[QUOTE=kosmo886;21548822What’s the advantage of going with carbon wheels? [/QUOTE]

Lighter for the same profile, easier to manufacture for a specific shape, arguably stronger than steel or aluminum.

Which is easily achieved when you stand up on the bike and sway it side to side.

What’s your point here? That there is absolutely no perceptible difference in feel between wheels? You really think people can’t feel a wheel flexing when they throw a bike around? I’m saying you can, and that video shows why. I am far from the only person in the world who thinks so. Why do you think Lightweight wheels sell for 5 grand despite being ugly as sin?

My point? I made my point in my first reply.

A better question would be, what's the point of your irrelevant tangent that doesn't address my reply nor the OP?

I must be missing something. What is your definition of “ride feel”? Mine is “the things you feel when riding”. OP asked about the difference in ride feel between carbon and alloy wheels.

You say there is no difference in ride feel.

I say there is a difference in ride feel.

And explained why, and I uploaded my source. And all you have is a bunch of weirdly hostile remarks that seem willfully ignorant. I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Please explain where I went wrong.

Ride feel is how the bike rides. Not how much your wheels flex when you apply significant torque.

You went wrong in thinking that you having flexy aluminum wheels has anything to do with my response. And you went wrong in thinking that I somehow owe you some in depth explanation of my response to a post that wasn't yours. If you don't understand my posts, then stop responding to them and your bewilderment will alleviate itself.

Yes. My bike rides more sluggishly uphill with deep carbon rims. I feel that. That’s ride feel. This thread is specifically about wheels. OP has alloy wheels and is thinking about getting carbon wheels. So I’m sharing my experience and opinion about that upgrade.

That opinion differs from yours, does it not? Or do you now agree that different wheels have different feel? Is that somehow completely irrelevant to the discussion of ride feel when talking about a wheel upgrade?

You’re being deliberately obtuse at this point, so I’m done. You have a weird way of dealing with simple disagreements. You couldn’t actually refute my point about how wheels do affect ride feel, so you’re spouting all sorts of nonsense for god knows what reason. Good luck with that.

No, you're not. You're starting an argument about something that was never even addressed.

You mean I have a way of giving succinct responses to irrelevant, misguided posts that then attribute false pejoratives to said responses? A bit circular there, but okay. It'is not like you're not dropping fallacies in each successive post, anyways. Like I said, your confusion can be easily alleviated. Hope it soon is.

Not real clear about the definition of ride feel, but deeper section carbon wheels can be a little more difficult to handle in side winds. Deeper section wheels also can be slower on steeper climbs where the speed is in the single digits.

I actually think that is their biggest flaw. Mine is just chewed to hell, and the lockring thread is starting to strip. (Lock-ring torqued to 40 N x m with calibrated Park Tool torque wrench.)

I would recommend Chris King. I haven't had this issue with the steel freehub body.

Yikes. Good to know. Thanks. Hopefully they will replace it under warranty?

fwiw, I have a 17-year old Dura Ace hub with a ti freehub shell, and it's still in good shape.

It's out of warranty. I have two sets of WI hubs. The other one has a Crampy freehub. So far it is fine. I think the old Shimano design invites problems. A non-steel freehub and an ape like me only makes it worse.

Today I forgot my 1.3 lb saddle bag with tools, tube, etc. I noticed absolutely no difference whatsoever climbing 3,000 ft. Saving weight on the freehub just seems silly.

Ti freehub bodies are fine, unless you get careless and under-torque the lockring.

I think it is important to qualify comparisons when discussing statements like sluggish uphill with deep carbon rims. Compared to what? For example I a set of shallow aluminum Mavic Askium's that came with a bike with some middle of the road tires and cheap butyl tubes (now just collecting dust on my wall because I don't ride them at all anymore). However, I did ride them a few times. I also have a set of Zipp 404's with latex tubes and Conti 5000 tires. The Zipps are extremely more responsive than the Mavics. The Aluminum wheels are the sluggish wheels when compared to the Zipps. The Zipp combo weights 300-400 grams lighter too. The Zipp hubs roll better, the latex and conti 5000 also roll better. The zipps at 58mm depth fly up hills and a significantly better "ride quality" compared to the shallow aluminum rims. However, that doesn't necessarily hold true for all wheels. Back in the day I had set of Mavic Helium aluminum wheels that rolled very nice and also were great climbers. Not the most robust wheel though. I would take the 404's over them any day as an all rounder.

Right. I think my alloy wheelset and carbon wheels are about the same weight. This is with the same tires, same tubes. Same number of spokes too. Both have Sapim CX-ray spokes in the back. But my carbon rims are LB, which probably isn’t as nice as Zipp 404s. I wouldn’t know.

