stevepeter83

Hi guys,

I'm looking to buy a pair of wheels that will cut through the wind and support climbing well.

Any suggestions?

Also, I'm very new to wheels so what's really the difference between the depth of wheels? Are deeper wheels cut through wind better?

The path that I'm going through daily is pretty windy (Perth bike path) especially after work and then I have a little bit of climbs near my house.

Any suggestions on wheels? What about tubular, carbon fibre, tubeless, etc? Will they help me?


Thanks for your help,
Steve

LeeG

is your body in an aerodynamic position? Are you already of a lean body mass? Can you ride at 25mph for 30 min solo on a calm day? Are you riding on the smallest hp tires that can carry your load? Consider training with a racing club to increase your power. Assuming all of above wheels the wheels will make very little difference.

Squirrelli

^ +1 for everything.
Your body cause the most drag on your bike, dial your positition to be more aerodynamic yet efficient and go from there.

Plus...you're posting in the COMMUTING forum, aerodynamics is probably not the biggest concern of the members...

hairytoes

I guess you mean Perth, Western Australia. I'm guessing that because of the comment about wind and bike paths.

For starters, what sort of bike are you riding? A 'road' bike with drop bars will be much much better than a mountain bike. The roads and paths in Perth are very good, so you can use 25mm tyres.

I suggest you use a road bike with drop bars, 25mm slick tyres with about 95-105psi. If you are comfortable with riding on the drop bars, try some tri bars.

If you only have a mountain bike, make sure you are riding on narrower slick tyres - something like a Continental Sport Contact - and consider fitting tri bars to that.

What sort of distance are you riding, and how long does it normally take you? That will give us some idea of your fitness level.

MichaelW

Generally, deeper sections wheels have better aerodynamics, are stiffer (and less comfortable), more sensitive to side-winds (eg overtaking trucks) and heavier.
Aerodynamic drag increases with the square of velocity.
This means that when you double your speed you quadruple your aerodynamic drag. Aero-sections bits only play a major role at very high speeds.

Fizzaly

I say post this in the roadie section, or get a steel bike and forget about how fast you're going.

ghettocruiser

The constraints the above posters have mentioned all have merit.

If you want deep-section wheels anyways (and their's nothing wrong with that) these guys have an all-aluminum model that would probably be quite suitable for general riding. PSImet is also a custom builder and member of the BF community who can get you what you need, although he usually has a bit of a line-up.

Juha

Getting rid of my commuting panniers would probably give more aerodynamical advantage than any wheel upgrade. OP, sorry I cannot help you, but welcome to Bike Forums nevertheless!

--J

audi666

what kind of bike are these going on and what terrain do you need them for?

prob not the best forum for finding details on carbon tubulars and things to that nature since most dont run "race" wheels for commuting.

i just picked up a set of open pros/ulteg hubs (700c) the other day to use as my dedicated commuting wheelset but was running lighter-weight wheels (Mavic Ksyrium Equipe) for about +4,000 miles so far this year commuting.

Andy_K 

Didn't you just post recently saying you were buying a Tarmac? The wheels on that will be as aerodynamic as anything with spokes.

caloso

I have wheels that do exactly that: 50mm deep rims with bladed spokes. They are noticeably faster at speeds approaching 50kph which is why they are race-only wheels. Not for commuting.

wunderkind

Get one of these....

slowandsteady

I wouldn't get so called aero wheels(as in deep V) if I was riding in windy conditions. Any cross winds are going to make riding unstable and dangerous.

Aero bars would make a bigger impact and you have the ability to only use them only when you have a headwind. It will make up to a 1-3mph difference in strong headwinds.

pallen

If I understand right, aero wheels are for cutting through air as they rotate or as the edge of the wheels are going forward through the air. They seem to me like they would really suck at handling a cross wind or windy weather. I would think if you ride in windy conditions, you would want as minimal a frame and wheels as possible from every angle. Of course, as has been already mentioned, compared to the bike, the guy on top pedaling is like a sail.

fietsbob

or a fully faired aerodynamic tad pole recumbent Velomobile,
its the whole shape that combines ..
frontal area and flow around the body of the vehicle.

UCI has regulations that restrict what can be called a racing bike

in the part of racing where the money is,
[and bikes sold to the rest of us which are like that]
and so engineering is working within those restrictions

but still its a body atop 2 wheels out in the air,

You can go really fast in a Vacuum ..