PeteHski

For sure he would have been referring to wheel weight vs aero. For amateur riders 6% is usually around the point where lightweight wheels begin to offer a marginal advantage over deeper section aero wheels. For pro riders it can be as high as 10% inclines due to their higher power/speed.

PeteHski

I obviously meant time over a fixed distance. For example like in the SwissSide comparison of lightweight vs aero wheels. They looked at time deltas over a fixed climb.

Since we are being pedantic, speed = distance over time, not the inverse you stated above. Time over distance is actually exactly how I would frame the effects of weight on a climb.

Russ Roth

Top for me would be a velocity aileron which is a 28mm deep, 19mm internal width rim so it pairs nicely with a 25c tire, alloy nipples, pillar wing21 spokes with a chris king r45 disc hub, 28h rear, could go 24h front. You don't specify disc vs rim but I'd assume a new build to be disc. The wing21 spokes are 2.2 at the hub so an all day go anywhere wheel but with a lighter weight aero profile so good for speed, and kings are light and fast, and on steep downhills will coast as fast as you want to go. Not a prebuilt but as lock solid as any and should be fairly light.

Camilo

Best? Does anyone actually think there's a "best"? Lots of good though

Fox Farm

I would say Campy Zonda. For about 400 Euro in rim brake wheels, you can't go wrong

MaxKatt

I have to be pedantic and point that the sun doesn't actually rise anywhere, rather it remains fixed and we rotate around it.

Dave Mayer

All of the aero vs. weight analysis completely misses the 'elephant in the room': that during real performance riding (money is at stake), you are drafting 90+% of the time. Sure, if you are on a flat road breaking the wind, then aero matters, as you are struggling with minute-long 500+ W pulls. But most of time you are comfortably sheltered in the back coasting along at 100 W or less. So aero anything doesn't matter.

But the few seconds per hour that really really matter are during short punchy climbs and accelerations out of corners. You are completely maxed out and hanging on for dear life, and you have to bridge the 10 foot gap within the next 2 seconds, or you are riding solo into the wind for the next hour.

This is where wheel rotating inertia is critical, and the lightest possible wheel for the win: low-profile carbon tubulars of course. No discs - obviously.

PeteHski

This is just not true at all. Just for anyone who might believe this rubbish.

tomato coupe

Yep, pure nonsense.

Dave Mayer

Don't let the bike industry marketers and sales drones adversely steer your decision here. They are always attempting to facilitate customer bike inventory turnover, and press expensive purchasing decisions. I service many bikes every week, and you also do not want to buy something that irrecoverably binds you to your shop for formerly simple do-it-yourself maintenance items. As does hydraulic disc brakes and internal cable routing, and the new chaos of proprietary parts and 'standards'.

Dave Mayer

And BTW: Zonda's are great wheels, as are Fulcrum 3s and above.

PeteHski

…..or old biking mythology and cynical “Big Bike” conspiracy theory.

msu2001la

It's a shtick, right?

Kimmo

This seems to make sense; nobody's said why it doesn't.

Although if you want the fastest-possible accelerating wheel, I'd say it would be disc - a few more spokes on the front and a bit more weight on the hubs and frameset, but the rim could be lighter, which should matter more.

Mind you, my 49mm rim brake rims are 330g... How light do you need to go?

asgelle

Because drafting or not at reasonable speeds you're fighting aero drag so anything that reduces you're effort, even in a pack, will result in less fatigue later.

The fastest accelerating wheel will either be the one with lowest drag or lightest weight (regardless of how that weight is distributed) depending on rider power and road grade. The same as for riding at constant speed since bicycle accelerations are so low.

Kimmo

Um, in a pack, aero drag is relatively negligible, and the air is quite dirty (turbulent) around the height of the wheels, so that's highly debatable.

As for aero drag having a significant effect on acceleration, that's an interesting question, but it would only apply at higher speeds...

And the distribution of mass in a wheel has no effect on acceleration?! Lol. You must be smoking better stuff than me...

asgelle

Nope, just looking at the data (you might try it).

Kimmo

[citation required]

Polar moment of inertia, anyone? This is kindergarten stuff. How in F did that comment get a like?

asgelle

Let's go back to 2001 shall we? https://capovelo.com/ounce-off-wheel...eight-crucial/
Because some people progressed beyond kindergarten?

Kimmo

Come to think of it, aero aside, if the pack's speed only varies slowly, it might consume some effort to maintain a more consistent speed on really light wheels, and of course it does take more effort to maintain a given speed on a faster-accelerating bike. Lots of variables.

PeteHski

The thing is that the wheel mass is relatively low and bike acceleration is also a small value, even when sprinting. So when you do the calculations the power requirement to spin up the wheels is not very significant compared to the total mass of the bike and rider. It’s very trivial when comparing wheel sets that differ by only a few hundred grams.

Swiss Side ran some calculations on various course profiles.

https://www.swissside.com/blogs/news/aero-vs-weight

Wheel rotational inertia is trivial. You can spin these things up with your little finger on a stand.

Camilo

In other words, the old "rotating weight is more important than frame weight" is true in theory, but is actually trivial in practice given the actual weight differences in rims and the actual accelerations on the ride. I think I remember reading this - maybe on this forum - a while ago. Seems to make sense to me.

StargazeCyclist

Let me stir things up. For optimal aero the rim's external width should be slightly wider than the tire's actual width. A 23c tire is about 25mm wide on a moderately wide rim. I am not sure what aluminum wheel is wide enough (the closest I have seen is an Orinii rim at 25mm width 30mm depth and the 3T Accelero pro at 23mm width and 37mm depth).

Kimmo

Funny to think how much of the feeling of light wheels must be placebo then...

Kimmo

Is there any such thing as a modern deep profile in an aluminium tubular? Otherwise you'd be getting pretty heavy, but OTOH, apparently that only matters to your monkey brain...