I went to 50mm deep (Bontrager Aura 5 TLR) rims from basically nothing in depth before than.
Advantage:
- They are lighter, they spin up faster and with less effort as a result they climb easier, they sound nice when coasting (if you're into that) and they're aesthetically pleasing.
- There's really not a whole lot to aero wheels. Besides the TT disc wheels which are the truth in aero, most of the rest are more form than function. They look great, they look fast, they make you look like a pro.
The speed you're looking to pick up will come from increasing your power output or dropping weight. Nonetheless it's not that aero wheels give zero return. They "help" when the conditions are just right ... keep reading, I talk about that later.
- My rides are in the 20-26 mph range on flats so I'm guessing there is some aero benefit but the most gain would be more from the weight reduction of the wheels than the how well it slices through the wind up front and less low pressure at the back etc etc...
- What I've noticed with deeper wheels is that it feels "easier" and this is more of what I think translates into the increased speed more than the aero benefit. The aero benefit is found in a very narrow window depending on what direction the wind is blowing from and this is always in flux. Hint: crosswinds are not your friend.

Disadvantages:
- You really need to know what you're getting into when it comes to cross winds. I can't stress this enough. I've lost count of how many times I've felt the front of the bike twitch and jerk under a gust of wind from the side - or feel myself being slowing pushed from one side to another under a steady cross wind and have to keep correcting.
If you're not firmly holding the bike at all times basically this will cause an accident at some point. Kinda need to be awake now with these. May not be applicable to you in Flatrida but I've also had to slow down on descents as the wind started making the bike more unstable. Never happened with the original rims.
Mine are 50mm Front and Rear and you're looking at wheels that seem to be 60mm Front and Rear so it will be more pronounced.
I used to be able to sit up, hands off the bike and coast even on descents sometimes when I had the original heavy wheels. I had to give that up with the quickness.
- Second may not be a true disadvantage but it's a speed penalty due to a reduction in weight. I actually lost speed (about 5mph) on descents because of how much lighter my aero wheels were. The reduced weight gave me less momentum going downhill and my max speed was about 5 mph less on lighter aero wheels.

Ultimately what people don't tell you with "aero" wheels is they are only really useful in a head wind or tail wind situation i.e. your 12 and 6 o'clock position. Once that wind starts to come from 1 o'clock if start to suffer and at 3 o'clock or 9 o'clock, forget about it.

Ditched the aero Bontrager Aura 5 in favor of the climbing Zipp 202's. How these work I'm not 100% sure yet as we're not blessed with equatorial weather up north this time of the year. I've been on the trainer.
You may have your mind stuck on aero wheels and you probably won't overcome this bug or get it out of your system until you get it but I'd recommend looking into all-around or climbing wheels.

Also consider renting some aero wheels for a while. One of my LBS rents aero wheels for about $180/week - and this is in expensive NYC too so Florida should be significantly cheaper. Keep in mind these are full carbon sets that retail for over $2,000 so for $180/week it's actually not bad. If you can do something like that and really put some miles in I'd recommend that before purchasing anything.

The benefits from deep wheels are aero and not weight. Weight advantage comes into play with climbing and accelerating. But in most conditions, you go faster with aero over weight.

This is why I have yet to buy wheels. I get the bug and post here asking opinions which leads me back to the same conclusion I came to last year when I thought I wanted new wheels; They won't do anything other than look nice and possibly allow me to pick up a little bit of speed mostly due to their sound and feel which may make me pedal a tad bit harder. With that in mind I'm just going to wait until the time is right and either buy a set of aero wheels because I found a killer deal that I couldn't refuse, build a set of H+ Son's or Belgium+'s with my choice of goodies, or get a light factory built set like the Ardennes or Argents. In the mean time I do plan to rent a set of Assaults and/or Strikes just to get a feel for them and go from there, thanks!

What you're saying isn't entirely true. Aero wheels do give you a speed advantage. There are lots of tests with data that quantify that. Now if you mean really meaningful speed increase like 1 mph, the answer is no, wheels won't do that. One other thing renting wheels is a god idea. That will give you a god sense of how they feel and handle. But the speed improvements won't be something you can see or measure yourself. The differences are down to saving several seconds each mile and not minutes.

Bwahahahahahahaaaa

You like my sexy wheels! lmao

I just bought a set of Reynolds Assault, Disc/Tubeless... I need a second set of wheels (spares) and I want to differentiate the two sets. The Reynolds will be my pure road wheels, I'm going to slap 25mm rubber on them, and I'm going to slap some 40mm gravel tubeless on my Ardennes+.

