Plan 2020 - Wheels

Track Wheels

Other than the rider's position (meaning the aero drag of the actual rider), the biggest aero improvements can be made on wheels.

Track wheels are different from road wheels

First, they have to be secured using a nut and bolt type system. They cannot use a quick release skewer.

The rear dropouts are horizontal, meaning you can move the hub fore and aft. Most road dropouts are vertical so no horizontal movement - you need much less force to hold a wheel in place in a vertical drop out versus a horizontal one. Because of that, although there are front wheel skewer adapters, in the rear it's generally best to have a very strong nut-bolt system, else the wheel will move under pressure, usually shifting sideways so that the tire rubs the frame. Alternatively some dropout screws, designed to limit axle movement within the dropout, will keep the wheel from moving. With such bolts a rider might opt to use a lighter nut-bolt system.

Second, track wheels have two threaded sections on the rear wheel, one for a single cog, with a reverse thread on top of that for a reverse thread lockring. The cog screws on normally, and when you pedal your pedaling action tightens the cog. Believe it or not, it's possible to unscrew that cog, if you backpedal hard, or skip and skid the rear wheel while backpedaling. Therefore the reverse thread locking is critical - it prevents back pressure from unscrewing the cog. It actually tightens if you manage to start unscrewing the cog. Also, for safety reasons, it's illegal to use a hub that doesn't have a reverse threaded lockring.

Although old fashioned road freewheel hubs are threaded the same as a track cog, the lack of a reverse lockring bit means you can't use a simple road freewheel hub on the track. Rear track hubs are unique.

Rear track wheels are also very narrow, 120mm from outside the locknut to outside the locknut. Rear road wheels are much wider, 135+mm. So you can't use a road rear wheel for track without a lot of work. You'd need to narrow it up and add that reverse lockring thread.

Front wheels are easy. They are the same width at the axle as a road hub, 100mm, and with a track adapter skewer, you can use pretty much any road front wheel on the track. There aren't any extraordinary forces on the front wheel so no issues using a skewer adapter system that clamps with a force similar to a quick release skewer.

Rolling resistance, comfort, and rigidity

Since trackies aren't worried about comfort, you can get away with quite narrow tires. Narrow tires are generally more aero, so I'll need to get a few 19mm and 21mm tires.

Also, since tracks are relatively smooth, and tire deflection is wasted energy, track riders tend to ride with a lot of air pressure in the tires. No need for big, cushy riding tires. They'd only absorb some sprint energy better utilized to driving the bike forward.

Likewise, because tracks tend to be sheltered a bit, control in crosswinds is less critical. U shaped rims aren't as critical, and in fact, for indoor tracks, many riders will use a disc front wheel, something completely unmanageable if riding out on the road.

Apparently, and I've yet to verify this, lateral stiffness is a thing, with significant G-forces acting on the rider on the banking. My early T-Town memories don't seem to reflect this but I was probably going too slow.

Wheel Aerodynamics

I did some extensive research on track racing wheel aerodynamics. This basically meant watching countless track videos on YouTube while riding the trainer. It also involved perusing some of the time trial forums to see exactly what people are using, what they've found to work.

I also wanted to work within the experiences I had, meaning riding in some wind (2020 Nationals is at an outdoors track), front disc wheels (I had a 24" front once), and my budget. I love cross-tailwinds with my tall wheels because I can fly. I figure the same applies for the track, but I'll get about 80 meters of flying on the longest of straights before I'm turning again. I know front disc wheels are hard to control. And my budget it limited.

Remember that the front wheel is responsible for about 2/3 of the aero drag of the wheels. It also has a massive effect on handling, since it acts as a lever to turn the bars. The rear wheel is less important, but it affects handling very little. On the road my approach has been to use the tallest rear wheel available (90mm for the Stingers) with the tallest front wheel I can handle in moderate wind (75mm for the Stingers). In really windy conditions I'll use a shorter front wheel to improve control, dropping to a 45mm front wheel or even a non-aero 26?mm wheel.

With that in mind this is what I've gathered, with a "Wanted" list for each section.

Disc Wheels

The fastest wheels are lenticular (lens shaped) disc wheels, meaning they're a bit wider at the hub than at the rim. Viewed from above they're sort of lens shaped, like a flatter contact lens. These sail best when in an indirect headwind and they sail really well in a cross-tailwind.

The problem with a front wheel is that it catches massive air, like massive. On a 24" disc wheel I got blown across about 10 feet of road, almost into oncoming traffic, and I was going only 25 mph. With a full size 700c disc wheel, I would image it's only really usable indoors, with zero wind. My online findings seem to confirm this. Therefore a front disc will be for a different year, when Nationals is indoors, or, if conditions are absolutely ideal, for 2020.

Basically I'll see if I can pick up a lenticular front disc for a steal. Otherwise I'll let it go.

For the rear wheel, again, lenticular discs are fastest, but the flat discs (Zipp) are very close. For me I think it'll be virtually indistinguishable. The biggest issue with Zipp rear discs is that the track axle is pretty much nonexistent, unavailable. It's like the unicorn of wheel parts. List price is almost $300 so it blows the budget out of the water.

This meant I was searching primarily for semi-affordable rear disc wheels, like Corima and Fast Forward. If I could pick up a Zipp track disc I'd do that, as long as it was substantially cheaper than a lenticular.

Wanted: Lenticular rear disc. If a cheap Zipp rear disc shows up, so be it. Less expensive lenticular disc front wheel (since it won't be used much, if at all, in 2020).

Budget: $1000 lenticular rear, $650 flat rear, $900 lenticular front. I'd want a second rear wheel, probably a bargain flat disc wheel, as a spare.

Three and Five Spoke Wheels

With front discs being virtually unusable except indoors, I need to have a low spoke count front wheel. The fastest front wheel on the road has been the HED3, previously known as the Specialized TriSpoke. Fortunately for me this wheelset was my secret weapon back before aero wheels were a thing, and I have both a tubular front TriSpoke and a clincher front TriSpoke.

(I have a TriSpoke rear freehub and a 105 freehub fixed gear adapter but I learned that the TriSpoke uses a Dura-Ace freehub so the adapter doesn't work. I'm waiting to use that fixed gear adapter though as it's a unicorn item.)

I looked into 5 spoke front wheels but found that although they were stiffer, they weren't necessarily faster. If it was all about speed, the TriSpoke should work.

The only drawback with the TriSpoke is that it's flexible. How that affects me on the track I'm not sure, but for now the most cost effective approach will be to use the TriSpokes I have now.

Wanted: nothing, but if TriSpoke is too flexible maybe a 5 spoke front wheel.

Budget: nothing

Spoked Front Wheels

The final wheel for my track racing quiver would be a spoked front wheel, like the wheels I use for the road. I have a couple of them so I figured if the TriSpoke wasn't rideable I could use my Stinger7 front wheel.

At the worst I might invest in a Stinger9, a 90mm front wheel. I don't know if it would get me that much extra speed - it probably wouldn't - so the 7 should be a good fallback wheel. It's be fine in a mass start track race since that's what I use in mass start crits.

Plus I can use a 7 in a crit. I'd really want a 7, with the TriSpoke or a front disc my preference on the track.

Front wheels can be secured using a bolt-nut combination that looks like a quick release skewer without the lever. I have one set already, may need to buy another couple fronts. This means I can buy a quick release hub front wheel without worrying about track legality.

Wanted: A second Stinger 7 or a Stinger 9.

Budget: $500

Trainer wheel

Believe it or not I don't have a clincher track rear wheel, meaning one with the fixed gear and the narrow spacing of a track bike. I have two rear track wheels right now, one so bad its hub consists of steel sheets pressed together; I won't use that one. The other is nice, a 32H Suntour Superbe Pro hub wheel. It's laced with a narrow tubular rim right now.

