Road Bike Racing - Criterium Wheels...advice? Suggestions?

xxx

I think you should get a set of carbon tubular wheels. Beside the aero advantage, it may not play a role at all in a crit, you will accelerate faster and be able to maintain your top speed longer. The down side is that, in a crash, replacing those wheels can be costly.

The Zipps would be great for criterium racing.

Cat 5 crits? Get something cheap.

Cat 5 crits? Get something cheap.

G'day,

agree with laggard.....If your Cat 5 is anything like our 'E' grade, I'd be keeping all my expensive 'go faster' bits well away from the newbies....too many crashes. At our crits, riders from the grades not actually on the track are required to 'man corners' (7 have the favour returned when it's our turn to race),. When 'E' grade are on, we have bets as to how many ar gunna come off!. grounding pedals through the corners 7 just plain running into the other riders wheels sem to be the issues!....& don't even talk about the sprint!...I saw a guy roll up on new Cosmic carbons last summer......the pack came down in the first corner & totally destroyed the front one!......

cheers,

Hitchy

I'm not a fan of carbon wheels for criterium racing and much prefer Ksyriums for crit duty. I have Zipp 303s and they just don't feel as good in really aggressive crits as Ks do. I doubt you'll see any improvement with new a Zipp or Reynolds wheelset over what you're already running.

Even though you haven't seen a crash in a cat5 crit all season (must be a record) all it takes is one guy to put you into the curb and you've fried a 500 dollar front wheel. Just something to think about...

what you've already got is fine...........

for a psychological edge, I recommend fresh bar wrap.........