terrymorse 

Yesterday, I ordered a pair of Winspace HYPER 23 SE R33 rim brake wheels. $1080 with shipping and a discount coupon code. Reported weight is 1256 grams.

These will replace my 12-year-old Reynolds 32 clincher wheels, that weigh a beefy 1399 grams.

I expect I will be 143 grams faster on the new wheels, obviously.

Steel bearings. Ceramic bearings would have cost $299 more, for a savings of 30 grams. A sucker deal.

Intake

terrymorse Gongrats on your new rims ! Very nice price/specs and beautiful wheelset ! Almost pull the trigger on drives 40D ! Hypers are hookless?

terrymorse 

No, Hypers are hooked:



I'm not going anywhere near a hookless rim.

Intake

EricF Yes i know this matters most ! Just wondering if someone has notice such a thing and have the answer "armed" to give it

Troul 

might have to ask GCN.

bblair

It depends.

Are you a racer looking for "marginal gains" so that extra 2 seconds means a podium finish or back in the pack? Then sure. Maybe.

Are you a recreational rider stopping at the cafe midride for pastry? Hoping to get there before all the cinnamon rolls are gone? Then absolutely worth it.

Intake

bblair Yes ! Iam the second

For now iam close to racing zero aluminium

DaveSSS 

I don't think rim or disc was mentioned, or max tire width. I've got BTLOS 44mm profile rimmed wheels, 25mm IW, hookless, no spoke access holes, to use with 28-32mm tires. They've got a free freight offer right now. Mine cost $767 delivered, with premium rims and Bitex hubs. Extra light costs another $60.
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Intake

DaveSSS i ve mentioned disk brakes ! I just dont trust hookless ! Maybe its better ! i dont know ! You have any Superstar photos?

Troul 

I'd opt for hooked given a choice. Also, I'd go for tubeless (without holes in the inner rim channel) to not require tubeless rim tape... Not a real deal breaker, but it does remove the need for another component when sealing up leak points while increasing the strength of the wheel a little bit. Wheel builders probably hate dealing with it, but that's just my thought on that last part.

SoSmellyAir

Not seeing many reviews on Winspace hubs; have you seen any?

PeteHski

If you know your weight and power output, it is actually very easy to calculate how much time lighter wheels would save on a climb. For me, a 0.5kg saving would be worth about 20 seconds on a typical 1 hour climb. So not much really.

terrymorse 

Hambini covered the hubs on their review of the Winspace LUN Hyper 65 Carbon Wheelset.

Fredo76

With respect to light wheels, tires, and tubes, the performance advantages come during acceleration. If you are racing, or training with others competitively, you will feel a difference if the components at the circumference (rims, tires, tubes) are lighter than you are used to, anytime you are required to accelerate hard. For steady-state riding and climbing, saving weight at the wheel circumference has no more effect than saving weight elsewhere.

terrymorse 

But the acceleration advantage is so small that it's not worth considering.

Light anything is better when climbing. Light tires & tubes reduce rolling resistance (usually), which is important in all situations.

mschwett 

I changed a bike from aluminum wheels with tubes and gatorskins to carbon wheels, tubeless, with GP5000s, and also went to a much lighter cassette. Total weight savings was 659 grams - almost 1.5 pounds of rotating mass. That’s still less then 1 percent of the total weight of the bike and rider, and when i compared how fast i was up a climb I’d done dozens of times before and dozens of times after, i was around 1.5% faster, which may be accounted for by a combination of being excited at the new wheels, the better ride quality, the lower rolling resistance of the GP5000, and the .75% weight reduction. It was a 12 minute climb and i was about 10 seconds faster, averaged over many many climbs.

however, and this is what’s more important to any amateur rider, IMO. The bike FELT way better, enough so that i wouldn’t buy another carbon bike with aluminum wheels.

Intake

PeteHski Stiffness doesnt play a bigger role to this? my stock wheels vs RZ has 200 grams diff. which is nothing

I read that a light wheel accelerate faster but you have to push to keep the power cause its deaccelerate faster / compared to a heavier wheel .

SO if i upgrade to RZ i will have stiffer / more durable wheel and maybe better riding quality, but not faster lol

aliasfox

I have two bikes that I ride regularly, and both bikes got wheelset upgrades in the past couple of years.

Bianchi went from Mavic Ksyrium Eqlupes to Mavic Ksyrium S
- Effectively the same depth
- 300g lighter
The bike feels faster and livelier, and with new brake tracks, the rim brakes are much more responsive than before. Until recently, I’ve set my best times on one of my standard routes while riding the Bianchi with the new wheels. I don’t think new hubs impacted things much, as the old ones still roll smoothly.