I'd like to get a 24H clincher rim, a cool looking one with stickers on the side (no braking surface), and lace it onto the hub. It'd be 16 spokes on the drive side, cross 2, and 8 spokes radially laced on the non-drive side. I've done this before when building 24H rear wheels for the road and it works great. I just have to work out the spoke lengths for such a build.

This wheel would be my warm up wheel, trainer wheel, and ultra emergency spare rear wheel.

Although I'm not sure why I'd need a spoked clincher front wheel, I have a Eurus front wheel with a new rim, sitting in my inventory for literally 10-12 years. I'll lace over the new rim - it should work as a wheel for rollers, maybe for warm ups, or out-on-the-road experiments.

Wanted: 24H disc brake clincher rim

Budget: $100

Conclusion

I have some wheel shopping to do.

Plan 2020 - Dolan DF4 Frame

The first step in the whole process was to get a frame. Track frames are different from road frames, and I'd want the frame to be UCI compliant as well, something my beloved Tsunamis are not.

Here's the big thing with track frames: the bars are really narrow.

Wait. Bars? You were talking about frames. Why the bar comment?

It all comes down to that. Nowadays a regular track bar is 33-35 cm wide. In contrast, on the road it's normal to see 40-42 cm, although that's coming down a bit. I'm running 41 cm bars on my Tsunamis, and they look narrow under me.

The ultra narrow track bars cause a problem though. The reach to the bar is shorter, due to the reduced width. If you're reaching 3 cm to each side that's 3 cm of length. If your bars are 3 cm narrower on each side, you have 3 cm more arm "left over".

You need a longer frame.

Therein lies the problem for me. I'm already pushing it with my odd proportions, short legs, long torso. My frame is basically a 50 cm (high) frame, a size which normally comes with a 52-53 cm long top tube. However my frame has a 56.5 cm top tube, and, additionally, has a steeper seat tube angle. That pushes the top tube forward, effectively making it about a 57-57.5 cm top tube. And my head tube, at 12 cm total height, requires a 3 cm drop stem.

I can't commission another Tsunami because they're not UCI compliant.

So I Googled all the track frames I could find. I looked at their frame geometry charts. I needed to find a UCI compliant 50 cm seat tube frame with a 74.5-75 deg seat tube angle, a 57 cm top tube, and a 12 cm head tube. It had to be aero. It had to be a real track frame, not a fixie bike.

And I needed to get it done for less than $2000 shipped.

Dolan DF4

The only frame I could find was the Dolan DF4. A world class frame, no less, raced professionally. Aero design. 50 cm seat tube. 57 cm top tube. 74.5 deg seat tube angle. 12 cm head tube.

It was exactly what I needed.

And with a pre-season discount, it fell way below my $2000 budget, shipped.

Dolan DF4 - size 57 (!!)

It's their second largest size frame.

First, the frame is UCI certified. That means I can do official events, like Worlds. At the very least I know that the frame is okay for Nationals, which is my focus.

The second most important feature of the frame is the geometry - it almost mirrors the Tsunamis. Very long top tube (0.5 cm longer), steep seat tube (1 deg shallower), and short head tube (same height as Tsunami). Although I'll have to move my saddle up within the seat post clamp, I'm at the UCI limit on the Tsunami for a sprint bike (zero setback to nose of saddle) so I should be fine on the Dolan.

The third most important feature, because without it I'd have eliminated it from consideration, is that it is aero. No vintage round tube stuff - this frame is meant to go fast.

After that it's all gravy.

Aero tubing, aero seat post

The aero isn't obvious until you turn the frame. The frame gets real thin real quick.

Cut out for rear tire, but tire will not be as close as on the Tsunami

In my research I've found evidence that a cut out will save a fraction of time, and help a less than optimal rear wheel. In less scientific findings, I think it looks cool. Either way, this frame has a rear wheel cut out.

Rear dropouts.

I need to order spares.

Carbon fiber isn't very strong - it's just a plastic reinforced by carbon fibers. So contact points under pressure tend to be constructed of metal inserts. The rear dropouts on a track frame see a lot of abuse, so those are metal. I forgot to order spares. I'll want to get some dropout screws while I'm at it.

Potential Weak Points

I saw two potential weak points in the frame when researching online. The first was that the rear dropouts are pretty short. This helps handle a problem the longer dropouts had, where the weight of the rider bend the top part of the dropout up. This caused the opening to widen, making it difficult to secure the wheel. If you look at the geometry picture in the Dolan site, you can see the older DF3, with the super long dropouts.

The problem with a short dropout is that you can't move the wheel very much to take up chain slack. This means getting multiple chains for various gear combinations.

Since I prefer a very, very short chain stay, I'd probably want to keep the rear wheel as forward as possible anyway, so this "weakness" becomes a non-issue for me.

The second weak point is the seat post clamp. It's a wedge clamp with a very small bolt, with a very high torque rating. There are reports that it's virtually impossible to tighten enough to deal with jolts, like when you hit a seam on the track.

The workaround is pretty easy - you put a piece of pipe in the seat tube. Cut to the right length, the seat post will just sit on it. I have ideas for that "pipe" as well, so that critical cutting shouldn't be an issue.

So that's the frame. Next up, the wheels.

Equipment - Rotational Inertia

I'm revisiting the wheel inertia thing, this time with a suggestion. At some point some time someone told me that I shouldn't complain about something unless either I could do something about it or if the person I was talking to could do something about it.

In other words if your boss, say, doesn't give you a bonus, you shouldn't go complain about it to the counter person at McDonalds. You should instead either talk to your boss or talk to someone that your boss may go to for information or advice. (This is assuming your boss or boss's confidant doesn't work as a counter person at McDonald's.)

I put up a post a little while back, a stream of conscious kind (aren't they all?), and I didn't have any suggestions for a way of proving what I think is true. In the article I basically say that I think wheel inertia makes a difference but I can't prove it.

The post I put up garnered a lot of response, mainly theoretical. No one said anything like, "Dude, I am totally with you on the weight, but being a physicist I have to say that the numbers just don't prove it. I went out with two very different weight wheelsets, did some testing with my SRM, and I found that I couldn't find any difference in power requirements between the two wheelsets greater than the margin of error."

Instead there were those that felt inertial wheel weight made a difference (but like me they couldn't prove it) or those that "proved" that inertial wheel weight didn't make a difference (but no one said that using an 800 gram tire in a 8 turn, 1/2 mile course crit didn't hurt them in the least).

I also received some private responses via email. One person, a racer and a mathematician (the best combo in this case) suggested a blind test. He suggested using lead tape (used to weight tennis rackets and golf clubs to improve swing power because apparently inertial weight does matter there) I should have someone weight a wheel (or not). To keep the system weight (i.e. overall bike weight) the same, I'd need to carry the equivalent amount of weights I don't use when I ride the unadulterated wheel.

I decided that it would be more practical to use two identical wheels (which I happen to have). I'll weigh one down with lead tape, not the other, and have two identical bottles, one with the same amount of weight in it as the lead tape, the other with nothing. (I have to work on the bottles - I don't want to have the weight rattling around). This set up assures me that the bike weighs the same. The only difference will be the inertial wheel weight.

With this set up I'll do repeated acceleration tests. I'll have a helper switch out the front wheel and bottle (and you'll see who this helper will be in just a moment).

I'd weigh and swap both wheels if possible but I want to make the helper's job as easy as possible. The rear wheel is slightly more difficult to put in and it also has the cassette, and I may be able to tell the two cassettes apart. I'll just load up the front wheel with a lot of weight - I'm hoping at least one pound, and I hope to be able to get two or three pounds of lead weight under the clincher base tape.

