valygrl

I'm getting the rear built up with a Powertap from Wheelbuilder.com and the front is from a team sponsorship. So no great deals to share, sorry.

coachboyd

I am in Greenville all the time. We live very close to Paris Mountain but if you were in town for USPro then we would have had our van parked at the bottom. A good friend of mine (the Sram and Zipp rep) holds a big party at the base of Paris every year during the race.

valygrl

Though the weight is appealing, the tire gluing time & expense and the possibility of being stranded many miles from home with a flat tire have taken tubies off the table for me. Though I guess there's always PitStop. And I would be one of those people who paid someone else to glue my tires.

I'm really thinking that the technology has advanced enough to make carbon clinchers ok, and for those rides where I know in advance I'm riding in the rain or doing a really long crazy-steep descent, I'll just use my current wheels, which are OK.

nhluhr

But...
The 404 rear wheel is NOT AS STIFF as the 303 rear wheel and your comment about "more aero" is not really helpful since you haven't provided any context - the 303 has less drag than the 404 in crosswinds with 15 degrees or greater angle of attack. The 404 only wins in near direct headwinds.

merlinextraligh

^ I see what you're saying from the Zipp charts you posted. I'm just having trouble fully accepting that because it's counterintuitive; i.e. ceterus peribus, deeper section equals more aero. Although I realize that aerodynamic results often don't come out the way you'd think.

Enve's in frame testing shows a more clear cut advantage for the 404's over the 303's.

Of course they show a bigger advantage for Enve.

https://www.enve.com/cache/DOC126_Web...20110606083437

Note the 303's are absent from some frames because they don't fit, which is something the OP might wnat to check on with her frame.

valygrl

Yeah, I'm going to go to the shop and try to demo the 303s in my road frame, but I did measure my frames last night and they both should be OK.

I just talked to Zipp, the 303s are stiffer than the 404's "because they have more spokes"--- but I'm having a custom p-tap wheel built, and could, in theory, tune spoke count. Hmmmm.

Unlike probably everyone else here, I'm looking for *less* stiff not more, as I do LONG rides and am very small, so the chance of me deforming a wheel laterally with my massive guads is, like, next to none. I think my max power ever was under 600 watts.

DropDeadFred

we passed by early in a silver Honda Element and had one of the reps throw something like 40 of those Bam Bam sticks through our window lol. We managed to catch the race in all the good spots start, middle, climb and finish. I enjoyed Greenville a lot.

ilovecycling

That is interesting. I never took the time to look at the aero performance charts because quite frankly I don't care too much about aerodynamics. I'm more concerned with road feel, durability, crosswind stability, etc. I just assumed that because the 404s are deeper they would have better aerodynamics than the 303s. So the 303s are more aerodynamic? More of a reason to go with the 303s then, IMHO. As for the 303 being stiffer, that surprises me too. I'm curious what kind of stiffness though..lateral deflection or vertical compliance?

valygrl

Zipp chat dude said both lateral & vertical. He also said the 404's are more aero (can't remember the number, but it would make a difference in a 40k TT), and also, that the front wheel contributes 68% of the aero-ness.

DropDeadFred

the 303 is not more aero...look at the chart, it only has a higher aero advantage with crosswinds, which makes sense, since its shallower, most of your resistance comes from the front since that is the direction you are moving and there is a constant resistance of whatever mph you are moving, which makes the 404 more aero.

valygrl

I saw something somewhere (slowtwitch? weight weenies?) about how the % of time you spend in a particular yaw angle depends on your speed. a lot of the aero charts assume a high speed (25 or 30 mph), which means you are spending a lot of time at the 0-15degree effective yaw angle, but if you ride slower (I do!!) you spend more time with a larger effective yaw angle, 15-25. My typical windy plains ride is north/south with a prevailing west wind, and I'm usually riding 15-20mph on those rides, not 25-30.

DropDeadFred - are you affiliated w/Zipp or just have their logo in your sig?

himespau 

I wonder if there's a way to call one more aero than the other overall based on the amounts of various types of wind you're likely to run across. Probably depends on where you ride, your speed, your size and strength, and too many other factors to generalize, and, even if it was possible, it would take a math major to figure it all out. Just you know, for the average rider, is the effort spent fighting the crosswinds going to be more or less of an impact than headwinds.

coachboyd

You also have to look at height above the ground to determine actual wind speed. At ground level wind speed always equals zero and exponentially rises. If the weather center is claiming a wind speed of 15mph that is taken at 10meters above the ground. At 1-2 feet above the ground the wind speed will be much less than this (around the area of 3-4 mph). If the wind speed is 3mph then yaw angle is likely going to be very low.
If you took a sample of yaw angles from every second of a typical ride (not just out and back) it would be a bell shape curve centered around 0degrees of yaw angle. You have to factor in the wind speed will be constantly changing speed and direction and you are constantly changing speed and direction. The wind you see at any moment will likely be different 200 meters down the road.

bostongarden

I have the FC 404s (2011) and am very very happy with them. The person who sold them to me switched to the FC 303s and he loves them. I hope that helps

The nice thing is that, imho, you are going to make an excellent choice no matter which way you go. Nevertheless, I understand the desire to get the wheelset
that will be best for you.

valygrl

Demo'ing 303's tomorrow.

HokuLoa

super cool. Who from? Oh, and where are you gonna test em?

valygrl

Boulder Cycle Sport. LHC Ward P2P Raymond.

nhluhr

Odd coincidence - my shop's doing a Zipp demo all weekend.

valygrl

:/ turns out I am demoing a 303 front and an Enve 65 rear, as the 303 read does not fit in my frame -- or at least, 2mm clearance on each side was deemed not enough by the bike shop guy. They didn't have a 404 rear to demo.

soma5

The 404FC are pretty good in crosswinds. I am quite a bit heavier than you (I weigh 135 pounds after a big dinner) and ride the 404s. They are my race day wheels for the most part, but I will ride them on team rides sometimes. I demoed the 404s and 303s and decided on the 404s.

The combination you will be demoing won't tell you a whole lot about anything except that combination, but you will be able to see that the wheels are quite stable. One thing that I notice about the 404s is that when I get a crosswind, it's more like a tabletop being pushed instead of the wheel turning. I get the wheel turning effect more with my Velocity A23 wheelset. I feel that the 404s are more stable for me.

sbxx1985 

Are you riding for a BCS supported team? If so, did you get the email this afternoon?

valygrl

Yes and yes.

sbxx1985 

Is wheelbuilder cheaper?

StanSeven

When you are looking at wheels like 303/404, I think wheelbuilder choices are about other than price - like getting individal needs met that stock wheels don't

DropDeadFred

read it closely...its a joke =) I do own quite a bit of zipp stuff....but purely
edit: no idea why I quoted this........
are you on an sl4? i know the 303 wont fit the venge or sl4