Strange wheel weights
 

I just built two wheels for my main bike. Built to be heavy duty with 36 Alpine III spokes, double-wall Mavic XM317 rims (559 mm) and a Schmidt generator hub front, and an XT rear hub.

I've weighed all parts separately before the build, including the quick release.

Front wheel:
Rim: 443 g
36 spokes: 229 g
Schmidt hub: 609 g
36 brass nipples: 32 g
Total: 1313 g

Rear wheel:
Rim: 441 g
36 spokes: 229 g
XT hub: 441 g
36 brass nipples: 32 g
Total: 1143 g

Now, for a planned road bike later on, I have decided on Mavic Aksium wheels. Front wheel is obviously pointless to compare, but the rear is another matter.

The rear Aksium is stated to weigh 1060 g (no idea if QR is included in that weight). That rear wheel has 24 spokes. Subtracting 1/3 of the spoke and nipple weights from my rear wheel, brings the total weight down to 1056 g! That's 4 g less than the Aksium, when spoke count has been "equalised".
Sure, the spokes are a bit longer, and the rim is larger in circumference, but that increase in size would only add about 60-70 g for my wheel.

So, the difference between a heavy-duty 26" wheel and an entry-level, low-spoke count, semi-light-weight 700c wheel is about 50 g when size difference has been accounted for! They'd better be more aero!!! :D

that's the name of the game these days. it's a lot easier to market something that appears more tech like a 30-mm+ profile rim than explaining rotational weight or when aerodynamic benefits really matter.

From Sheldon Brown

The Great Spoke Scam: In the early '80s a clever marketeer hit upon the idea of using only 32 spokes in wheels for production bikes. Because of the association of 32 spoke wheels with exotic high performance bikes, the manufacturers were able to cut corners and save money while presenting it as an "upgrade!" The resulting wheels were noticeably weaker than comparable 36 spoke wheels, but held up well enough for most customers.

Since then this practice has been carried to an extreme, with 28, 24, even 16 spoke wheels being offered, and presented as it they were somehow an "upgrade."

Actually, such wheels normally are not an upgrade in practice. When the spokes are farther apart on the rim, it is necessary to use a heavier rim to compensate, so there isn't usually even a weight benefit from these newer wheels!

This type of wheel requires unusually high spoke tension, since the load is carried by fewer spokes. If a spoke does break, the wheel generally becomes instantly unridable.

As with most everything in our little corner of the Universe, there ain't no free lunch;)

Sure, I'm aware of that, in a sense. The whole point is to have more aerodynamic wheels, in my opinion. Extra weight isn't much of a problem really. A heavier rim won't be less aerodynamic, but more spokes will be. That's the way I look at it.

But I'm still surprised that the difference was that small. And I used a heavier rim. There are rims that are so much lighter that a scaled-up wheel would be lighter than the Aksiums. Now, the Aksiums aren't anywhere near the lightest wheels around, but still... :)

I wouldn't exactly consider the Mavic Aksium wheels to be "lightweight".. heh, heh... ;)