Anyone have experience with their wheelsets (weight, durability...) or just purchasing the Stinger rims for a custom wheel build?

Steve Hed started building wheels out of his garage in White Bear Lake Minnesota about 20 years ago I would guess. They now have a large building in White Bear and now build frames, bars and wheels. Steve seems to be about a year ahead of everyone else on aerodynamic ideas pertaining to time trials. His wheels hold up as well as any of the top brands and I know they have great customer service.

They look better than all of the other ones because they have the best looking logo I have seen in a long time.

I have a set of the HED Ironman Jets. Steve Hed and his wife are great! They are very friendly, and their customer service is great. I have had a few problems with my wheels, though. Twice I've gotten a broken spoke during an Ironman race. Once the carbon hub cracked (not during a race). When the carbon hub cracked, they took the wheel, tried to fix it, and ended up giving me a brand new wheel - no charge. I like my wheels a lot. However, the wheels do seem to go out of true and break spokes more than other wheels I've used. I bought my wheels in 1994, so they have probably made many improvements since then.

good timing on the thread. i've been looking into the jet 50 for crits. would like to know if that's a better option than topolino AC29's for around the same price. not too worried about weight - more concerned about aerodynamics, and someone told me i may be hurting myself by getting the topolinos for crits.

any other information?

I'm looking for a new wheelset and are looking at the Mavic SSC SL wheelset and the Hed Jet 50 and would like to hear your opinion on the wheels. I'm going to be riding small races in hilly terrain - small climbs of up to 12 % and 1,5 km long.

Keep in mind that Hed Jets and Stingers aren't UCI legal- they haven't passed the rupture test, according to this page. Only the Alps are "approved":


https://www.uci.ch/english/about/wheels.htm

I have a set of Hed Alps I have owned for a couple of years. Very good wheels, my stricly unscientific testing seems to show me they give about .4 of a mile per speed advantage on flat ground over my Open Pros with Ultegra hubs. As far as weight I think when I got them they we were advertised at about 1500 grams, I never have weighed mine but weight weenies has them at about 1600 grams. Either way not bad.

I did crack my rear one where the spoke goes into the carbon on the drive side after only about 400 miles which has concerned me ever since. To Heds credit I sent it back after talking to them and they sent me back what appeared to be an entirely new wheel. Still I only weigh about 145-150 pounds depending on the time of the year so I was a little disappointed and still leary of using them too much. So they are stricly race day wheels now.

The Topolino's aren't as aero dynamic. I have a set. Their higher spoke count and the extra black moulding at spoke ends creates a bit of drag. But they're probably stronger - esp. strong given their weight. I saw a pic of a guy who had a run in with a car on his Topo's. The fork was snapped and the rim was bent up pretty good, but not a single broken spoke.