Test Ride #2 on H plus son wheels:
Did a 25 mile ride today with some climbing. The hill in the photo above was just 1 of many, but it gets much steeper after that first corner and winds around for just over a mile.
Todays Thoughts:
-Already started to get used to the CK hub noise and am getting kind of fond of it actually. Its almost like once you get used to the sound, it just sounds like quality.
-Confirmed on todays ride that these wheels are MUCH stiffer. Since my boyds were only my 3rd wheelset ever ridden and probably my 1st wheelset that I rode with any kind of real cycling experience, I thought my boyds were fairly stiff. I can now honestly say that I know what the wheel flex feels like now and where. That little bit of flex in my boyds now feels a little "spungy" if you will, compared to this experience.
-I really like how these feel while descending. I think that the heavier wheel allows me to feel more balanced, which in turn feels like i have better control. I like the combination of the 23mm wheel and 23mm tire. even though i was using a 25mm tire on my boyds and was more comfy than riding 23's, the 23/23 combo feels even gooder. I feel like I am floating across the asphalt. In all honestly, it feels so smooth that I feel like I did when I was test riding an evo. The evo was BUTTER smooth and thats how my SS felt today.
-Riding on flats, felt super smooth as I said above. I felt that I was able to maintain my speed easier. I dont know if that is due to the weight of the wheel, better hub or combination of it all?
-Sprinting felt contradicting. Since the wheels are noticeably heavier I felt that it took me longer to reach my top speed, BUT because the wheels are stiffer it felt like a stronger pull with each stride. Gonna do more sprints and see if I can test some results with my garmin or something.
Climbing-Kind of similar thoughts with sprinting. Since it is a heavier wheel, I believe it was noticeably more challenging on steep long sections of climbs, especially when I was reaching my thresh hold. Since they are stiffer, I felt that each stride was a stronger pull. Not sure how i feel about these if I was to do a lot of climbing. Again, since I do not know the weight of this set (Please do not tell me in case you are just coming into this) I dont know how much the weight factor plays in this equation.
At this point, only 2 rides into it if I had to choose between my Boyds or these H plus son wheels, I would choose these demo wheels! I dig them so far and I am glad that in only 2 rides I have been able to experience the difference between the 2 wheelsets!
More to come this weekend
