eithr

Training for my second two day double century ride (TOSRV in Ohio). Last year was my first time riding the event. I typically do a lot of riding throughout the year, outdoor and indoor. Last year, I took a bike break and trained for a Tough Mudder. Somehow that training plus about 500 miles of road training got me through the 200+ miles (managed 18.5 mph average the first day).

Last year I rode a 1987 feather-weight steel Bianchi Trofeo frame fitted to Velocity Deep Vs and a Campy 10 speed (integrated shifters) drive train. The rig weighs in at about 23 lbs.

I ride with a buddy, who is pretty competitive. He rides an alloy Allez. It was serious work to keep up with him last year. This year I'm doing bike focused training and hoping to show up with a lighter bike build.

I've acquired a Cannondale Synapse (alloy frame, carbon fork). Ultegra 6600 10 speed drive train. Currently shopping for wheels. Seeing a set of Mavic Open Pros and a set of Velocity Deep Vs in my price range. I love the Deep Vs on my Bianchi - very stiff, never go out of true and look so damn cool. Curious if the weight-saving of the Open Pros is worth the diminished cool-factor. Also curious if either one set might be more recommended for the distance and comfort.

Additionally - I'm about 5'6". Last year, because of the Tough Mudder, I was a fit 175 lbs. I'm aiming to be at 155 lbs by the double century this year.

Thoughts?

Homeyba

No. Stick with the deep v's. Aerodynamics trump light weight anyway.

Barrettscv 

Also take a look at Velocity A23 and HED Ardennes. The 23mm wide rim is light, strong & aero. I currently own the HED Ardennes, Velocity A23 and Mavic Open Pro and I rank these: first: HED Ardennes, Second: Velocity A23 and Third: Mavic Open Pro

eithr

I don't know much about the A23s, but see they are between the Deep Vs and Open Pros as far as weight and shape. The HED wheels are way out of my price range.

Null66

NICE BIKE!

Drool! Drool! Drool!

Bacciagalupe

Just to be clear... The bike is a very small part of the equation, especially when it comes to double centuries. Using a lighter frame might save you literally 10 minutes out of a 15+ hour event. See https://www.bikequarterly.com/BQPBPEquipsurvey.pdf for more details.

Rotating weight does have a little more effect than frame weight. I wouldn't worry about it, though, unless you know the course is going to be very hilly.

If you want comfort, I recommend a 23mm wide rim. That will allow you to use 25c's at a slightly lower PSI, a setup that will not incur any performance penalties. I happen to like the H Plus Son TB14's; there are lots of options out there.

I'd also pay close attention to your fit. You may want something a little aggressive in order to improve your speed, but I for one find that sitting a little more upright is more comfortable after ~5 hours on the bike. YMMV.

Weatherby

Put fast, comfortable tires on the rig. One of the cheapests to improve speed and fun on a long ride. I am playing around with Schwalbe one 700x25 and Challenge Paris-Roubaix 700x27 on 32h/28h A23 rims and 28h/20h 25mm Flo-30 rims, respectively. They both are real comfy and roll good.

Unless you are superfit, rolling resistence and friction trumps aerodynamics (assuming you would be doing a 12-14 hour double)...use the best built wheels of the two.....if you are shooting for say 10 hours, forget what I said.

chriskmurray

I will second this, the A23 is a fantastic rim, the slightly wider shape adds a bit of volume and really helps with comfort, which is pretty important over a double. They are pretty reasonably light as well given their strength.

I actually own two sets of A23's I like them so much.

eithr

Thanks for the thoughts on the A23s. My buddy had mentioned them before as well.

It's sounding like the Deep Vs are a no go... even though I love them aesthetically.

I know I can mess around, swapping smaller bits out, here and there, to improve fit, but I got some parts in the mail yesterday and started rough assembling the Cannondale. As current, this is looking a bit more aggressive than I was expecting. I might end up setting this aside for shorter competitions.

I am doing actual bike training this season. In the past that was enough to maintain a healthy back and forth competition with my buddy, despite the heavier bike and my typically outweighing him by 20-30 lbs. So, maybe I'll see better results on my Bianchi in the double century this year regardless?

We've talked about doing a 40 mile road race together. Maybe I'll reserve the Cannondale for that.

Carbonfiberboy 

Deep-Vs are fine. It's just possible to do a little better. If you want to order built wheels, I think it's hard to beat a set of Soul 4.0 for the price. I build my own wheels. My latest is a Kinlin 279 (23mm) rim with CxRay spokes.

Aggressive is not a bad thing for a double century. You might like it better. Position and fit totally trump details like wheels.

unterhausen

if you get the deep v's go with the woodgrain

lhbernhardt

Yeah, they do look good until the "grain" on the brake track gets washed out, then they look like aluminum rims with wood grain painted on.

The A23's are a good choice. I used them for Furnace Creek/Trona 353 on the fixie with 23mm tires. (Aside: If you're riding fixed at FC, your rims can be no higher than 25mm, hence the low-profile rims. You do have to adjust the brakes outward a bit for the wider rim, but if the brakes are adjusted for Deep V's, merely opening the quick release will accommodate the A23's almost exactly! (If you're using Ergopower levers (with QR) with Campag calipers (with no QR), you're out of luck. I like to run a Campag lever with non-Campag caliper so I get two QR's.))

I like using a lower-profile rim; less weight to carry uphill, less susceptible to crosswinds. Although the Deep V is not a really high profile, not like the 44mm-and-up carbon
fiber rims you can get. Higher profile rims also tend to be much stronger, so you can use fewer spokes.