Ironically I don't care about climbing - I know that even very light wheels don't make me climb faster in a group. When I blow up I'm just as slow, and I can't go fast enough to keep up with everyone without blowing up. This is ironic because the math proves that there is a small but substantial gain when using lighter wheels in an extended climb.

(As a rider that loses 30 minutes over a 2 hour climb on a leisurely ride, reducing that loss to just 29:30 over that same climb doesn't interest me. I'm already taking a 33% hit to finish the climb - I need to chop 20 or 30% off my climbing time, not a half percent here and there.)

I'm only concerned with how wheel weight affects me on flatter roads with a group (i.e. a crit) which is where all this debate occurs. I do crits all the time and find that heavy wheels really affect me, even if they're more aero than my lighter wheels.

Zinn theorizes (and I do too) that part of the light rim preference in racers comes from the idea that lighter wheels allow you to get shelter quicker. I think this is a big part of the inertial thing - getting to shelter quicker and more efficiently. Drafting someone will save a lot more wattage than any aero wheel out there.

In fact when I used a much higher inertia bike (a tandem, with another rider on it), I found that I couldn't maintain a close gap to the riders in front of us. I learned the hard way that I tend to stamp the pedals once or twice, soft pedal, and repeat over and over. With 350+ lbs bike/riders unit (the bike alone is about 40 lbs), my normal "pedal stamp" wasn't enough to close a foot gap quickly. Instead of snapping shut the gap to the rider in front, I found that we struggled for 50 or 100 meters to close that gap, and after a few miles of that we were off the back.

Other theories that I have include my somewhat rough pedal stroke (apparently it's common even with top riders), where I basically have two power strokes per pedal revolution. I can even out my pedal stroke when I'm riding easy, but under pressure there's a distinct "on/off" of power, two surges per revolution. Like the pedal stamping in the draft, the surges need to translate to forward movement immediately. This allows me to stay in the draft and coast when I don't need to surge.

"Coasting?" you ask. "What about the flywheel effect? Wouldn't a bit more weight keep you going better?"

That's true in the case of a time trial or some other very steady, very smooth, very solo ride. In a crit, though, I tend to have to brake going into turns, even when I try and tailgun (to avoid braking, i.e. coasting up to the turns). At my most aggressive tailgunning race, I ended up soft pedaling behind the group for a while before the best tailgunning turn. I found that I still had to use my brakes here and there, and if the group accelerated unexpectedly, I had to push hard to make up ground.

If the flywheel effect was useful in a criterium then everyone would weight their wheels. Mavic's first disk wheel, the "Comete +/-" had removable weights around the wheel (the yellow circle decals on the wheel covered the weight openings). You could add weights to increase the flywheel effect. Apparently this wheel wasn't a big hit although it would make a great wheel for the rotational inertia experiment. A friend had one and used it devoid of weights - I think you could bump the wheel weight up to 2500 grams (about 5 lbs) by filling every circle with a weight.

Let me summarize my thoughts so far:
1. Wheel inertia exists. There are wheels with less inertia than others. Generally speaking I think less inertia is better.
2. Inertia matters in acceleration. Less inertia accelerates more quickly.
3. Acceleration happens in different, unexpected places, like drafting another rider, or accelerating to find shelter from the wind.
4. Although wheel inertia and aerodynamics matter, drafting matters more. The more a rider can shelter in the draft of another, the better off that rider will be later in the ride/race. The most aero wheels will not save as much energy as the energy a rider saves by drafting others.
5. If lower wheel inertia allows you to draft quicker and more efficiently, it will save you exponentially more energy than what wheel aerodynamics can ever save you.

My idea to test all this is to have a Keirin type start - a moto goes by at a set speed, the rider starts accelerating at a given time, and the rider tries to get to shelter as soon as possible (i.e. the moto's wheel). I haven't worked out the logistics but if the moto goes by at about 30 mph, it'll take a good 100 meters or so to get into shelter. The "sprint" is over when the rider reaches the moto.

Using a power meter that records the power, speed, cadence, etc, using the same bike, gearing, rider, and just swapping the different front wheels (identical appearance but with one being significantly weighted) and bottle (ditto on appearance and weight), it should be pretty straight forward to see if there's an acceleration curve difference, if there's a time difference with each effort, etc.

By using a weighted wheel and a non-weighted bottle for the "high inertia" set up and a non-weighted wheel and weighted bottle for the "low inertia" rig, the overall weight of the bike should remain constant. The bottle weight is reasonably low on the bike too, so it shouldn't affect the rocking of the bike too much (attaching the weight at the saddle would make the bike feel sluggish when rocking the bike back and forth).

I believe the inertia math. It makes sense. I just think it's incomplete. I think that it doesn't take into account a rider's pedal stroke (typically not smooth, especially under hard efforts), the energy savings while drafting (especially when the rider is already at their limit), and the energy expenditure when fighting to get the draft.

I hope to find a suitable set up for this experiment, with enough in my legs that I can do a good dozen hard accelerations (I figure groups of 3, two with weights, two without). I'd need a partner in crime to drive either a moto (scooter) or a car (I happen to have a hatchback that has a perfect drafting rear hatch window), someone that can swap a front wheel and bottle without any difficulty (and, ideally, add the weight to one of each independently).

I figure I'll need two days of testing. Not two whole days, just two separate sessions. The first dozen sprints (Session One) will teach us flaws in our basic logistics, like if 30 mph is too slow or too fast, what gear to use to start, how to do a standing start (or if the rider should roll at 15 mph until the car draws even), stuff like that.

The second dozen (Session Two) should be better, with the details worked out. I hope to get some decent data. I probably need more data but this will be a start.

I'm really curious to see what I find and to see if it's a valid experiment. If nothing else I'll get a couple dozen hard jumps in (if I'm the rider in the equation). Now I just need takers, at least one (a driver or a sprinter, and if the former then someone that can hide a few pounds of weights on a rim or in a bottle) or two (a holder or someone that has a holder rig idea... actually I have a rig idea so maybe then we need a camera person). Anyone? Anyone? Ferris?

Equipment - Light Wheels vs Aero Wheels

One of my big shocks in 2010 was my experience with heavier aero versus lighter non-aero wheels. Conventional wisdom, pushed hard by aero wheel companies, dictates that aero normally trumps non-aero, even with a relatively significant weight penalty.

Technically speaking aero wheels should offer advantages at all speeds, not just higher ones. This should make up for the low overall weight gain of the "aero" part of the aero wheels. When you consider a whole bike and rider (I'll use myself as an example) weighs in at a good 180 pounds or so, adding or subtracting a pound won't make a huge difference, even on a climb.

However, if you can reduce the amount of energy required to ride a given speed by a small percent, you get that benefit all the time. It's like interest on a savings account - for small balances it's a small benefit but it's measurable.

The question becomes, "Is it worth it?"

So for my savings account, if I make 0.5% interest, I may see a tangible amount of interest, a verifiable one. But if it's $5 a year interest on $1000 balance, or 42 cents a month, is it actually significant?

It may not be if the bank requires me to drive, say, 50 miles or so extra miles a year, which would mean I'd spend that $5 on gas alone.

Likewise, aero wheels, although they offer a tangible benefit, may be like my 0.5% savings account interest. Is it worth it?

Well, now I'm conflicted.

I used to believe in the blanket statement of deep rims all the time. But now... I realized something wasn't right last spring when I started riding on the tall profile, aerodynamic, and relatively heavy Jet6/Jet9 clincher set. I had a harder time making accelerations to match others, and found that although I could cruise once up to speed, my legs got a bit zapped when I did the actual accelerations.

TsunamiTwo with Jets.

After some experimenting with the Jets and the not-as-aero Bastognes, I found an interesting compromise.

TsunamiTwo with the rear Jet9 and a Bastogne front.
The front helped with stability but I got severely shelled on this day.

