Caveman

Back to the OP's original question. I recommend ROL wheels. Pretty good bang for the buck IMO. I've been riding a set of their entry level Volant wheels for about 15 years. Still as true and smooth as the day I bought them. About $500. Unless you're a hard core racer or weight/aero/watt geek they're all the wheel set most of us need.

As to the thread drift regarding aero vs weight vs watts, unless you're racing, I mean really racing, most of that stuff doesn't matter hardly at all for an average rider. We go up hill, we go down hill, we ride in front of people, we ride behind people, we have tailwinds, we have headwinds, we have crosswinds and we hardly ever accelerate hard. We're riding not racing. Even if we're on a spirited group ride we're still not racing.

I'm all for learning bout techy stuff and I like cool bling bike parts as well as the next guy but for 98% of us wringing out the last .1 watt, wheel inertia and aero effectiveness doesn't matter one little bit. We just like to ride and we sometimes like to ride hard. Buy whatever floats your boat but realize that unless you're in the upper 2-3% of riders that have the ability to take advantage of these very minor differences it just doesn't matter. By all means buy expensive bike stuff. I do, but I do so knowing I just like the technology. I have no illusions that it's going to make any meaningful difference to how fast I ride. A little bit maybe but nothing one of my motivated ride companions couldn't overcome with a modicum of effort.

aliasfox

One theory I've read is that it's not placebo effect as much as it's an inertial effect. A lighter wheel is easier to get spinning, but a heavier flywheel will deflect less and coast for longer, which makes up for a lot of the difference. It's not 100% efficient (nothing is), but that energy that's spent accelerating the heavier wheel isn't completely lost. I've seen GCN's video about flexy frames as well - some of that energy does end up at the rear wheel.

Now, none of that changes the perception that heavy wheels are harder to start from a standstill, and we likely care about wattage losses over a short period of exertion much more than wattage gains over a longer period of rest (coasting).

aliasfox

This. My times on routes that I've done multiple times on my 19 yr old, 21.5lbs steel bike with old school wheels and brakes and my 4 yr old, 19lbs titanium bike with carbon wheels and discs are very similar. Whether or not I get a PR on a segment is more dependent on wind conditions, and how well I ate, slept, or pooped in the 24hrs beforehand.

Lighter wheels spin up nice. Aero wheels cruise nicely. Lighter is nicer, more aero is nicer. Pick what you like, and go for a ride :-)

wheelreason

Yes, but the above refers to the total weight of bike, rider, and everything else he/she may be carrying, not the couple of ozs of wheel weight delta. But there is a difference, no matter how slight or imperceptible it may be, so "yes, you are right"

himespau 

Does OP have a bike yet? What wheels came on it? In what way would you like to get better?

PeteHski

Yes that’s right. Lighter wheels might “feel” faster to accelerate, but it’s just a mind game with the weight differences involved. There are those who simply ignore the physics and actually think they are accelerating much faster with a wheelset that is a few hundred grams lighter. The reality is that aero performance is much more important against the clock if you really care.

From the Swiss Side analysis, 400 g of wheel weight was worth only 0.7 sec in rotational inertia on the crit course vs up to 80 sec for the aero difference! To put all this into perspective, 1W of extra power on the same crit course was worth 5 sec. So the aero advantage could be worth up to 16W, while rotational inertia is worth just 0.14W.

Trakhak

In the mid-'80s, I bought a pair of Hi-E's lightest (tubular tire) wheels - folded and riveted ultra-thin-wall-aluminum rims, minimalist hubs, tiny aluminum wingnut front skewer. If they weren't the lightest wheels on the market (and I suspect they were). they had to have been in the top two or three.

Riding impressions: they made the bike feel top-heavy, although I got used to that, somewhat. What I couldn't get used to, and what persuaded me to sell them on after a few months, was the slight but perceptible reduction in the momentum of the wheels throughout each pedal stroke. Slow down, speed up, slow down, speed up . . . .

Drove me crazy during time trials. Going back to my (much heavier) Campy/GP4 wheels was a relief.

DangerousDanR

Sorry folks, but the real answer to the OP's question ( "the best ALUMINUM road wheels for racing? Or at the least, for going fast when one is biking all by oneself?" ) is that aluminum wheels are outdated technology that survives as the low cost option. I have a set of Winspace D67 that are 60mm Front / 68mm Rear. If you want performance, that is a good place to start. They are about 1500 grams for the set. The rim brake version of these wheels are about 60 grams lighter.

So, aero or weight, it doesn't matter. The best aluminum wheels are carbon wheels.

Dave Mayer

Fast wheels for riding by oneself and fast wheels for riding in a (fast) group are 2 different things. On a flat ride by oneself, aero is indisputably the most important factor, up to the limit of getting blown around by side winds and crashing out. But on a competitive group ride, particularly with climbing, low rotational wheel weight rules.

Using Steve Gribble's calculator, a 183 pound (combined) rider going up a modest 5% grade at 15mph needs just over 360 watts of power. Overcoming gravity requires 270 watts, and wind resistance consumes 60 watts. Rolling resistance, as always, is a distant third-order effect. Mechanical losses are fourth order.

So dropping a pound on the bike and wheels may save you only a few watts, but these are watts that you really really need. You are already maxed out, tongue dragging on your front wheel, and ready to pop off the back. If you drop back 10 feet from the wheel ahead of you, you're done, suffering solo for the next hour.

This doesn't just happen once per ride, but on every climb, and exiting every fast corner. So rotating wheels up to speed is not a one-time per ride requirement, but is a critical necessity often hundreds of times per ride.

I think the naïve assessments here are coming from riders who don't have any pack riding experience, or just like thick-profile wheels because they look Kewl.

PeteHski

For climbing, only low total weight matters. The calculator you used doesn’t even bother with the inertial effects of rotational weight.

Swiss Side did calculate rotational inertia in their model and found it to be totally insignificant in all scenarios, especially climbing (<0.05 sec over a 31 min 7% climb). The effect of the 400g total weight saving itself was worth just under 7 sec on the same 31 min climb.

In your climbing example above, 1 lb of weight is equivalent to 1.5 W. No more and no less.

If there is any naivety here it is from you thinking that 1 lb lighter wheels are going to make you significantly faster.

DangerousDanR

I'm sorry Dave... Things are not as you believe them to be.
First off, I ride with a group four days a week in a place where there are no climbs but where a 20 mph wind is common.

Even if there were climbs, there is still that wind, and my 60 mm deep wheels weigh in at 1500 grams and the same brand 35 mm wheels are about 200 grams less.

And remember that I am not always back in the pack. I get to take my turn at the front taking the full brunt of the wind. The aero effects of the deep wheels overwhelm any benefit of less than half a pound of weight.
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mattcalifornia

Those look really nice, but I'm one of those people who refuse to run carbon wheels with rim brakes.

Kimmo

I can totally understand this attitude, as a hangover from the days when carbon brake tracks were still being figured out, but it's been pretty well sorted by now.

And assuming the resin matrix is up to the job, a carbon brake track is a much nicer thing than a sticky metal which likes to form gougey little chunks in your pads, and they seem to generate way less horrible filthy dust.

Furthermore, if the brake tracks on my Caden rims are anything to go by, the lower friction coefficient is a solved problem without the need for a textured surface, at least in the dry.