For me at least with wheelsets, I tend to go with reliable and well-built. For my second wheel set with cross tires, I ended up going with a Mavic wheelset.

I'm not entirely sold on this. I'm not necessarily saying you can feel a difference with the wheels. I'm just not convinced that it is because of the weight.

The "affordable" (meaning <$500?) wheelsets I've seen in that weight range generally have two things in common: 20-24 spokes per wheel and really light hubs. Going from 32 to 24 spokes might save 50 grams per wheel, perhaps as much as 100 grams if you're going from straight gauge to really light bladed spokes. So maybe you saved 200 grams there, but it's not primarily at the rim where the inertial multiplier kicks in. A substantial amount of that weight is near the hub. Then there's the second factor I mentioned, lightweight hubs. Again, no inertial multiplier there.

So what I'm saying is that I think something other than weight is accounting for any performance gains. For high speed riding, the lower spoke count improves aerodynamics (especially with bladed spokes). For climbing and sprinting, I'd guess a stiffer wheel is at work. Faster hub engagement may also come into play.

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In any event, I'm convinced that there is a definite limit on how light a rim can be and still be practical to use. I personally won't trust any rim that weighs under about 420 grams even for a 32-spoke build. I suppose if you are a lightweight rider you could get away with something a bit lighter in a very carefully built wheel, but at 200 pounds I wouldn't try it.

So for me personally, I've accepted a lower weight limit on my wheels of around 1850 grams. I can hit that with low cost Shimano hubs, 32 double butted spokes per wheel and a 400-ish gram wheel. To get significantly below that, I'd need to spend a bunch of dough on lighter hubs (Shimano's hubs, with all their value, are heavy). And to me, there's no real benefit to be had doing that.

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Here, then, I've perhaps pulled a bit of a bait and switch but I think it's a useful one, especially for someone in the OP's position. I'm no longer comparing entry-level OEM wheels to a "budget" 1500 gram wheelset. Now I'm comparing those 1500 gram wheels to a set of hand-built, 32-spoke 1850 gram wheels.

Doing a quick search, I found Vuelta Corsa SLR wheels for $274 at Nashbar at a claimed weight of 1467 grams. That sounds great! The reviews are mostly good. They're probably not a bad option. The wheels I want to compare them to are the most recent set I built for myself. I used DT Swiss R460 rims, DT Swiss Alpine III spokes, DT Swiss brass nipples and Tiagra hubs. I spent $156 and they weigh about 1875 grams without skewers. I saved money building them myself and shopping around for the components, but anyone could get wheels like these for the price of the Vueltas or less.

So then, without getting into questions about reliability or comfort or even standard replacement parts, I ask will there be a significant perceived performance difference between my 1872 gram wheels and the Vueltas or similarly light and affordable wheels? I am claiming there will not, and this radically multiplies the importance of the tradeoff questions.

If I had only said what you quoted I would understand respectfully disagreeing. But you did not rebut the rest of my post. As already noted the weight savings you cite is not necessarily at the rim, and with a 200 lb rider plus bike you're only talking about a .5% difference in weight. During "aggressive road riding" that has much less effect than wind resistance. I would put the net benefit at more like .2% or less.

Yeah too much time learning from the news media how to selectively quote

If I understand your % of weight claim correctly though, you're looking at a wheelset weight reduction as being equivalent to the same weight reduction of any other component. I'm saying the weight reduction of a wheel set has a greater impact because it's rotating mass, not static like a seatpost or beer gut.

[MENTION=111144]Andy_K[/MENTION] makes an interesting point with inertial multiplier. Makes sense that a rim or tire weight reduction is more noticeable than the same weight reduction at the hub.

What I can say for certain from my own experience with using multiple wheelsets on the same bike, is that a 500g weight savings has produced noticeably livelier acceleration. The guys I ride with all share this same experience. I'm only talking about acceleration and climbing and fully recognize rim and spoke profile play a big part once up to speed.

Well, a beer gut is sprung weight unlike the wheels or, for road bikes, the seatpost so given the choice between losing weight on the bike or skipping that extra slice of pizza, I think there's more benefit to be gained saving weight on the bike.

Andy makes a good point about hubs. Most of the "lightweight" wheelsets (especially the budget ones) use cheap, cartridge bearing, garbage CNC hubs with aluminum freehub bodies. Which, to me, is cheating. Sure, they're lighter. But the aluminum freehub bodies get torn up from cassettes. Freehub mechanisms fail. Cartridge bearings can be a royal pain to change...

After using some of those hubs I swore them off and will only use Shimano hubs from now on. So my wheelsets are heavier than they could be, but that extra weight is at the hub and not the rim. And my hubs will last through many rims.

I'm in the camp that new wheels can make a big difference, but it depends on what you're coming from compared to what you're getting.