For "easier" training rides (17-19 mph solo, 20-21 mph group), I find my non-aero clinchers work well, better than the aero ones. I spend so little time at significant speeds (25 mph or higher) that the 1-2 lbs weight penalty to get aero benefits becomes significant.

I tried to compromise by using just the rear aero wheel, but it's still much less responsive on hills and when accelerating (responding to surges). The rear does help on sustained efforts though, especially if I'm already up to speed. This ends up my choice if I'm doing some riding in areas with cross/tailwinds and I think I'll see some sustained speeds (i.e. group ride).

Even for races I'll use the Bastognes because the accelerate much easier. I use a lot of my reserves accelerating hard to counter attacks and just get out of a corner. I used my aero wheels for a few weeks in early 2010 races at the Rent but got totally shelled because the third or fourth super hard acceleration just killed me.

(When I used aero tubulars which are lighter and more aero than my clinchers, I did fine.)

So until you go really fast in a group (25-27 mph avg speed) heavy aero wheels seem to be a disadvantage. A steady state 25 mph to me screams aero wheel. Jumpy races which average 25-27+ mph scream aero tubulars.

The issue here is weight. I'm not contesting the aero bit; it's the weight I don't like. HED builds the Jets as "faired" wheels - there's a whole structure there without the aero fairing, and then they add the aero fairing. I heard something a long time ago about race cars - everything needs to do at least two things. If a part only has one function, you're losing efficiency.

On the Jets the fairing acts only as a fairing. A separate rim acts as a structural member of the wheel. In contrast, HED's Stinger tubular wheels use the fairing as a structure as well as a fairing. This wheelset ends up really light. It's the whole "rim or fairing" thing.

This means there's light at the end of the tunnel- carbon rimmed clinchers which use the fairing as structural members. This includes wheels like the new Zipp 404 carbon clincher or the various Reynolds carbon clinchers.

(And, I hope, some wide rimmed HED carbon clinchers...)

Such rims normally weigh little. They spin up very quickly, allowing you to accelerate with low perceived effort. If you don't use them all the time they'll feel really, really fast when you do use them.

Where to draw the line?

The Jets I have (Jet6/Jet9) weigh about 1970g per pair. They feel like Mack trucks, or, based on my recent travel experiences, like a jet (you see how I did that?). They accelerate slowly but keep accelerating, eventually topping out at pretty high speeds. The front wheel catches more wind than a non-aero wheel, making the set up less than desirable for top speed truck drafting runs (anything over 45 mph).

The Bastognes, which I'd choose for most races over the Jets, weigh about 1550g per pair. That's about 430 grams less than the Jets, or just a touch under a pound difference. That's a lot for just rims. They feel pretty fast when I jump on them and they feel nimble when I'm tossing the bike around. They feel a bit limited in top speed. I should point out that they feel extremely stable in gusty drafting conditions, like following trucks at over 50 mph, but that has to do with the profile, not their weight.

My Stinger6s weigh somewhere south of 1400g per pair, and they feel fast. The tubular tires weigh less than clinchers so the weight savings increases that much more, maybe another 100g per wheel. I haven't drafted a truck on them because I use them almost exclusively for racing, but they're fine for 35 mph chases and leadouts as well as 40 mph sprints.

Therefore...

I think any wheelset under 1600g feels relatively light. Anything over 1800g feels heavy. 2000g, it feels weighted, not just heavy. I think 1800g is about the right limit for aero wheels as far as not compromising the jump.

I really like the Stingers and I'm happy with how they ride and accelerate. Of course I'd want a Stinger9 rear and a Stinger4 front, for more aero and more stability respectively. I'd like to have matching carbon clinchers (they don't exist at this time), weighing in at, I hope, somewhere around 1600g, less if possible.

Combined with the aluminum rimmed Bastognes I'd be happy if that completed my wheel inventory.

Equipment - How to "Do" Aero Wheels

Okay, yeah, you really want some of those sexy carbon aero wheels. The pros use them all the time, they go really fast, and they make a really cool "whoosh-whoosh" noise when you sprint on them.

So you just buy them, right?

Nope.

The following is a mini dissertation on how to approach buying those sexy carbon aero wheels. It's my ideal way of getting the best aero return for the buck while maintaining "bike handling fluency". Since aero wheels handle a bit differently than non-aero wheels, it benefits everyone if you get on the bike and feel totally at home when you have an aero front wheel.

This whole thing helps you from looking ridiculous in your first race on your "race wheels". At one of the early Bethel Spring Series races, perhaps even the first one ever, a guy unveiled his precious new aero wheels for their trial by fire - his first ride on them would be in a mass start race. He floundered at the back in the (typical Bethel) extremely gusty conditions, unable to handle the wind hitting his front wheel. He finally crashed himself out, breaking some bone/s in his body. He threatened to sue (he was a lawyer) because, well, I'm not sure why.

Eventually someone talked him out of suing everyone involved. Can you imagine the testimony?

"Well, your Honor, I, um, just fell over."
"You 'just' fell over?"
"Well, the wheels caused me to fall over."
"So you filed a suit against the race promoter?"
"Well, he let me race the wheels."
"You said earlier though that he uses the same wheels too. Did he fall over in his race?"
"No, but he trains on them!"
"And you don't?"

Aha!

See, that's what this post is about - you need to train on equipment that you'll use in the race. Racers spend some good amount of time making sure they have the right position on the bike, the right shoe alignment on the pedals, stuff like that. They also need to make sure they feel comfortable with their bike as it would be set up on race day. If it means using an aero front wheel, then it means the racer should feel comfortable on an aero front wheel.

Now, let's take a little detour and talk about tubulars and clinchers. If there were no functional differences between the two, my recommendation would be to get an aero clincher wheelset and be done with it. But there are a couple differences, enough to convince me to spend a bunch of money to buy tubulars.

I prefer to use tubular tires in races - they're lighter overall (as a system, not necessarily the tire itself), they don't pinch flat, and tend to be very durable for a given weight. Tubular tires don't need much rim material for support, so the wheels can weigh a lot less. It's typical to see over a pound difference between matching tubular and clincher wheelset weights.

On the other hand, I prefer clinchers when I train. They're cheaper if I flat ($7 for a tube versus $80 for a standard race quality tubular tire). Clinchers are easier to change. With furious pumping, it's possible to change a tube in under 2 minutes while on the side of the road (biting mosquitoes contribute to motivation). Even a leisurely flat fix will take only 4 or 5 minutes (no mosquitoes). And once the tube is replaced, a clincher tire returns to 100% performance - you can brake or corner on it as hard as you normally do.

Changing a properly glued tubular is time consuming at best. It takes me a good 5 to 10 minutes to remove a tire if I want to reuse it - a flat one might take a few minutes to remove. And although it takes about 10 seconds to install a spare tire, it'll roll off pretty easily. When you get rolling on that spare tubular, you have to take it easy, else you'll find the tire rolling off at some inopportune moment. I consider a "post on-the-road-replaced tubular" to be about 10-20% functional use. I wouldn't want to corner or brake hard on that tire for a while, not until I got home and glued it on properly.

Therefore it's better to train on clinchers, race on tubulars.

Now that we got that out of the way...

One of the most significant things you can do to a bike to negatively affect its handling is to slip in an aero front wheel. That sexy, beautiful, tall, (usually) carbon fiber (shrouded, sometimes) wheel is fantastic in the wind tunnel but can really wreak havoc with your straight line stability in gusty wind situations.

If you think a tall profile rim catches a lot of air, a disk wheel is insane. I had a 24" front disk wheel on a TT bike and a gust of wind took me across a full lane of road. I was on cowhorns (this was before time trial bars as we know them) so I had a relatively strong grip on the bars. It didn't help. If there'd been a truck there... I literally creeped home on the bike, arms rigid with tension, hoping the wind wouldn't spontaneously teleport me sideways 8 or 10 feet into a bus or a lamp post.

