Originally Posted by TimArchy
I haven't heard that theory. Is it something to do with a fly-wheel affect? There is a lot of cycling experience out there that says the opposite, but the world of cycling have been known to be wrong on many occations.
well, total weight matters on a climb I don't think anyone will deny that.
However, rotational weight climbing at a steady speed is completely meaningless. Rotational weight while accelerating on a climb is much much less important then rotational weight while accelerating on flats since the speeds are substantially lower.
Therefore it seems like at the least wheel weight is not very important for climbing. Since the flywheel effect seems to be useful in some tt situations it also seems likely that a bike with heavy wheels would be a better climber then a bike that weighed the same amount but with light wheels.
Weight weenies really hate to hear this.