My first road bike came with a set of boat anchors. I didn't know they were boat anchors until I got a new set of wheels--Vuelta Corsa Lites. The first ride with the Vueltas was a revelation. Over the same courses, my average speed substantially increased.

When I upgraded my bike frame, I went to a nice set of aero carbon wheels. They weighed a little less than the Vueltas and were better in terms of rolling resistance. I was hoping for a big performance boost, but they really didn't make that much of a difference. YMMV.

There's a lot of valid debate in this thread regarding the relative importance of weight, rotational weight, and aerodynamics ...but... I don't know that it's applicable if the OP is riding his hybrid like most people ride hybrids. I don't think he's likely to be racing on a Giant Escape 1.

Even using best case and rotating weight the provable effect is still negligible - perhaps .5%. I'm not arguing with your experience, merely saying that without a science based reason to validate it the only conclusion I can reach it that it's mostly psychological.

The Escape is a better design for "spirited" or "athletic" riding than most bikes. The Escape is in a class with the Trek FX and the Specialized Sirrus. Some call them performance-oriented hybrids. My wife has a Trek FX, and it's a damn competent machine. My wife might not notice lighter wheels, but some people with a bike like that would.

This is where I think a lot of bicycle related discussions break down.

Person A: I've heard/read that X should result in Y, and having done X I experienced Y.
Person B: According to (various calculations) X isn't sufficient to create the Y result.

This is the difference between physics and stamp collecting. The report by A looks like a hypothesis being confirmed by experimentation, but it's actually a bit self-referential. That is, a person experiences Y and hypothesizes that it is caused by X. Another person tries X and also experiences Y. The hypothesis that X caused Y hasn't actually been tested at all. All we can say is that a second person has observed X and Y together. That doesn't necessarily mean that the hypothesis is wrong, and even B's calculations don't necessarily establish that.

We have three basic possibilities: (1) there is an error in B's mathematical model, (2) Y isn't actually happening and those who believe it is are incorrectly perceiving it as such, or (3) something other than X is also contributing to Y.

In the case of the lighter wheels, I don't think (1) is very likely. Yes, the models are making a few assumptions and simplifications (as all physics does), but the claimed results are an order of magnitude off and there are simple experiments (like measuring the energy required to spin a wheel with the bike off the ground) that corroborate the model.

I also don't think (2) is very likely in this case. There are just too many reports of new wheels leading to improved performance. I don't have a well controlled study to reference, but I would bet someone has done one. I would also bet someone has done a controlled study that purports to specifically disprove that weight explains the change. My point is, something is almost certainly happening.

As I indicated in my earlier post in this thread. I really think (3) is true in this case. I don't know enough to say with confidence what the other contributing causes are. I would wager that it's a combination of multiple things. I strongly suspect that a few wheel manufacturers have a very good idea what the causes are. They tend to be tight-lipped about those things as scientific explanations rarely make for good marketing and if they do have any unique knowledge they certainly don't want to share it. (In this regard I would refer the curious to the podcast that made its rounds a couple of months ago where Jan Heine talked with an ex-Zipp employee [among others] about tire pressure. I don't believe any trade secrets were disclosed, but there were some interesting hints about what Zipp knows and how they use that knowledge.)


Finally, I would note that there is something very important in the phrase "livelier acceleration" -- namely a subjective experience. People have "proven" ad nauseum that bike weight doesn't make any significant difference (in non-racing terms) in how long it takes to get from A to B. I myself have verified this with a number of entirely unscientific tests (i.e. keeping a record of how long a given trip takes with various bikes and cargo). However, no one who has ridden both a heavy bike and a light bike has any doubt that it feels very different to ride the lighter bike. The lighter bike feels faster. It isn't actually appreciably faster, but that doesn't matter one bit if you're riding for fun. I could care less how fast I'm actually going. I hate the feel of sluggish bikes. So when plonz says that lighter wheels have "livelier acceleration" even if the objective difference as measured by whatever scientific apparatus were zero (which I don't think it is), there would still be considerable value in wheels that feel livelier.

[/PONTIFICATION]

If A to B is across an intersection, it can be significant.
A 10 mile ride at a steady, machine like pace....pavement temperature probably has a bigger effect, whatever that may be.

Sure that's true when you're talking about difference of 10+ pounds. I was specifically thinking of rides like my 10 mile commute, even including its many stops and rolling hills. Also, while weight (within reason) doesn't make a difference in the time on a trip like that it can make a difference in how tired I am when I get there so for a really long trip with a lot of starts and stops a big difference in bike weight can have an effect.

Even for the small sample of crossing an intersection I don't think wheel weight would make a difference. Though, again, if you're racing the minute difference it makes in a sprint could be the difference between winning and losing.

Note to self... think twice before posting in the mechanics forum.

...although I knew full well that making a claim like "livelier acceleration" was like my butt dyno saying a cold air intake made my car faster. But sometimes you just feel it.