Lynskey went from Vision Team 30 to Light Bicycle R45s laced to DT240s
- From 30mm to 45mm depth
- 400g lighter, maybe more
From standing starts and in traffic, the new wheels transformed the bike from wooden to sprightly. The new wheels also make me a believer in aero - much easier to maintain speed on the flats.

When comparing the two bikes - my position on both is fairly similar (slightly lower on the Bianchi by a handful of mm), and both are metal tubed (Bianchi is steel, Lynskey is bigger tubed titanium) - meaning neither is aero. That said, coming back on back to back days on the same route last week, I was more easily able to hold above 20mph on the Lynskey, and had to work harder to barely graze 20mph on the Bianchi on the last 3km of flats. That said, I only have a power meter on one of the two bikes, so I would take this anecdotal evidence with a very large grain of salt.

If all of your routes have long steep ascents, or you have in-town traffic to deal with, lighter wheels are more playful.
If you’re going out for longer stretches of flats, deeper wheels definitely feel more aero.

Fredo76

Hmmm. I suppose it depends...

bblair

Great Chris Horner Youtube video called, "Don't Spend Money to Go Faster," or something like that.

aliasfox

There's not much of a measurable difference, and this has been shown a few times that I know of. My understanding is that yes, lighter weight spins up marginally faster, enough so that a rider can feel it for accelerations. What means is that you're putting less energy in to go the same speed - the flipside of that is that you get less energy out of the system when you coast. The difference in flex and energy lost to heat is minimal, therefore any energy that one puts in to accelerate a heavier wheel gets saved as potential energy - or momentum for coasting. So unless your accelerations are immediately followed by braking (by which the excess energy is bled off into your brakes), any time you lighten up on the pedals, the energy used to accelerate the heavier wheel is returned to you - it just doesn't feel nearly as exciting. Another example of this is the flywheel on a stationary bike: the heavier the flywheel, the longer the bike spins after you stop pedaling.

The lighter flywheel mass of a set of lighter wheels is also noticeable, but when one is coasting or soft pedaling, adding in a tiny bit more power to maintain speed is a less of a burden then when one's already putting in 80+% from a standing start/sprint/climb. Also, despite a 1400g wheelset being more than 1/4 lighter than a 1900g wheelset, it's still about 0.5-0.7% of the total system mass of bike + rider + accessories going down the road - which again goes to why the benefit for momentum isn't as widely felt.

So yes - both statements that lighter wheels aren't really measurably faster, and yet feel more fun, can be true.

Fredo76

aliasfox thanks for your gentle and thoughtful reply. My apologies for quoting your post to argue with another member.

I am left with trying to model how a simple statement relying on the physics involved can get so much pushback on a cycling forum. My guess that it involves a lack of experience (either with disparate wheel weights, or mass-start competition cycling), or a mis-understanding of the measuring or modeling involved (especially involving simplifying assumptions), or simply internet feral-pack behavior (not meaning yours!).

My free advice to modelers of mass-start competition (has anyone done that?) would be to simplifyingly ignore any notion of the energy being 'returned' to a competitor because of the 'flywheel effect'. Unless you can store it up in an actual flywheel to be released when wanted, it is effectively lost and gone forever. There is another cyclist on here who regularly points this out and just as regularly gets attacked for it, but he's right, and the internet-learnin' silliness that follows, some of which is very condescending and mean-spirited, is dismaying to behold. (Again, not yours, thankfully!)

Heavy wheels feel sluggish because they are! Trust your senses, everybody.

aliasfox

Based on the roads we're familiar with, terrymorse is practically my neighbor. I try not to get into beefs with him :-P

If one's riding style is always on, 100%... then correct, you'll never get the flywheel effect, as you'll be on the brakes as soon as you get off the pedals. But that's never true... or maybe that's why I haven't captured any Strava KOMs.

6thElement

I was on 240's with their R45 rims for ~5 years running 25mm GP5000's tubeless. I just built a new bike recently and got 240 EXP's with their new AR465 rims which have a wavy profile. Running 28mm GP5000's and they're so damn nice. Much less impacted by the wind when descending fast. Highly recommended.

My wife changed from 240's on R35/R45 to 240 EXP's with their AR375/AR465 rims and is similarly thrilled with the ride of the new wheels on her "old" bike. She clocked 49mph on our last ride which was her fastest clocked speed.

edit: forgot to mention that the new wheels don't need tape as there's no internal spoke holes. Probably the easiest tubeless install I've ever had on any bike, the tyres aired straight up.

DaveSSS 

I've still got one Superstar bike, plus two Yoeleo R12. All have 25mm IW hookless rims and Pirelli P-Zero TLR tubeless tires. They work great and require no rim tape. I just sold my Zipp 303s wheels. They needed new tape after 2 years.