colnago62

Why did you use a 303 up front instead of a 404? If aero is best, why don't we see more dual disk road bikes?

gregf83 

Nothing to do with wheel weight.

znomit

The largest misconception by far is "I look great in this Lycra".

datlas 

I think the largest misconception in cycling involves sweating bananas...

frisbie17

I used the 303 front wheel due to handling. Nothing to do with weight. Cross winds impact wheels. I road multiple sets of wheels before purchasing in various conditions. Went with 303 front due to handling with cross winds.

frisbie17

Thank you. Exactly. See my post just above this one.

frisbie17

Too bad for you son. With my body... The chicks dig me in lycra.

frisbie17

Bananas are not the best pre or post ride food. Keep them out of your mouth and out of the sun. You will enjoy cycling much more that way. Sorry for your past experiences.

carpediemracing 

Your analysis makes sense. I'm definitely a peaky kind of rider that has nothing below the anaerobic stuff. Therefore I rely on short, peak power to stay on wheels. I have to draft most of a race and only see the wind when I absolutely have to see it.

Because I'm not the one dictating the pace I have to respond and respond immediately. Therefore weight becomes an issue.

In addition I also have no headroom in terms of FTP so doing, say, 280w for 20 minutes will get me shelled every day of the week. Doing 200w, I can handle it, barely. 170-180w and I'm comfortable. I've done 175w average in a pretty fast race (Tour of Somerville, Cat 2, 27.5 mph); obviously drafting was a major factor in my ability to hang in the race, and my lack of headroom is the reason why I waited to move up and ended up getting slowed down by a crash.

One thing I didn't emphasize but I should is that my lightest wheels also happen to be my most aero, generally speaking. The two sets of Stingers are lighter than any of my clinchers. I run a 75/90mm set of rims given the choice, even on windy days, because I absolutely believe in aero. The 60/60mm set are now my spares - I won't use them unless I have to. However I won't run the Jet 60/90mm because the 3 lbs penalty is just too much for me to overcome in a crit.

And in terms of handling I bought a Stinger 4 (45mm?) for windy days. I haven't even test ridden the thing, I haven't felt the need to use it. I'd want something 45mm or more shallow on a descent where I'll hit 50 mph in still air or 45 mph in gusty air (gusty = being passed by an 18 wheeler that's going 55-60 mph while I'm going 45, or something very gusty like that). For any ride where I'll hit wind like that on a descent like that I want the lowest height rim.

carpediemracing 

I appreciate the work/thought you put into your notes.

I wish I was better with math so I could put some calculations down, thoughts in numbers.

A typical acceleration for me on a Tuesday night takes me from 22-23 mph to 27-29 mph, and the bigger jumps are from 18-19 mph to 30-34 mph. This is happening about once every minute, about once a lap, 45-50 minutes typically, 60 minutes or more for the Tuesday races in 2010-2013. The Tuesday I looked up was August 12th, which ended in a field sprint. This is the course I race on weekly during the summer so it's a pretty predictable event for me.

In that race I had a number of spikes well into the 700w range with two 1000w spikes before the final 1150w sprint. I was hanging on by my fingernails in that race. If I were using 3 lbs heavier wheels my accelerations may not have been higher peak wattage (since I'd have been limited to whatever I could do) but they'd take longer, maybe a pedal stroke or three, especially the accelerations up to 32-34 mph. The extra power required to accelerate 3 lbs heavier wheels to those speeds realistically would have ended the race for me. I averaged about 200w for that race, my absolute limit if I'm to contest the sprint.

I was on light aero wheels. Light non-aero wheels would have been better, I think, than heavy aero wheels. The field was generally slower so there wasn't the sustained 30 mph stuff. Because of the overall weaker field there were more jumps/accelerations and therefore heavy wheels would have been a handicap.

In the P12 race heavy aero wheels probably wouldn't have hurt as much. Accelerations would start and end at much higher speeds (25->37? mph) so aero becomes really significant, and the sustained single file pace means that you often don't slow for turns like you do in the easier race.

frisbie17

What weight wheels do you consider heavy Aero Wheels vs. Light non-aero wheels? Just curious. I have never seen a 3 pound difference in wheels. My heavy Aero wheels weigh 1495 grams. Enve 6.7 Tubulars with Chris King hubs.

Please let me know. Thanks.