In fact, at the Hawaii Ironman, they had to forbid competitors from using disk wheels up front. Riders were getting blown off the road, blown off their bikes, due to the wind catching their front disk wheels.

See, aero wheels act as a rudder. And rudders don't belong up front in a normal bike with normal geometry. Standard bike geometry works when the front wheel wants to point straight forward. But when wind hits a wheel with a lot of surface area, the wind turns the wheel. Suddenly the geometry works against you - instead of stabilizing the bike, it (along with the aero wheel and some wind) destabilizes it.

Aero front wheels require more steering input from the rider. Steering with your hips doesn't work too well - you have to turn your bars a bit too. If you don't get used to this concept in training, you'll enter a race with sub-par bike handling skills. In extreme situations, this can literally throw you over the handlebars, like the example rider above. And in less extreme situations you end up simply a squirelly rider. Neither is good.

Of course we all want to avoid that, but how?

Funny you should ask. Here's how.

Step 1

Buy both a clincher and tubular front wheel with similar (aero) profiles. For example, I have two Specialized TriSpoke front wheels (now sold as a HED3) - a tubular and a clincher. I got the clincher first, since I could train on it. Later I bought a pair of tubular TriSpokes. I never bought a clincher rear TriSpoke. Later I repeated the idea of buying matching front wheels, one for training, one for racing. I did this with Spinergy Rev-Xs, Reynolds DV46s, and now the HEDs (Stinger 6 and Jet 6). I'd use the clincher for training, the tubular for racing.

Note: the newest HED spoked wheels (Stinger/Jet series) have an additional variable, and I note it at the end of the post. However, they (as well as the TriSpokes, Rev-Xs, and Reynolds) handled similarly in wind front and rear. I imagine the Williams, Eastons, Neuvations, and other profile matching carbon clincher/tubular front wheels will handle similarly as well.

Advantages of buying two front wheels, one tubular, one clincher:

1. Similar profile front rims handle similarly in wind; you can use the clincher in training, the tubular in races. You'll be intimately familiar with the wind-handling aspects of your race wheel.

2. Front wheels are universal (no cassettes, no weird spacing). Okay, except for disc brakes and rim width. But in general, if you buy two front aero road wheels, you can use them on virtually any road bike, with any drivetrain set up. You can even use a road front wheel on a track bike (note use of TriSpoke in pictures), if you use appropriate skewers or convert to a bolt-on axle. With rears you can't - Shimano/SRAM vs Campy, 8s vs 9s vs 10s vs 11s, frame width, fixed gear versus not, etc.

3. Number 2 above means that front wheels are cheaper because manufacturers don't have to stock umpteen combinations of hubs and such, and the spokes are all the same length (except weird wheels like the G3s or the FSAs).

4. Front wheels are stronger, usually last longer, etc, due to the even spoke tension and lower loads it sees.

5. Aero front wheels affect handling the most, so if you're going to get used to one wheel in training, get used to the front one.

6. Front wheels affect aerodynamics the most (2/3 of aero effect of wheelsets comes from front wheel), so it makes sense to get two front aero wheels if you can only afford to buy two wheels. This way you get the best bang for the buck in races.

Step 2

Buy matching rear tubular wheel for races so now you have 3 wheels - a clincher front and a tubular set.

Advantages:
1. Lighter rotating weight in the rear (tubular rear).

2. Looks cool (matching wheels). You gotta look cool, right?

3. Stabilizes rear of bike (rear aero wheels do that).

4. Tubular rear wheel typically more durable - no pinch flats, stronger rim for a given weight, or, conversely, lighter for a given strength. Except for super-wide rims (Stinger 6, the new Zipps), it's also much easier to ride on a flat tubular than a flat clincher.

Try doing that on a clincher...

5. Doesn't affect handling much beyond that stabilization - you don't have to train with an aero rear wheel if you don't want to.

Step 3

If budget allows, buy matching rear clincher for training and spares for racing. Now you should have 4 aero wheels - a set of aero clinchers and a set of aero tubulars.

Advantages:
1. Two pairs of wheels that handle similarly in all aspects (twitchy up front, stable in the rear).

2. You can work on speed a bit more in training (i.e. using aero wheels to your advantage in going faster on, say, group rides). Remember, training on clinchers is easier than training on tubulars - on the wallet and also quicker to fix a flat.

3. Typically clincher aero wheels are heavier so they require more work to get up to speed - you can work on your jump/acceleration, which is about the only thing the wheels will significantly affect. Unless one pound is a significant portion of your combined bike/body weight, it won't affect steady speed climbing that much.

Step 4 (optional)

Finally, you should keep a box section front wheel for really windy days. Most riders start with a box section clincher so just keep that wheel for training. When you feel like it, get a box section tubular front wheel (or one that's relatively "un-aero") for those really gusty race days. I don't have one at this point, but on those really gusty days I'll prepared to use my box section clinchers front and rear. I'll sacrifice aero for stability in gusty days as well as any kind of major road race with 50+ mph descents (not that I've entered any, but if I did, I wouldn't use an aero front wheel).

So that's that.

Now, to get to that exception I mentioned earlier in the post.

HED clinchers and tubulars have wide rims for different reasons.

The clinchers are wide to get the wheel/tire to be more durable and more comfortable. The wider rim allows you to run lower pressures, resulting in better comfort, while still avoiding pinch flats. I run about 10-20 psi less than normal on my HED clinchers compared to normal box section clinchers (95/105 psi, vs 115/120 psi). I find the lower pressures corner a bit differently, so that's something I have to account for when I swap wheels. However, the aero handling aspect (catching gusts, cornering as far as wind goes) stays pretty constant between the HED aero clincher Jet 6 and the aero tubular Stinger 6.

Keep in mind an important factor: HED tubular rims are wider ONLY FOR AERODYNAMICS, not for anything else. You need to use the same air pressure as on normal width tubular rims.

On my HED tubulars (Stinger 6s), I run 120-140 psi, depending on my mood. At 105/110 I thought my tires were sliding everywhere on smooth pavement; at normal pressures I'm fine. That's my preference in tubular tire pressures in general; yours may be different.

Questions? Comments?

Equipment - Bokken, or HED Jet 6-9 Wheels

So, the final installment of the series. I had to delay it while I tested the subject matter to just two more tests, but it's all good - I can post now.

In review, I've gone over the Katana, the actual fighting swords. In my world they're my racing wheels for almost all conditions. Only unusual or training races would see me on other wheels.

Next, the much shorter Tanto, which, for me, represent non-fighting swords, used for emergency or difficult conditions, stuff like extreme wind, debris, dirty roads, stuff like that. The trainer could be one such condition since the rear wheel will likely end up used mainly on the trainer.

Finally we get to the "bokken", or wooden practice swords - that's what this installment is going to cover. In the HED world they'd be called the Jet 6 + Jet 9. In my world they're my aero training wheels, used as a substitute for the lighter, more agile katana. I like to call them bokken because the rim profile heights reflect the 60 cm and 90 cm standard bokken sword lengths perfectly, with the wheels measuring in at 60 and 90 mm for the Jet 6 and Jet 9 respectively.

60 mm to the right, 90 mm to the left.

When I first rode the wheels, I noticed a couple things immediately.

First, they're heavy. Compared to the Bastognes, they add about 120 grams up front, 200 grams at the rear, but it's all at the rim. These wheels don't like to accelerate quickly, at least not as quickly as the Bastognes, definitely not like the Stinger 6s.

Second, partially because they're heavy and partially because they're so frickin' aero, when I'm sitting in a paceline on a flat or slight downhill road, I feel like I have an electric motor on the bike. The bike wants to go, and I have to rein it in.

These wheels are fast.

They just want to motor on all day. Not the best match for a jumpy rider like me, but a good one for a time trialing machine.