The Reynolds & 25mm combo will be overall a bit lighter in weight (versus my 28mm & Ardennes+), and 11mm deeper in profile @ 41mm, than the Ardennes which stand at 29mm.

Another thing that the deeper profile supposedly provides for the heavier among us (I'm 200# @ 5'10") is it's a stiffer wheel.

Nevertheless, I don't anticipate too much of a difference between the two wheelsets.

I bought them because I want to dedicate a wheelset to off-road and basically get a feel for what the carbon/profiled rim brings to the picture. Reynold's does market the Assault as an offroad rim but...Why thrash carbon when you can thrash bombproof aluminium (HED)?

Hopefully next year I'll be holding an average of 190# and enjoying a commensurate increase in energy because of conditioning. Maybe I'll see that number this Fall which will be awesome.

Snazzy!:

those are some sexy wheels!!

for you disc brakes will provide the same stopping power.. but from what I am hearing carbon clinchers are not exactly the best at stopping. And so I am really apprehensive about getting carbon wheels

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

We gotta ride that Century+ I mapped in Harriman...Should be good for 100ft per mile... Greg, Alex...I bet David is going to be a monster when he gets back to the States. As usual I'll be a few minutes late. lmao.

From what I've experienced, braking in wet conditions can be a bit unsettling. During the first few seconds there may be little to no grabbing, but after a few seconds the water is shed from the carbon rim and the pads will grip the surface. I'm using Zipp's composite cord brake pads, so other pads may perform better in wet conditions. If you anticipate this slight delay, no big deal. But other than very wet conditions, braking is not an issue. Also, if you're doing many long, steep descents, I've heard overheating could also be a concern.

hey man, we definitely had to do that Harriman Century this summer.. everyone knows that sexy wheels makes you 18.32434% faster...

lol... better believe that at home I look wheel porn all night while saying "ooohhh ahhhh, yeah baby, I like that"

And I think that's the key point a lot of people miss when they become infatuated with aero wheels.

I don't agree. First, Because it depends on the time frame that's measured, by which I mean the wheels will not make you 1mph faster continuously over the course of a ride, but yet at any given moment, you could be going 1mph faster or more.

It all depends on what you do with the aero advantage; do you want to save energy (watts) or do you want to have more energy to put into going faster? Do you want to parcel out the extra energy over the course of a ride, or do you want to be fresher for a single, explosive effort?

I think that failing to understand that aero advantages are working for the rider all the time is the key point people miss. In this thread we've seen the claims that one has to be traveling at certain high speed averages to take advantage, as if it's only the ride total numbers that matter, and not that hard 5 minute effort that gapped you off the front and made you the first person into the regroup area, or that intense 45sec effort that let you nose across the finish first simply because you had that bit more energy and that bit less drag when you went digging.

Wheels are not some magic potion, but when you're putting it all together in your moment of truth, you need them on your side. Unless of course one just doesn't ride that hard, which clearly many here don't.

Aero advantages are working for the rider all the time - actually no, most of the time is more accurate - but what people fail to realize, especially casual riders like most of the people here inquiring about aero wheels, is that these "advantages" are so minuscule it's almost hard to quantify it or even justify spending $X,XXX on aero wheels to improve your performance on your club rides.

If you're getting them for the head turning & showstopper effect then please proceed, your LBS or online retailer of choice will absolutely appreciate the monetary contribution. However if you're CAT 4 or lower and think aero wheels is a missing piece in the puzzle .... then no, just no.

Ok. Let me make sure I understood you.

aero wheels provide an advantage that is so small it cannot be measured easily. Nobody understands this except for people who are Cat 3 or higher. People who don't race are especially mentally incapable of understanding this. Most of you who are reading this fall into this category. It is not worth spending $1000 or more unless you're a Cat 3 or higher. Then it is a critical missing link and becomes worth the money, even if you are a college kid who lives on Top Ramen. Thanks.

Thanks for clarifying.

Are you saying there's a moment where a shallow section rim is more aero than a deep section rim? Aside from stationary, I don't think so, and even if I'm wrong about that theoretically, I'd bet that in practice that moment doesn't exist out on the road; I've never seen anyone quantify aero-disadvantages, anyway. Lots of tests quantify aero advantages, though, so I don't know what you're talking about there.

As for casual riders, it's actually the slower riders who have the most to gain from aero wheels because they see higher yaw angles, and some wheels, like the Zipp 808s actually produce propulsion (negative drag) at wider yaw angles. Tour Mag's own tunnel data corroborated this, and Flo demonstrate this with their data as well. So again, I don't know what the basis for your claim here, is either.

Can you sketch out a scenario where a rider would be penalized (i.e. go slower and/or expend more energy) for using more aero wheels?

