Originally Posted by ExMachina
Commenting w/o thinking here, but I think that this is not true. When you're going up a hill, gravity is going to be applying an similar ******ing force, irrespective of where the mass of your wheels is concentrated. So, a rider will not suffer any more to maintain speed--on a bike of the same weight--by having rim-heavy wheels. Wheel weighting should have an effect on the speed curve though, and if a rider with rim-heavy wheels decided to just coast up the hill, you'd see his speed drop off very slowly at first, then quite rapidly (the opposite of accelerating up to speed). More uniformly weighted wheels would decellerate more...well, uniformtly
Both bikes should both coast to a stop a the same point...uh, I think
I was assuming the bike was the same...we were talking about wheels. The bike with the heavier wheels (and therefor a heavier bike), is going to require more energy to get it up the hill. You're also under a greater constant accelleration/decelleration when you are climbing, thanks to gravity working at your momentum.