I have yet to do some more objective testing, but those are my two biggest "take aways" from my first rides on the wheels.

The Jet 6 in front, the Jet 9 in the rear.

You can see the drain holes in the fairing. These help keep the wheels drier than waterlogged - some older aero wheels could hold a few ounces of water in the rim.

Note also the aluminum brake track - they stop just like a normal aluminum wheel. They've been very good, smooth, no oil spots or anything. Very nice.

You should know that these wheels are essentially aluminum, not-very-tall-rim wheels with a carbon fairing. Therefore they will ride like aluminum wheels with a low spoke count and a not-very-tall rim. They are not like a structural carbon wheel, where the rim really is 60 or 90 mm tall. I don't know the rim height, but I'm guessing it's in the 30 mm range. The fairing is a false front.

Jet 9, by itself.

Huge area for logo. I left them on, being a logo kind of guy. If you're not a logo kind of person you can remove them pretty easily. In fact one corner of one of the labels started to peel without any prompting. For stealth riders this is a nice touch.

Find the valve hole. No, I didn't remove the logos, it just happens there isn't one in this area.

With no valve, and a valve too short when I actually mounted up the tire, I had a bit of trouble finding the valve on the Jet 9. A Carpe Diem Racing sticker took care of that.

See how the spokes enter the side of the carbon, and each spoke goes through a large-ish hole? This indicates the carbon is simply a fairing, not a structural part of the wheel. If you squeeze it you'll realize it right away - the carbon is only a little stiffer than an inflated party balloon. The carbon is there simply to guide air around the rim and tire.

Wheel fairings are legal for USAC so this isn't a problem for racing.

The Jet 9 is tall. Both wheels have the same 80 mm size valves, yet the Jet 9 requires an extension. Note sticker on the Jet 9 marking valve location.

It's a bit stunning, how tall the Jet 9 really is. I bought a couple 80 mm valves for the wheels. On the Jet 9 I can barely close the presta nub of the 80 mm valve with my fingers. On the Jet 6 it sticks up way too far.

No bulge - Jet 6. Okay, a hint of one.

One thing I found kind of interesting - no huge bulges out from the sidewall. I was kind of disappointed, to be honest. I thought, after seeing the wicked wide bulges of the Stinger 6s, that the Jet 6 and Jet 9 would be similarly enhanced. No such luck. Although tall, and wide (due to the wider rim), the sides don't bulge out significantly.

No bulge, Jet 9. You can tell it's the 9 because it's the rear wheel.

The rim "peaks" (i.e. where the spokes enter the fairing) are kind of flattened out. This helps the air move sideways over them - someone told me a long time ago that this flow really helps stabilize a wheel in a crosswind. Sharp edges catch more wind.

Various hand-built evidence things. Note FSA rim strips (red things top right corner).
4-5 indicates date, based on when I got the wheels.

I didn't mention this in the other posts but the wheels all arrived with various marks and notes on the rims. These seem to reflect the builder's initials, build date, and other notes. The big "CAMPY" scribble probably means "get a Campy cassette bodied hub". It's reassuring to see all these markings - I feel like someone actually took responsibility for the wheels.

I point out the FSA rim strips because the rims end up coated a bit with a very slick lube, evidently used to lube the spoke nipple on the rim (based on the trails of lube barely visible when the light hits the rim just right). Velox rim tape (my default tape for clincher rims) doesn't stick to the stuff, and it's hard to clean off the grainy metal finish. The guys at Bethel Cycle (where I bought the wheels) like the FSA strips because they just stretch onto the rim, no adhesion necessary. It works well for these wide rimmed, low pressure wheels.

Ginormous profile rim. I never thought I'd have a wheel like this.

After my first ride on the wheels - it was a group ride. Picture taken inside where there were fewer mosquitoes.

I mentioned some extra testing done on these wheels before I did this post. The first distraction was riding on a group ride where, somehow, I managed to hit just about everything on the road. Potholes, 2 inch chunks of loose pavement, random gravel stones, cracks, seams, everything. I was bouncing around for a good hour, the carbon fairings amplifying the noise. At least half a dozen times I hit something, turned around, and saw yet another meteor-fragment-like piece of pavement bouncing off the road.

To my pleasant surprise, the wheels shrugged off everything. They were totally straight, totally round, and didn't seem bothered at all by the impacts.

The low pressure tires (you can go down to 95/105 psi on the 23 mm rims) also shrugged off all the impacts. Some of those rock impacts could have flatted a tire on a regular rim, but nothing happened here.

The next morning, though, I noticed the rear tire was low. Since it had a valve extension, I thought maybe the open valve got "touched" and let out the air. I re-inflated the tire, left for another night.

Flat.

I re-inflated again, left it another night, but this time I removed the extension and tightened the valve down.

Flat again.

So on the third day I replaced the tube (no, I didn't ride those days so I just left the bike in the same place, leaning against the wall in the kitchen). And lo and behold, a piece of glass had squirmed its way into the tread.

Glass shard. Gear bag underneath.

I tested the wheels another way too. This involved me sprinting to 30 mph, impacting an object going about half that speed, then throwing the bike down onto the pavement.

Surprisingly enough, the wheels held up fine there too. They were straight, round, and made no untoward noises. I don't have pictures because, really, there's nothing to picture. The wheels look exactly the same, with some extra scuff marks on the tires.

Although I'd rather not repeat either of those two tests, they did help show that the wheels are quite durable.

Now to go out and spin the legs a bit.

Equipment - Samurai Swords, aka HED Stinger6

When I first mentioned these wheels, I referred to them as "swords". For whatever reason it seems that I sometimes like to refer to my equipment (or tactics or training or whatnot) in military terms. For example, when I talk about a rider's repertoire of available moves, I may mention their "quiver" (of arrows). It's not just me, just so you know - Zipp likes to talk about "speed weaponry" - for a while their wheels had a decal that said something like "weapon grade equipment".

When I typed out that I got these wheels, I couldn't use the terms "weapon grade" or similar stuff because, well, someone could easily confuse it with a Zipp wheel. Or my describing my tactical repertoire.

Instead, I used the term swords, as in samurai swords. I felt that was appropriate - heritage, weapon grade, saved for use, precious, all that.

What I didn't realize is just how appropriate.

I knew that samurai used the real stuff, katana, for battles. There are some gruesome stories on just how effective these things can be but I'll skip the details (let's say it involves testing a sword's effectiveness on live subjects - the fairy tale phrase "Seven With One Blow" takes a whole new meaning...). I also knew samurai used wooden swords, bokken, for practice because, frankly, a little slip up with a real one in a practice session and your sparring partner will be missing a limb or more.

I figured this concept of "fighting" and "practice" swords would work well with the "racing versus training" wheelsets.

Then, researching the swords themselves, I learned that the swords came in different lengths. I mean, I knew that, but I didn't know the lengths were standardized. Not only standard, they seemed to reflect some similar numbers.

60 cm for the main katana. A versatile one, this; lightweight, agile, but still able to reach out and touch someone. The best all-round sword.

90 cm for the two handed katana - slower, yes, but you could literally cut down more enemy with one broad stroke. Used in certain situations this sword could be extremely effective, but it was too heavy, too long for normal fighting.

30 cm daggers, for "up close and personal" stuff. Usually this consisted of women and upper class people, desperately fighting to the end.

Coincidentally, HED makes wheels in 60 mm, 90mm, and (about) 30 mm rim heights.

Samurai swords it was.

The first set, because they're the ones I got first, are the HED Stinger 6 wheels ("6" because they're 60 mm tall).

Like the standard 60 cm katana, the Stinger 6s are versatile. Weighing a little under 1400 grams a pair, they accelerate quickly. At the same time, with its aero shape, it can maintain high speeds.