As far as weight, I actually do most of my riding on 20-23 lb vintage steel bikes. The extra 3-6 lbs over my carbon bike doesn't really hamper my speeds except when climbing. But drop a pound at the wheels and I can definitely notice.

Do you mean to say there are forums somewhere on the Internet where this kind of thing doesn't happen?

I have emphysema, so any "cheap weight" I can shed gets shed.
Tires Tires Tires first. Going from my 35mm Specialized Amradillo Flak whatever to some 28mm Serfas gave me about 3MPH with the same effort. Much better "perceived acceleration".
My intersection analogy is basically a situation where the light starts turning red before you expected it to and you want to "haul butt" briefly. Whenever I have to "sprint", I pay for it immediately and have to slow down a bit and suck air. You NEVER "win" on that one!
It's a situation, where "every bit helps". I ended up building my own wheels (Sun Rims M13II w/ different gauges of DB spokes) with the possibility of saving a bit of weight and a desire to go to a 26mm tire and a more appropriate rim width. I also wanted to build my 1st wheel set for ME. Between the 2, it was probably worth another .2-.3MPH. Nothing "significant", except I was a bit smug about MY hand built wheels and felt like riding more.

I have found this to he true, but the impact is greater when going from a cheap wheelset than going from an excellent heavier to comparable quality lighter wheelset. A lot depends on what wheels the OP has. A great example is my wife's bike that came with 5+ lbs of Alex wheels. Bought a new set of Fulcrum Racing T's for a $100 on eBay and the difference was night and day in her riding. The new wheels are hardly light and far from expensive. I swapped out some wheels on an old steel GT mountain bike with a much lighter XTR hub wheelset and it was an amazing difference.

As far as addressing the OP's question, my brother picked up a set of Open Sport rims on 105 hubs that he likes a lot. Depending on how bad his current wheels are, that is not a bad option. I would just read reviews and look on eBay and find a decent wheelset.

One final point, I have new wheels for my bike, which I will get to, but my old 36 hole Mavic MA40's on Superbe a Pro hubs just keep going. They are not light, but it has never seemed to slow me down to where I just had to replace them. But for their era, those hubs are pretty silky... and they still are.

John

What is hardly ever discussed or quantified is the negative effects of the "weight race". Sure, on paper, a 0.5 kg saving on the wheels can save you a few 1/100 sec accelerating form 0 to 20 mph. But is the saving "free" in terms of efficiency? Are we just spending stupid $ on weight savings only to loose most of the gains somewhere else?

For me rotational weight really only came into play when riding within a pack consisting of A and B group club riders. These often can degrade into an unorganized gaggle requiring minute changes in speed as instantly as possible to prevent collisions. As there is almost no wind resistance until near the front, weight rather than aerodynamics was important, IMHO.

When I was testing the feasibility of using my distance roadie for light weight touring, I also used two different wheel sets that were different by about one pound in weight. I couldn't tell any difference in performance or effort.

Taking it a step further, I rode my touring bike unloaded on some of my distance routes. The weight difference between it and my distance roadie is 6.5 lb. with much of that difference in the touring bike's wheels and tires. Route times were not different enough to matter, easily within the margin of the roadie on a different day.

A wheel set that is just as true at the end of a hard day, or a tour is preferable to me regardless of weight, aerodynamics, or even fashion. Even my lightest wheel set had to meet this standard.

Brad

I think it's fairly simple.


it's more fun to try harder on a bike that responds better.


So it's possible to become faster than pure physics would account for.


And as it seems like some people are more sensitive to rider/bike interaction, it's probably possible that some experience even more unproportional results.


On dry roads, going from 1.1" slicks to 2.1" studded tires cost me about 10% in speed. But it feels like 25%


For me, ego or guilt can compensate for poor bike response.
Someone to chase, running late to something important, I can "easily" retake that 10%.


Since I don't have power meters, I can't say how much the heavier tires actually cost me in effort.
It's not enough to be clearly visible on the HRM though.

[MENTION=114951]dabac[/MENTION], I've been trying to put it that way, but some people don't seem to understand. I am most definitely faster on my faster bikes, and I know it's because the engine is putting out more power, but my slower bikes tell me not to bother, and my faster bikes urge me on, which feels good. More experienced riders can feel small differences which don't amount to much or any extra power transfer, but in feeling the differences, we pedal harder.

+1 and +1!

I said it rather simply - most of the effect is psychological.

True, but when you put it like that it isn't clear if you mean that the psychological effects of the lighter wheels lead to real performance gains or that any perceived improvements are purely imaginary. The former is actually a lot like saying the effects of a properly fitting bike are purely physiological. A change that takes advantage of the way that the human mind works to better adapt the bike to the rider is a genuine improvement.

I don't understand your analogy to fitting a bike, as other than comfort that entails measurable and often significant efficiency improvements, but if I had mean imaginary I would have said so. "I'm not arguing with your experience, ...it's mostly psychological.