Originally Posted by
WhyFi
Yup, there are also marketing and lawyer's fees - this *is* Specialized that we're talking about.
Seriously, they way that they handled the marketing and the message on the first iteration of these wheels doesn't make me feel any better about them. It was painfully obvious that they'd made a product that failed their own design parameters and, instead of owning up to it, they insulted the intelligence of anyone paying attention by retconning their intentions, building themselves up as being the smartest people in the room and throwing said parameters/technology under the bus.
I agree the marketing BS was laughable and easy to see straight through, but they were backed into a corner. Had their marketing been truthful (i.e. Sorry guys these rims are tube only because we accidentally made them too flimsy to be safe tubeless) then I doubt they would have sold many!
For me there is an important takeaway here. Do ordinary recreational riders (who are not being paid to take risks) really need to have the absolute lightest possible rims with the risk of compromising safety? Pushing the boundaries like Roval did here seems a bit pointless outside of the pro-peloton (even perhaps within it). So I would always choose a wheel that is specifically engineered for endurance and take the small weight penalty. Espeically if their test protocols are a bit dubious.
As for Roval, I think they just did what any of the other big legit manufacturers would have done in the same scenario. The lower tier budget brands and Chinese clones would have probably just ignored the whole safety issue, which is another big takeaway for me.