I think that you just don't thing the advantages are worth the cost to you, and that may be true, but it is not a legitimate basis from which to contend that aero benefits don't exist.

No, that's a simplistic, childish, and frankly irritating attempt at minimizing what I said, so no, you don't understand me - and based on the condescending tone of the way you wrote your message which seems intentional, I don't see a point in carrying a dialogue with you. Look at the way I've been discussing with Chaadster for an example of worth it dialogue.

Haha! Smack Ramen used to be the one when I was a kid! I've graduated to Maruchan; they've got classy flavors, like shrimp.

A shallow rim isn't ever more aero than a deep section rim, I never mentioned anything about that.
I also never contended aero benefits don't exist - in my very first post on this I wrote about the the advantages of aero wheels.
All things being equal, a rider with deeper section wheels would be penalized more in a straight 90 degree crosswind. Tests quantify only the advantages because they're trying to sell you something.
The advantages are worth the cost depending on (1) the size of your budget, and (2) what you're hoping to achieve with the purchase.
If you have an unlimited budget, more power to you. If you believe it's worth it to be marginally quicker on your non competitive rides by using aero wheels when there are probably still many other areas of your cycling that can be improved (through training for example) for significantly better performance then more power (meter) to you.

Let's not forget the entire point of this whole thread, and that's OP.
First, OP to me seems to fall into the category of someone who is looking for an upgrade but not on an unlimited budget.
Second, OP doesn't also seem like the purpose of this upgrade is to win races or take advantage of "that hard 5 minute effort that gapped you off the front and made you the first person into the regroup area, or that intense 45sec effort that let you nose across the finish first simply because you had that bit more energy and that bit less drag when you went digginng." ... to quote you in post #62 .
Hence the entire purpose of me posting was to encourage OP to consider a wider range of wheel options besides aero wheels.... which is why, in my very first post, I heavily suggested OP rent an broad range of wheels.

Since good alloy nom-aero wheels can be lighter than deep aero wheels, the minimal aero benefits of the deep wheels are probably negated by the weight penalty.

As a recreational rider, who times his rides, I can say that I am not one iota faster on my Venge (which has aero wheels; bars; seat post; fork; and frame tubes) than on my Klein, which has no aero parts/no CF parts. (I didn't buy the Venge for it's "aero-ness"- but rather just because I like the way it looks- I wasn't expecting it to be any faster).

For serious racers, where a few seconds count; and where you want to be on a level playing field with your competitors, aero might provide some benefit.

For those who don't mind spending a lot of money for "fashion" and aesthetics.....if you like the aero look, then knock yourelf out- just understand that you're not buying performance- and after all, why would you want to? Personally, if I wanted to buy performance, I'd just get something with a motor. Since cycling is about human-powered vehicles; and the bicycle is already ridiculously efficient at transferring our our energy into linear motion, I want my performance to come from my body's increasing strength and endurance. My choice of bikes is mainly about aesthetics and feel.

You are faster but it's not enough to be apparent. Someone needs equipment and controlled conditions to measure that. All those things your Venge has quite a few watts difference per lots of studies

Exactly. It may technically be faster- but not to any noticeable degree, unless one is counting seconds. The Venge might save me 20 seconds on a 34 mile ride- who cares? It's imperceptable- and so negligible, that just a tad more effort on one hill alone, would accomplish the same thing on another bike. The only place it would matter, is in a race, where one is doing max effort continually, and that 20 seconds would mean the difference between winning or losing.

As I said, I bought the Venge just because I like it- but had I bought it with the hopes of it doing something for me, I would have been sorely disappointed. The only benefit, to a recreational rider like myself, is in the aesthetics.

right. ^^^

and who voluntarily goes on a 34 mile ride in order to save 20 seconds. might as well just walk the last 100 yards and call it good. or start 20 seconds earlier.

but i get why people spend all this money for nothing. (i saw a guy in a late model Corvette the other day, sporting some of the most gawdawful chrome rims you've ever seen. it was obvious to me the guy had some extra money left over after he purchased the car. he should have just bought a nicer car ). i really do. i did it when i bought my first couple of adult bikes. i didn't know better is all. i remember i even bought some Phil Wood, and Campy record stuff. imagine that!

experience turns us into poor consumers, from a retailer's perspective, i guess.

Incorrect. The performance advantage of deeper wheels increases with yaw angle. It's the apparent wind angle that counts. Riding 25mph with a 10mph crosswind yields a yaw angle of around 22 degrees. Yaw angle decreases with rider speed. The only time you're likely to see a 90 degree crosswind is if you aren't moving. In the graph below the red line is from a set of Mavic Open Pros:

Nice graph, supports what you're telling me, thanks!