I don’t really consider 404’s deep carbon wheels. I feel like they are a good sweet spot in terms of depth and weight. I have an 808 wheelset and a Boyd 90mm wheelset that I use on the velodrome. I consider those deep carbon. Depth like that is perfect for the track because mass start events always begin at about 15mph or more and the wind issues are not as severe. I couldn’t imagine climbing with either set. Compared to wheels in the 50mm range, they are boat anchors in terms of weight.

I agree if you going to compare it to something like an 808. I have an 808 rear for my TT bike and I guess I really don't consider it an option for a road bike under general riding conditions. I don't know anyone that rides something like an 808 on anything except time trialing and track. The 808 is not a fun wheel on big climbs that is for sure (well actually neither is a TT bike :) ).

I have seen crit. specialists ride them on fast open courses. I would hate to have to accelerate them on a tight course.

sure have to agree with that....:)
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...484613a46.jpeg

Curious about this. Any other differences besides material? Flange distance? Lacing pattern?

Going from some fancy (to me, anyway) handbuilt aluminum wheels with 8:16 lacing on a wide hub to the LB AR45 (pretty sure it's 2x?), I felt like I really noticed the difference in tires/tire width more than anything else.

Radial front, 2x rear on both wheels. The DT350 hubs on my LB have a slightly narrower flange width, specifically on the NDS side. Probably to keep the tension higher on the NDS side. So that could potentially be a reason why. But I highly doubt that the lauded 350 hub would feel that much worse than a cheapo bitex RAR12. Initially I thought it was the bearing seals, but the feeling never went away. Felt like I was suffocating uphill. Mine are the AR56 btw

It’s less about material and more about depth IMO. The deeper the rim, the bigger the “lever arm” that is acting upon the hinge point (the spoke/rim intersection) and the stiffer the rim needs to be to compensate. The AR56 is insanely light for how deep and wide it is, so I’m not super surprised.

Very interesting. I did some google and found this article that explains what you're describing pretty well. I guess now the question is whether the aero benefit of the deeper rim is enough to compensate for the additional springiness of the wheel. Did you notice that you were slower on the climbs?

No not at all. It’s purely a feel thing. When I’m seated, it doesn’t even register. But some climbs around the bay area are truly brutal. One climb near my house is 11+% for over a mile. I end up throwing the bike around a LOT because I’m too slow to stay seated on steep climbs. So I’m probably torquing the wheels more and more frequently than some people.

Nice to see real data. Clearly, just moving to higher wheels won't make you 50% faster. Might make a difference on climbs and such but on the flats, once in motion, a bike will tend to stay in motion!

In a vacuum with no gravity. I've never been able to ride in those conditions.

Yeah, that was a bit of a hyperbole. At least this guys result implies that on a flat ride, a major difference in wheel and bike weight does not impact speed much.

To be fair, I estimate about a 1-1..5kph difference in speed between the Venge/deep section wheels and the steel bike with box section wheels - but the steelie is also a slightly more upright position, and i am pretty sure that contributes a good share to the difference as well.

Just the wheels? Well under 1kph, IMO - you'd be lucky if it is 0,5kph. Even on climbs, a 250gm difference between wheels on a 80kg bike + rider is.. what, a 0.3% weight difference?

That said, all my bikes have carbon wheels on them. They just look bad-ass :)

i guess some folks think they look really cool.. but idunno.. i like the OPEN PRO CDs i had from colorado cyclist the best of any wheel set i have ever used... i dont think the weight savings is that big a deal unless you are fighting for seconds in a stage race... club cyclist dont really earn true bragging rights for winner of the limit sign world championships..or at least they never seem to last that long. but i guess they look cool... to some..

I can see 10W translating to roughly 1 mph at 18.5 mph.

250g on a 300m climb is 75kJ, and at 20km/h equates to 3.75W. I would expect to notice that if you're already sitting at or near FTP. Even if the speedo doesn't show a lot, it could easily be the difference between normal heading up the hill and "man, why is it so hard today"...

Maybe you have a different CdA than i do, because 10W most definitely doesnt get me an additional 1mph.

As for your assertion that you can "feel" an extra 0.3% system weight when climbing at FTP, and that this extra 0.3% weight is the difference between feeling normal and "why is it so hard": if I am riding at FTP, I am riding at FTP and it is going to feel very hard no matter what - the only thing that will change is the speed - by about 0.3% (let's assume a linear W/kg math for now). Maybe that is the sort of difference that you can notice, but i sure as hell cannot.