In fact, the Stinger 6 convinced me to move all my wheels over to the HED 23 mm wide rim thing.

The main reason for the Stinger 6's aero capabilities is its wide brake track and even wider rim. This is the first wheelset I've owned where the rim is wider than the brake track. By bulging the sides a bit, HED found the wheels got a lot of extra "go". Although I have yet to do any testing back to back, I can verify they definitely don't slow me down.

The problem was when I swapped out the Stingers for a normal 19 mm clincher wheelset - the brake pads are now a huge distance away from the rim. I thought I'd just need to tighten the brake barrel adjuster to regain brake function, but I found that it was quicker just to unclamp the cable, close the brake up, and re-clamp.

This is fine when I'm sitting in the bike room, but out on the road, or in a wheel pit at a race... not so fine. Therefore I needed to get spares that would fit without much trouble.

But that's for later.

First, let's talk about how they ride. Because, frankly, they're awesome. They feel light, agile, and reasonable in wind. I worried about the wide rims in corners but they seemed fine even in flat, high speed, middle-of-an-attack turns.

They accelerate well, as a 1385 gram wheelset should, and their aero qualities, although not necessarily verified by me, seem to be working well. I never felt like I had to push just to stay in the field, a feeling I get with box section wheels.

At some point I'll do something a bit more scientific, maybe do some power versus speed on a stretch of road, one wheelset after another. But for now they're the schnizzle in my quiver of wheels.

I used them for every race at Bethel, a couple training rides in between, and at a couple more races after Bethel.

Although I DNFed at one Bethel and sat up in a training race sprint, I managed to get, in the other races, a 4th, 3rd, 3rd, 1st, 2nd, and 2nd.

Let me tell you, I haven't had a streak like that in, well, forever. And although I can't attribute everything to the wheels, I can say that the wheels didn't hurt at all.

So, without any further ado, let me preset: The Katanas, the HED Stinger 6 wheelset.

This is from the Bethel registration shot, but this was taken in the first 24 hours I owned these things.

The day before the first Bethel, when I first rode them, I was astounded by their responsiveness. I even did a big effort just to feel them out, kind of like how, when you get a fast car, you just have to floor it once.

Okay, in a car you can floor it over and over, but before the first Bethel race, with my legs doing the talking, I only floored it once.

Suffice it to say that I like the wheels.

Note the brake track has some extra layers of carbon. The rest of the structural rim is left alone.

I have used normal Kool Stop pads without changing them between wheels. On the carbons I had no problems until the second Bethel, when I rode these wheels for the first time in the rain (and third time ever). I approached the first turn, touched my brakes, and... nothing.

I learned the hard way that you need the right pads for rain conditions. I have yellow Swiss Stops but I haven't ridden in the rain since, so I can't report to you how the wheels stop in the wet. In the dry, with normal Kool Stop pads, they're fine.

Note how wide the rim is compared to the 21 mm Vittoria EVO CX tire.

Two things struck me when I realized how wide these rims really were. First, I had to forget about riding a flat. One advantage of tubulars is the fact that you can ride a flat all day long. With this rim, although I have yet to flat, I think the delicate carbon edges would get a severe beating if I rode on a flat. So if I flat I'll stop.

Second, it made it easy to mount the tire. The tire seat area even has a groove for the tubular tire's seam. The tire basically plopped into place, no fuss, no muss. With the Vittoria EVO CX tire I used, I'd only stretched it out overnight, just enough to make sure it didn't have a slow leak. So without much stretching, with a lot of glue, I ended up with a nice clean glue job.

Definitely one of the easiest mounting tire/rim combinations I've experienced, but not so easy that I worry about rolling a super loose tire.

A lit up shot.

I have valve extenders on the tires, not core extensions. I'll use the extensions next time. Extensions have the disadvantage of having the valves open (unless you remove the extension and close the valves with some narrow tool). This means that if you hit something just right, or the extender gets loose and rubs the valve nib, you'll lose air. Extensions work like a normal presta valve - tighten when done, no problems.

You'll note that the spoke nipples stay exposed. This makes truing wheels easy - no tire dismounts necessary. It also indicates that the rim is structural since the nipples end up anchored in the fairing portion of the rim. I prefer the exposed nipple set up since I tend to knock wheels out of true. So far the HEDs are straight, even though I've slammed into various potholes pretty hard (in a race you don't deviate from your line just to avoid a pothole - if you're about to hit the pothole, it's your fault for not seeing it earlier, so you have to suck it up and figure out a way to ride through it without trashing your bike).

On the last lap of the first Bethel, I hit a parallel groove so hard I thought I'd flip over the bars or at least move them a bit. I think the bars did move but the bike was otherwise fine.

The front wheel? Perfect.

The hubs are all the same so I didn't bother with photographing them. Hubs, as long as they roll, are one of those invisible things. If they work, great. Weight is not as critical, but I'll take a weight savings if it doesn't cost me too much.

Aero spokes, normally not my favorite, round out the wheels. I prefer round spokes up front because I feel they hold a better line when sprinting. With these wheels I'm still figuring out how to keep them planted so I'm not worried about a little line variance.

The wheels feel stiff enough. When I first ordered them, Greg asked me if I wanted the Stallion build, i.e. the "heavy rider" build. He mentioned that some sprinter types preferred the Stallion build wheels for their greater rigidity. I decided to trust HED and got the regular wheels. They've been fine.

Wheels on the bike when loaded out for training in the evening.
(Sorry, I don't have a white garage door for a backdrop.)

The "no-flash" picture - Down Low Glows glowing.

Equipment - "Bearings"

Before aerodynamics became the in-vogue thing, rolling resistance was a big thing. The original Campy Super Record hubs were modified to allow harried mechanics to inject oil into the bearings, dissolving the grease, and letting the bearing sit in a nice, light oil bath.

The perception back then was that a free spinning hub, like one with oil in the bearings, was faster than a slower spinning hub, like one that had grease in the bearings. The oil port in the Nuovo Record and Super Record hubs were meant for "record" attempts.

(The Super Record just added a fragile titanium axle to further advance your "record" attempts.)

Campy also put loose bearings in their derailleur pulleys in order to keep rolling resistance down. Again, loose bearings felt faster than the brass bushings normally used in pulleys.

Note the emphasis on the word "felt".

At some point someone started putting sealed cartridge bearings in bike parts. I distinctly recall Suntour's Superbe Pro rear derailleur being the only OEM derailleur with cartridge bearings. I think they were one of the first ones to put cartridge bearings in their hubs too. Initially everyone turned their noses up at them. Real hubs had real bearings, and real bearings were loose. Cartridge bearings were simply a manufacturing ploy to reduce costs, and any real bike part didn't have such cheap bearings.

Cartridge bearings, though, work. They work well, they're cheap, and they're very predictable.

Eventually the bike companies caught on. A few companies started doing a lot of business with cartridge bearing pulleys, for retrofitting onto rear derailleurs without such pulleys.

Some purists clung to the belief that oiled loose bearings were faster than the "draggy" sealed bearings. At some point someone did an experiment testing the rolling resistance under load, a critical difference compared to spinning a pulley while totally unloaded.

Their findings?

The sealed bearing pulleys were better under load than the round bearing ones.

(For a more recent test, check out this article)

What this taught me was that "feel" didn't correlate to "performance". To compare products fairly, they had to be tested under working conditions. Pulleys, for example, don't spin unloaded - instead, they rolled while supporting a substantial amount of chain tension.

Then, with the advent of index shifting, the whole cartridge bearing pulley thing kind of died off. Shimano didn't like cartridge bearing pulleys, and their auto-centering pulley use an extra wide bushing, giving the pulley a few millimeters of controlled slop. No one else's pulleys worked as well, as evident by the fact that the "tilting" pulley (Campy) is gone. I can't even remember what Suntour did.

