SirHustlerEsq

The rim is so wide, thick, and fat looking that the silver contrast works for me. I bought them for the performance, but they look 10x better in person than photos. I rode with a buddy yesterday who had on 25mm rubber and my 23mm rubber on the Flos were way wider, like a bald CX tire. The cornering performance was very surprising, I couldn't get the rear tire to drift at all, but I've only been into cycling 6-months. When you see them in person they appear to be a significant departure from typical wheel designs, similar only to the Zipp101 but 2mm wider and I be that makes a difference. I think the big increase in cornering feel and performance is the way the tire is pulled out to the rim, rather than light-bulb shaped, meaning less tire squirm.

I don't care what you buy, but the Novermber FSW23 was my back-up.

NathanC

Zen Cyclery built my a set of 1060 gram wheels:
Kinlin 200s
Extralite SX hubs
24/28 Xrays

I'm 140 pounds and they are my everyday wheel.

unionmade

Now that Zen's been mentioned, I'll throw in a rec for www.psimet.com. If you are going to go custom, go full custom. For your price range, Rob can put you on White Industry hubs. Made in the USA and purdy as all get out.

BoSoxYacht

Nice wheelset, but the OP weighs 175, and is looking to spend less than $500.

jjjj

I checked out hoopswheels.com they are very interesting. They are fairly close to me and have the wheel build I am most intersected in Pacenti SL23. I may give them a call as others on the net have given them good reviews.

I have also requested a qoute from PSIMET today at 3:00 PM. He seems to be the most recommended builder here. I hope he calls soon as I am bikeless (wheel failed) and therefore anxious. That being said the season is about over, but it was gorgeous today.


I have kind of narrowed down my choices to:

Pacenti SL-23 with power tap (PSIMET or other)
PSIMET reccomended build with powertap ie Rob may lead me to a better solution
Flo 30
November FSW-23

KantoBoy

I'd use the money to buy a used Powertap on EBAY. Most of them are built on 28-32 rear spoke counts and are tough as nails. If you can score the rear wheel only that's fine.

I'm sure prices have gone down since their announcement on pricedrop.

jjjj

Not a big e-bay fan for a used whole wheel. I want to know what the rim has been subjected to during its life before riding it. If I got a powertap hub, I would have to get it built up. It would have to be very cheap to offset the build cost. Even though I built my bike up I do not want to build up a wheel myself (again I must trust the wheel).

Thanks for the input, but my fear of a wheel failure probably will prevent me from pursuing it.

Psimet2001 

Replied a few times. Email addresses you gave in your inquiry are bouncing back to me. Sorry. Just didn't want you thinking you didn't get a response from me. Latest bounced back this morning.

SteveM

Love my November Rails and if I was in the market for a set of Al clinchers, The FSW-23's would be at the top of my list. That said, I have a set of Neuvation R28SLs(20/24) on my commuter that I like as well. I am about the same weight as OP and would probably go with 24/28 for commuter if I had it to do over.

FLO Cycling

Thanks for taking the time to write that review of our wheels. I'm happy to hear you are enjoying the wheels.

Take care,

shoota 

So at 185lbs I should expect my 16/20 wheelset to disintegrate under me at any time now?

Brian Ratliff

Read better.

shoota 

Sheesh what was that snarky comment for? You seem like you know wheels, and I don't know jack about wheels. After I read what you said about spoke count I'm questioning the longevity I can expect out of my current set. I realize this is the 41 and that's why you read my comment as inflammatory, my bad on the wording. But, more to the point, what can I expect out my set? 1000 miles, 2000 miles, 10K?

lechat

I bought a set of the Blackset Race a few years ago and they were a great for The $. 1430gms 24/28 for ~ $300 shipped. That said, it took a month to the day to receive them, they wouldn't answer my emails and the rear one wasn't properly stress relieved during the build and pinged like like crazy on the 1st ride and had to be retrued. Three yrs in, there still doing well. After the initial bad taste, I'm satisfied. I don't think you can still get them that cheaply though.

Brian Ratliff

You gave very little information to work with. I don't know you from Jack. You get what you give.

The exact mileage will depend on the wheel build quality, the specifics of spokes, hubs and rims, how you ride, the weather you ride in, your power output, etc. Obviously. What I can say is that for identical spokes, hubs and rims, wheel lifetime is longer with higher spoke count.

And wheels don't disintegrate. Their spokes either break or loosen, or their rims wear out.

Other things to note: If you have a broken spoke in a 20 spoke rear wheel, you are walking home; higher spoke count wheels will absorb more damage before becoming unusable. If you are above, say, 175lbs, and you are buying a wheelset with the intent of having it last a long time, you are best advised to buy one with higher spoke count. If you are buying the wheelset for performance, buy what you want. Even the lower spokecount wheels will support someone over 200lbs. But if you are a heavier person, those lower spoke count wheels might be intolerably flexy under you.

shoota 

All that makes sense. I know there is no way know for sure how long a wheel will last. I guess I'm doing ok with the ones I have then. I've put about 1000mi on them already, haven't broken a spoke (haven't even needed to true them) and I can't feel them flex under me. It is, however, good to know that I'll be walking home if I break a spoke. That's something to consider for sure.

jetter

OP here.

