Originally Posted by carpediemracing

Even for races I'll use the Bastognes because the accelerate much easier. I use a lot of my reserves accelerating hard to counter attacks and just get out of a corner. I used my aero wheels for a few weeks but got totally shelled because the third or fourth super hard acceleration just killed me.

(When I used aero tubulars which are lighter and more aero than my clinchers, I did fine.)

So until you go really fast in a group (25-27 mph avg speed) heavy aero wheels seem to be a disadvantage. A steady state 25 mph to me screams aero wheel. Jumpy races which average 25-27+ mph scream aero tubulars.

The Bontragers you mention are carbon rimmed clinchers. They're extremely light. They will spin up very quickly, allowing you to accelerate with low perceived effort. If you don't use them all the time they'll feel really, really fast when you do use them. Until you hit about 35-40 mph. That's when they'll feel pretty sloggy. Aero wheels really come into play over 30 mph, and really at 35+ mph. Those slight downgrades when you want to move up in the group and the group is going 35-40 mph... aero wheels really help. Me, anyway, they help me.