they found that the average spoke tension on a pair of Zipp 303s higher on both drive side rear wheels and for the front wheels. In fact Reynolds had the lowest tension of the group for front wheels. http://forums.roadbikereview.com/showthread.php?t=32909 Your friend better check his stats.

FWIW, I am going to get a set of 2005 Zipp 303s and have a wheelbuilder cover made for the rear. I can imagine anything more versatile than this except maybe 404s with a cover, too bad 404s can't be had for the same price as 303s.

The cover adds around 400 grams. So I will have a 1000 gram (I ride 650s) semi-aero wheelset for some days, and a 1450 gram aero wheelset for the majority of race days.

[LiteSS]

The only problem is Zipps blow everything else out of the water aerodynamically, except Hed maybe. Especially in the 38-58mm range where there patented rim shape will give significant gains over the V-shape of Reynolds. If you check wind tunnel data, 303s fair about as well most V-shaped 50mm rims. Reynolds are nice wheels and I understand his reasoning but then again most people aren't that hard on their race wheels. Roadbikereview also did a carbon wheel comparison where they found that the average spoke tension on a pair of Zipp 303s higher on both drive side rear wheels and for the front wheels. In fact Reynolds had the lowest tension of the group for front wheels. http://forums.roadbikereview.com/showthread.php?t=32909 Your friend better check his stats.

FWIW, I am going to get a set of 2005 Zipp 303s and have a wheelbuilder cover made for the rear. I can imagine anything more versatile than this except maybe 404s with a cover, too bad 404s can't be had for the same price as 303s.

The cover adds around 400 grams. So I will have a 1000 gram (I ride 650s) semi-aero wheelset for some days, and a 1450 gram aero wheelset for the majority of race days.

I agree with the comments on Zipp and Head. The superior aerodynamics comes from the fact Zipp and Hed are joint patent-holders of the ability to make a wheel with an oval shape, which tends to work quite well. For more info, check out the article on slowtwitch:

http://www.slowtwitch.com/cgi-bin/parse.pl?url=http://www.slowtwitch.com/mainheadings/product2006/wheels/wheelszipp.html&text=zipp

[Jaybird]

Thanks for the info. I copied and pasted to an email for him to review.