hack

I've been thinking about grabbing a pair of these from far west for the TT bike. I've read some of the thousands of pages of info on them and in general the experiences have been good .. just seemed too good of a deal. I figure if it's on the TT bike and something goes wrong, I won't be taking others down with me.

UmneyDurak

Which wheels?

Reason I want 25mm wide is that my new race wheels are 25mm, and on new summer/race bike (that I still need to build ), adjusting brake width is PITA, and I am lazy. lol

canuckbelle

So...got both the Metron 55s and the Reynolds 32s. *shrug*

revchuck 

One can never have too many sets of nice wheels.

canuckbelle

Went with the Metrons because they're bombproof, and I'll be confident railing rough corners on them...and the 32s because they're light and can do smoother crits and the hilly RRs on them.

UmneyDurak

The weight of Metrons is suspect. The 81 tubular weight less then 55 tubular. o.O

I should weight mine seating in the box when I get home.

topflightpro

I'm debating whether to go eTap. I can get a really good deal on it, but I'm still running 10-speed on my bikes. I still have new 10-spd cassettes and chains. Granted, I could use them on my second bike, since I'd only be upgrading one bike.

And, since I don't have a compact SRM, I have been going with a Sram WiFli RD and 11-32 cassette for my mountain trips, so I would either have to run WiFli all the time or buy the WiFli RD too.

Any of you guys run WiFli all the time?

spectastic

wifli is just sram's version of the medium cage from shimano, right? the only difference would be that (provided they use the same springs) the longer arm would require more leverage to make the same tension on the chain, and as a result of a slightly less chain tension, the shifting suffers slightly. however, this different might not be noticeable, and they might use a stronger spring for the wifli. it depends

spectastic

I think the biggest weakness with those wheels is the braking surface. you won't be using that a whole lot for a tt. the other big thing, especially for tt, is aerodynamics. the wheels are getting faster, and everyone has figured out that wider rims are more aero. but these big companies have spent money researching these things. the cheap wheels don't really have that. personally it's hard to say how much of a factor that is. I mean gcn found out that the new zip 808 wheels save you around 25W compared to traditional box rims. the chinese wheels save probably closer to 25W than 0W, but who knows?

dz_nuzz

I ran WiFli all the time on my SRAM bike. Never noticed an issue. Personally I don't see a really good reason to not run it unless you are being really weight conscious about your bike. Gives you the ability to run larger rear cassettes if you need em which is a benefit in some of the races I did.

topflightpro

My concern was not about weight. More about how well it functioned with smaller cassettes.

I've run two different WiFli derailleurs, and Apex and a Force. The Apex was terrible. The Force worked very well.

revchuck 

Just a data point on tire/rim combinations - Specialized Roubaix Pro 23/25 tires on Hed Ardennes+ wheels measure 28mm wide. And they're pretty nice at 80f/90r too.

dz_nuzz

In that case: Yup, used a RED and a Force WiFli, both shifted fine. Although the SRAM red ones seem to be made in such a way that if you do a lot of miles it wears down the pin that retains the cage into the body of the derailleur. So be warned (If that pin gives way the derailleur cage will eject towards the spokes, cost me a wheel and frame once). Noticed that issue on two separate Red derailleurs and then I switched to Force.

Doge

What is the hardest drying tubular glue you know of? I'm going with Soyo so far. Anything else?

tetonrider

Kind of old news at this point, but I forgot to post.

These wheels were publicly announced last week: Cycling Weekly Roval article.

I was a tester for the wheels and have thousands of miles on them. They're a pretty worthy aero (and light) option. If anyone has questions, I might be able to help. I can certainly give first-hand experience that not many have (yet).

revchuck 

We just sold a set of these at the shop where I work. They're really nice. I'm waiting for the 32s to come back in stock since I'm too slow for taller wheels to be of benefit.

Wylde06

I wish deeper wheels would come with a higher spoke count (the rovals have 21(?) spokes). Im sure I would be fine on them but the former fat kid that I once was (still at 200 pounds) has me a little worried about buying deep section wheels

shovelhd

You should not worry. Today's rims and spokes can easily handle 200 pounds of hard racing. Be concerned about the build itself, not the spoke count. Buy name brand or custom built. Stay away from generic offshore.

ancker

And AFAIK you can't get a 21H Powertap.....

revchuck 

With the Roval carbon wheels it's pretty much irrelevant. I bought my Allez Comp Race in large part due to the fact that the rear (carbon) wheel was 24h, and I had a 24h Powertap G3 hub. When I got the bike, I found that the rim is designed to work only with 16 spokes DS and eight spokes NDS, while the Powertap hub is supposed to be laced 12 spokes double cross to a side. I ended up trading the CL40s for a set of barely-used Boyds which I could use the Powertap hub in.

UmneyDurak

So what is considered light these days? Not like super light climbing only wheels, but for general racing like crits?
How would these compare?
Front: 712
Rear: 833

Just the wheels, without tires or cassette.

dz_nuzz

I have had both a set of CLX60s (Sold to teammate) and currently a set of CLX64s (both clinchers). They are incredibly bombproof wheels. I would not worry about it. I am also a higher spoke count advocate, mostly because I feel that the weight lost is not worth the durability lost, but neither of those sets of wheels ever went out of true and I certainly put them through their paces and pinched them once or twice.

Anecdotally: Every time I took them to the local crit I managed to go OTF for the whole race on them. It was definitely the wheels (And the bike, skinsuit, helmet, and a whole lot of IAB. I was definitely the aeroweenie).

But yeah. My experience is that they are relatively light, aerodynamic, sturdy wheels.

hack

That's about where my race wheels are. I'm around 1575g total with a 20/24 build on 50mm rims.

Doge

The Mercury M5 Tubulars (50mmX25 wide) we got 4 years ago were 1110g/pair (bare). I did not know how light that was at the time, but did have them built with Extralite hubs. When junior ran them over a parking curb in Belgium I replaced them and the new setup came out to 1130g. He used those for everything. Crit, RR, cobbles, hill climbing and TT (Mass start legal bike TT).

The M5 clinchers same width and profile about 1,660 (mfgs weight, not mine).

tetonrider

My prototype CLX50s (50mm rims) were ~1,400g. The production version is lighter -- mine had slightly heavier hubs.

I think max aero has been hit (or close to it), so the focus now is on reducing weight and improving handling (and related to that, delivering comparable aero but better handling and lower weight by reducing depth).

There will always be a market for 64mm depth rims and such (I was going to say deeper, but the CLX64s really obviate the need for most everything beyond that).

The tri-spoke wheels are still interesting for particular use cases.