The wheels came in late last week and I put rim tape, tubes and tires on them. I put them on the Pinarello Prince which has 11 speed super record so I got a campy hub. I bought them directly from the the company that makes them in China. They also built up the wheels. Some of the specs are 38 mm rim profile, 23 mm width, 20/24 spoke count, Sapim spokes, Ed hubs and ceramic bearings----1330 grams without the rim tape, tubes and tires. Not too bad for a Carbon Clincher wheelset.
I was able to do about 40 miles tonight with 3 others and I
really like these wheels. They are surprisingly very quiet....stealth like. They feel plenty stiff. My legs were still pretty tired from the hilly 100 miler I did on Sunday but just gauging the effort and speeds on hills I'm used to riding it appeared these wheels helped me increase my speed---maybe 5%. The 23 mm rim allows for lower tire pressure and a smoother ride as well so what is not to like???
The wheels came with Ti skewers and blue brake pads but I put on the yellow Swissstop pads for the Campy Super Record brakes. The brakes are very quiet---no squealing or noise at all.
I opted for the gloss finish to match the black gloss finish on the Prince. They were supposed to use red nipples but they used black. Also the axle on the rear wheel was slightly out of tolerance (a little smaller in diameter than it should be) so there was a little play in the rear wheel. I have a good acquaintance who is an outstanding mechanic/wheel builder and he was able to fix it by putting some small burrs on the axle to keep the bearings from sliding back and forth. He also thoroughly checked the wheels for being true along with the spoke tension and they are very good. He didn't need to make any adjustments at all-other than the axle.
I've bought a number of different sets of wheels over the last several years...... and my first impression of these is this the best set of wheels I've bought---and for a fairly lightweight set of clinchers the price is very, very good. I like them so much I'll probably buy another set for my bikes that have SRAM/Shimano 10 speed gearing. I just can't use them on hilly rides where I need to do a lot of constant braking for technical descents.
I think I might have taken my Prince from a very good riding bike to a great riding bike.
And while I'm pretty biased I think they look pretty good too.