If you get the A23's, consider using the Velocity "Veloplugs" instead of rim tape. Because of the width of the rim, if you use tape that is the least bit narrow, you could develop punctures where there's a gap when the tape doesn't completely cover the hole (the holes are slightly staggered). Veloplugs are also supposed to be lighter than tape. You might hear stories that Veloplugs don't work with A23's. They do; I've got four wheels, inflated to 120 lbs, that work.

Luis

seely

To clarify, we don't recommend using Veloplugs in our tubeless-ready A23 rims, which would be anything US-made onward. The deep, narrow trough of the tubeless-ready web doesn't allow the plug to satisfactorily seat, and will actually make the tires harder to mount vs. using two layers of our Velotape or equivalent. Therefore, we only recommend Velotape or an equivalent product (like Stan's).

Wilfred Laurier

rotating weight only makes more difference than static weight when accelerating
added rotating weight when climbing has the same effect as static weight

eithr

Not sure I follow. Are you are saying that rotating weight (wheels) can have a negative effect on acceleration, but not on climbing?

Steamer

he's saying there is no difference in how added weight, static or rotating, affects you when climbing (steady state).

anyride

Excellent link to the bike quarterly survey. I had not seen that before. Thanks for sharing!
c

Wilfred Laurier

like steamer just said
a pound added to your wheels will slow you down while climbing
the same amount as a pound added to your frame

Carbonfiberboy 

Conventional wisdom has been that a pound on the wheels = 2 pounds on the frame. I've often wondered about that, because physics suggests this is not the case.

Wheels are different from a frame in that their energy is composed of both forward momentum and angular momentum. Thus a heavier wheelset will cause a bike to accelerate more slowly than the same additional weight on the frame.

Many people climb standing or with a strong downstroke instead of pedaling circles. In these cases, the bike is accelerated with every pedal stroke. Physics says that you get the energy spent performing this acceleration back during the deceleration phase. However, everyone knows that a lighter bike with lighter wheels feels easier on a climb, more so than losing the same weight off one's body. Hence the desire for lighter equipment.

My guess is that the higher momentary energy output required of the leg muscles to accelerate the heavier wheels is not returned completely during deceleration. IOW, the peaks and valleys of muscular output are more pronounced. That makes one tired.

New tandem captains who are experienced single riders can be blown away by this. One can produce the same power or ride at the same HR as normal, yet be more exhausted in one hour on a tandem than one was by 2 hours at the same apparent effort on one's single. I think it's because the heavier bike resists momentary accelerations and thus places higher momentary loads on the leg muscles. A new captain eventually adapts to this and learns to pedal and apply power more smoothly, but the adaptation can take a long time.

Wilfred Laurier

when a heavy wheel is being ridden at a non steady state
like when standing to climb
the amount of extra exhertion required due to increased angular momentum
is minimal
most likely imperceptible

the only reason i can think of for a delta between the heavier wheel requiring more energy to accelerate
than the amount lost in deceleration
would be the fact that the drivetrain responsible for transfering leg energy into rotational energu
is not 100% efficient

otherwise
the extra energy required compared to a lighter wheel
is exactly equal to the difference in deceleration between the light and heavy wheel

Carbonfiberboy 

To do a reductio, one could hop up stairs, alternating legs, and taking exactly the same time as required to climb the stairs smoothly. Total energy required is the same, yet by hopping one reaches the top of the stairs much more tired, because one's peak output was higher. When it comes to muscular output, "energy" is not the same as classical physics implies, due to the cost of its production.

Racers, and not only sprinters, have always paid a lot of money for lighter wheels, even though UCI limits total bike weight. It's possible they know something.

In real life, the fact that the difference in difficulty of acceleration may be imperceptible, doesn't mean it doesn't exist, or have an effect over 20,000' of climbing on a brevet.

OTOH, I have always gone for aero over light weight, finding that makes a larger difference. Helium wheels were popular for a while, but one doesn't see them any more, now that light aero wheels exist. It's sort of a similar situation with aero wheels. Not a lot of difference in watts absorbed at brevet speeds, but there is some, and it adds up. First brevet finishers are usually on a light bike with light, aero wheels.

MetinUz

True, but the same guys would probably still finish first on a heavier bike, just a minute or two slower. I still remember last year's Devil Mountain Double, one of the hardest double centuries with almost 20,000ft of climbing. The lead group which started an hour after me passed me 5 hours into my ride, mostly racers on light carbon bikes. Another hour and half later, I was passed by a rider on a Rivendell Rambouillet with a rear rack. He would go on to catch the lead pack and finish in the top ten.

lhbernhardt

Not sure, but I think I have the US-made A23's. But the Veloplugs still work; haven't had any internal punctures, and the wheels were used in London-Edinburgh-London and at Furnace Creek, and the only tire problems I had were with the Vittoria tire I mention below:

BTW, I forgot to mention that the A23's (and probably other 23mm rims) will only work with certain 23mm tires (I would imagine they would work with any 25mm and larger tires). I found out the hard way that a Vittoria Corsa EVO CX will blow off an A23 rim at 120 lbs. But you can put a good 130 lbs into a 23mm Vredestein Fortezza TriComp on an A23 with no problem.

(At 175 lbs, I tend to disagree with those who advise using lower pressures in their tires. If I put anything less than 120 lbs into my tires, I will pinch flat. I also believe in putting 120 lbs into both front and rear - none of this "90 lbs front, 110 pounds rear" nonsense. Yes, weight distribution is 40/60 when you're in the saddle, but get out of the saddle and now it's just the opposite. And you want a softer tire on the front when you're climbing out of the saddle?)

Luis

eithr

Excited to share - I nabbed a set of barely used 3T Accelero 40 Pros. At 37mm they are deeper than my Velocity Deep Vs (30mm), but somehow much much lighter. In fact, these seem to be lighter than all the other options I was considering, including the Open Pros. They are good looking wheels... just waiting for them to arrive to start piecing this bike together.