So less than 24 hours after canceling my order for FLO 30's, I'm putting in my order AGAIN. I was so sure that I wanted to go full custom (White Industries hubs, Pacenti sl23 rims, CX ray black spoke) but after looking at the situation, I realized the only thing holding me back from the FLO's were the silver spokes and the potential wear on the black brake track. Honestly, that wasn't a good enough justification. Also, they're $500 instead of the $680-700 I was going to spend on the custom wheelset. For a training set, it was a little too much money to spend; I could put the extra money towards getting some other upgrades on my bike.


From the beginning, I wanted a very sturdy training set that I could climb with and descend confidently. Since I do a few tri's every year on the same bike, the aero qualities of the rim were an added bonus.


During the exhaustive search for a quality wheelset, I was in contact with more than a few wheel builders. Based on my experience, I really think 99% of people would be happy going with one of these guys:


Brent (HOOPS) https://www.hoopswheels.com/

Rob (PSIMET) https://www.psimet.com/

Jon & Chris (FLO) https://www.flocycling.com/

Mike & Dave (November) https://www.novemberbicycles.com/

Dunbar

Absolutely nothing wrong with the Flo 30's. They are on my short list of wheels if they ever start offering black spokes. I'd guess they're using something similar to a Novatech hub so you could probably get a custom built wheelset for around the same price with a similar quality hub. I've got 10k miles on a set of Novatech hubs and I wouldn't hesitate to buy some more.

Does Flo still do that annoying pre-order thing where you have to wait for a big order to ship before you get your wheels?

Afdica

Did you order/need a 10 speed or 11 speed hub? November 10 speed hubs for the FSW23 is only $425 for the wheelset on clearance. Does that make a difference???

2 wheeler

Hmmm... interesting question. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I bought a set of "Clyde" wheels (Ultegra hubs, Mavic Open Pro 32h rims, DT butted 14 spokes) a few years back. They've got about 1900 miles on them. (I got into motorcycles and didn't ride my bicycle much for the last 4 years) Anyway, the front wheel is fine, but the rear wheel isn't. I'm careful with wheels and there are no potholes, etc. where I ride, so these wheels haven't been abused. The first time I started from a stop on the wheels, the rear wheel loudly "stress relieved", which, IMO, it should not have done if properly stress relieved.

Since then, it has refused to stay true. I've built a few sets of wheels that have been great and have a pretty good idea of how to true a wheel, but this wheel needs way too much attention. I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to have to loosen the spokes and re-tension the wheel. The spoke tension is very uneven, which is why it won't stay true.

I went to their website last night and was trying to figure out, if the claims of wheel perfection were true, how I got such a poorly built wheel. The warranty period is long since past, so I've got to deal with this situation.

Maybe that answers your question.

jetter

Yeah, if the spokes were black, it would have been a no brainer. I can see why they don't offer it though; the black ones are more expensive and they probably couldn't reach their price point of $498. That's my guess at least.

No, the pre-order only applies to the other wheels. You can order the FLO 30's anytime, but they won't start shipping after October 21th.

Brian Ratliff

Clean the rim very carefully and look for cracks in the rim around the spoke holes. This has been a known problem with certain vintages of Mavic Open Pro rims.

Also, my experience with Open Pro rims is they are relatively weak in compression (in an effort to make a light rim), meaning if you tension the spokes too much, the rim will buckle, like with a beam in compression, except with a rim it looks like a "pretzeling*". So, if the rims have no cracks, I'd back the spoke tension off half a turn and see if they don't stay straight with the lower spoke tension. True story: some old-school wheel builders will tension a wheel until it shows the initial signs of buckling, back off half a turn and call it good.

Best rim to build a set of clyde wheels is the DT Swiss 440. Significantly heavier than the Open Pro, but holds a lot more spoke tension.

EDIT: *sorry, meant "potato chip-ing".

jetter

I kept going back and forth on the FSW23's at clearance price. Definitely a really really good deal. However, for an extra $37 per wheel, I could get the CX Ray spokes and a (IMO) better rim that's wider and taller. I believe the CX ray's are 3x the price of the lasers, so it still seemed like a good deal. If I didn't care about the spokes, I would have gone with the fsw23's.

2 wheeler

Thanks for the info.

Edited to add: I'll check for cracks. I wanted to mention that the out of true shows at two spots, 180* apart. In truing the wheel, I found that a few of the DS spokes are noticeably tighter than the rest; they also sound a much higher pitch when struck. Right now, the wheel has about 1.5mm of lateral run out.

Edited yet again: I checked the wheel; no cracks. Now, to muster courage to fix the tensioning.

Road Fan

It was about 5 years ago, but I had an excellent local wheel builder make me a set of 10 speed Campy/Mavic/Sapim tubular wheels, 32 holes 1500g. It uses Campy Record hubs, CX-ray spokes, NOS GP4s (new Reflexes would have added $100), and has stayed stable over about 800 miles with my 185#. Contact Great Lakes Cycles in Ann Arbor, Mi, or google Sauterbilt Wheels. Steve gave me the same guarantee as you'd get from Peter White or most other custom wheel builders. Steve is one of the most skilled bike techs I've seen anytime.

He's also very familiar with more modern build styles and parts.