Stucky

The differences between decent-quality wheels- a few grams more or less; a tiny reduction in overall drag with aero wheels (vs. the main aerodynamic drag: The rider) are so small, it doesn't make any difference. Ride what you like; just realize that it's mainly about aesthetics. Regardless of what the studies say, the differences are so small as to be meaningless in the real world, unless seconds are important to you.

The fact that they need to do scientific studies in order to convince people, pretty much says it all- i.e. that there is little to no perceptible difference in the real world.

One of my bikes is aero: a Venge. I bought it because I like the look and feel of it. I laughed when the seller mentioned the supposed energy savings over a non-aero bike. The very idea that reducing the minimal drag of the bicycle, when the rider is likely 90% or more of surface area which has to break the wind, is ludicrous. [And I'm pretty good at breaking wind! ]

BoSoxYacht

my Stan's wheels weigh about 1275g, and are durable enough for everyday use. The tires don't cost an insane amount, and a puncture is cheap to fix.

frisbie17

Well played my friend. Not that I completely agree. I notice huge differences in wheel quality, depth and weight. Not all in Watts. Some in acceleration, handling and pure comfort.

frisbie17

Thanks. Good to know. About 200 grams lighter then my Aero wheels. Appreciate the response.

Stucky

That's a good point! -And something for which no study can account. Sometimes, I believe that we feel things which aren't really even there. Other times, perhaps we are sensitive enough to very small differences under certain conditions. But that's the thing I've noticed about cycling: A lot of it is purely psychological; and what isn't psychological, usually amounts to very small hardly perceptible differences- but none-the-less, those tiny differences can sometimes make the difference between experiencing "magic", or just plodding along on a bike. It's a very hard thing to quantify.

BoSoxYacht

But mine are far cheaper to use. $31 for a Michelin Pro4 vs ???

When using them for 12,000-15,000 miles a year, wear/cost is a concern for most.

colnago62

I wasn't asking why he didn't, I was asking why he did. Cleaerly, something other than aero dynamics was more important, like stability. It really is not very accurate to say that any one aspect of wheel design trumps all others with no regard to the intended use of the wheels.

frisbie17

For those concerned with cost. That makes perfect since. I am not concerned on cost.

BoSoxYacht

If my pockets were bottomless, my wheels would weigh even less.

achoo

A three pound difference in wheel weight?!?!?

Lordy, the difference in accelerating an extra three pounds of wheels has got to be a real-world 20W or more. And if your lightweight wheels are 75/90mm aero wheels...

What are those boat anchors made out of? These wheels - the entire wheelset - are about 3.3 lbs. Realistic, real-world "climbing" wheels are only 200-300g lighter than those November Rails.

I wonder how light can you realistically go even if cost is no object? Reynolds RZR 46s are what? 950g for a wheelset? And they're pretty much one piece of CF without real hubs. That's got to be hard to beat. The lightest rims around are probably about 250g or more - lightweight CF tubulars. 250g for a set of hubs is probably about as light as you can go. That's 750g without spokes and nipples. 10-12g for nipples is absolute minimum, and if you can find 3g spokes and use only 36 of them for front and rear, that's another 110g. 870g or so seems to be about an optimistically low limit on wheel weight, and that would be 16/20 spokes with really lightweight rims, very light spokes, and alloy nipples. How robust would those be? Could you even get rims that light in 16/20 drillings - Enve's 25 tubulars only come in 24/28. Would rims that light even be safe with only 16 or 20 spokes?

And even if you get wheels like that, you saved only 600g over a set of November Rails, just to pick one of many newer aero wheels.

OK, yeah, the Reynolds RZR 46s are probably somewhat close to being as aero as the Rails, but they're what? $4000 real-world price? And since they've been around a few years, I'd bet they're not as aero as the newer offerings from Zipp, November, and a whole lot of other wheel makers today.

No wonder Mad Fiber went out of business.

achoo

Aero wheels can reduce the power needed to go a set speed by 10 or 20W - easily.

That's more than enough to be the difference between holding on to a group or getting dropped.

achoo

If your wheels are already down to 1275g, you'd have to spend over $100/g to get down to about 1000g.

Dunno how much it would cost, but you could probably hire some F1 engineers to build you a 600 or 700g set.

MrCharlie

If my pockets were bottomless, I'd go pants shopping.

frisbie17

Don't want to brag or anything. But I make over 125K a year. I do not have kids. My wife and I do not concern ourselves with the cost of our hobbies. Sorry if you do.