However, probably in interest of manufacturing ease and cost, almost all hubs (and bottom brackets) became cartridge bearing devices. Shimano, surprisingly, led the way for the major manufacturers, with cartridge bottom brackets.

Fast forward a few years.

I have a friend who worked at one of the boutique wheel companies. Like all wheel companies at the time, their product was a result of both marketing and engineering.

Alone, engineering or marketing gets you only so far in the hyper competitive wheel market. Wheels are arguably the most expensive thing most people buy for their bike, and they're the only things that riders buy in multiples. You may own one bike but you probably have two or more wheelsets.

Many people upgrade their wheels before their frames because they believe (rightly so) that wheel upgrades improves speed better than, say, frame upgrades. Wheel upgrades are also easy to install - no more difficult than swapping out a wheel.

As a wheel company you can market all you want, but at some point you have to show that you're producing a wheel that's actually better than the others. You know that saying, right? "Better, Faster, Cheaper. You can have two of the three - tell me which one you don't want."

("Faster" refers to delivery time, not to wheel speed.)

At first there were some minor attempts at proving aerodynamic differences between different wheel sets. I did my own set of experiments and came to my own conclusions, but that was a really rough thing, measured in half mph increments. Still, though, I could see some differences.

Anyway, like any other industry, a wheel company may choose to sacrifice some part of their engineering in order to satisfy their marketing (or budgeting or something else). You know, make "Cheaper" and "Faster" a bit more important than "Better".

I mean if Microsoft got away with it for all these years then so can other companies. I was going to say certain car companies but now that they're paying the piper I decided not to give them a dig. Anyway...

Said wheel company used sealed cartridge bearings. Cartridge bearings are great for a small wheel company - you decide the grade, you pop them into the hub, and presto, the bearings are done. No cup and cone adjustments, no proprietary bearing race configuration, races and cones are built in and replaced each time the customer replaces a bearing unit, none of that labor intensive stuff.

As I mentioned before, nowadays you'd be hard pressed to find a new (and smooth) bottom bracket without the cartridge bearings. They are that much easier to deal with.

The problem came when this wheel company's reps started reporting back from the field that the wheels "felt" slow.

"Felt" slow?

Pray tell.

The reps described how a potential customer would come into a well equipped LBS, pick up their wheel, spin it in their hands, then pick up a competitor's wheel, spin that in their hands, and decide that the competitor's wheel was better.

All this based on a "spin".

Engineers at the wheel company did tests and could prove unconditionally that the seals weren't affecting performance. But they affected perceived performance, and therefore they affected sales.

And sales, as you know, rule the roost.

The seals came off and the wheels sold again.

Ironically, because the bearings lacked seals, the wheels were worse than before. They wore a bit quicker, the bearings got contaminated quicker, and the rolling resistance didn't change any significant amount until the bearings got bad - and then it got much worse.

CyclingNews did a review on Williams Wheels. I read the review with intense curiosity because I'd contemplated the wheels. Ultimately I didn't buy them, but I did recommend the wheels to a best friend.

The review was generally positive. It's hard to find fault with a 1200 gram set of wheels (okay, 1222 grams) that costs a dollar a gram, shod with carbon rims, using double butted spokes.

But, interestingly enough, the review mentioned something about "lower grade bearings".

Say what?

This sounded a lot like the whole bearing discussion I had with my wheel company friend, and prior to that, the whole cartridge bearing pulley thing.

Bearing grade and smoothness and seal tightness have an imperceptible effect on drag. It's common knowledge that a beautiful grade bearing, if dropped or damaged, immediately becomes a less-beautiful grade bearing. Get your ultra smooth ABEC-10-zillion bearing equipped wheels, blast through a big pothole, and you have... less than ABEC-10-zillion grade bearings.

Those high zoot bearings are meant for high rpm applications, like hard drives or DVD players. Wheels, unless you're inhumanly fast, are low rpm devices.

So why use them?

So that the wheels feel smooth in the showroom.

It's useless to have better bearings in such equipment because, frankly, it doesn't make a difference. But the review stated otherwise.

"Williams also includes hybrid ceramic bearings in the hubs but we've no indication of their quality (as with any bearing, hybrid ceramics come in various grades). While these were nicely smooth out of the box, we've sampled more premium bearings that seemed a little speedier perhaps due to higher tolerances and lower-drag seals. Even so, they're probably at least as good as a decent stainless steel bearing (or so we hope) and replacing the stock units with more reputable units would still leave these wheels firmly planted in the 'super high value' category."

The wheel "review".

So what's all this mean to you and me?

Well, take reviews with a grain of salt. And any time the reviewer steps over a given line, like one where the reviewer can perceive differences in bearing quality "by feel", you should make a note of it.

And if you feel like your wheels have a bit more drag, well, consider the overall picture before you make any changes.

Just a thought.

Equipment - Rim Or Fairing?

So you're like me, watching the Vuelta on Universal Sports, and you see all the pros packing the flat, narrow Dutch roads, flying along, pedaling umpteen thousand dollar bikes. If you're like me, you'll ooh and aah and gasp in the final few minutes of the race. But even if you're not me, you're bound to notice something - gobs and gobs of those "carbon fiber wheels".

Why do they ride them? What's the big deal with the wheels?

Ultimately, the wheels are light, but with pros' bikes regularly dipping below the UCI mandated minimum weight, they can afford to put some heavier parts on their bike, if the additional weight gets them some other function. You'll regularly find aluminum bars, stems, and cranks on pros' bikes, because of their increased reliability and the ability to ride a bent aluminum piece (versus a broken carbon fiber one). Many pros have powermeters on their bikes, whether cranks or hubs, and such devices inevitably add weight to the bike.

And finally, many pros use tall profile wheels, aero wheels if you will. They're a bit heavier than the lightest non-aero wheels but they offer some functional advantages to the featherweight wheels.

They reduce the air resistance of the fastest moving part on the bike, the wheels. Okay, the tires move the fastest (the top of your tire moves twice as fast as your ground speed), but there seems to be limited gains made with "aero" tires. Rims, though, make more of a difference, based on the aerodynamic drag they do or don't have.

Although not necessarily aerodynamically correct, I stand by my layman's way of explaining one way how tall profile rims help deal with wind.

Regardless of how the actual aerodynamics work, many studies have found that aerodynamics trumps weight in all but the hilliest of races. And, honestly, if I were that concerned about weight, I could stand to lose, oh, say, 4,540 - 9,080 grams off my own body, much more than the 500 or 800 grams separating my wheels from the lightest wheels available.

Material:

So what's the deal with this "carbon fiber" stuff?

Carbon fiber is a mix of epoxy resin (plastic if you will) reinforced with carbon fiber. Both are extremely brittle in their native state, but together they form a very strong material. The resin helps distribute the load across the carbon fiber threads, and the threads keep the resin from breaking too easily by spreading the load to more than one or two CF threads.

I should point out that carbon fiber is still brittle at point of failure. It doesn't fail by bending, it fails by shattering. Although there are ways to help prevent the pieces from scattering all over the place (using aramid, or its trademarked name Kevlar, doesn't make a difference since only DuPont makes the stuff), such things are safety features and don't allow the broken piece to do much of anything. You may have a aramid-lined carbon fiber handlebar, but when one side breaks off, it'll just dangle on some aramid threads. Not much use to me or you.

Is it a fairing or a rim?

There are two kinds of "aero" carbon fiber wheels, and this has nothing to do with tire type. There is the "faired" rim and the "structural" rim (my terms).

Faired Rim

The Jet 6, a fairing wheel from HED. Note that the spokes come out from the sides of the fairing, not the tip. Note too the elongated spoke holes. (If you click on the picture, you'll get a bigger version of it, and it's easier to see there.)
Image from HED Cycling

The fairing wheels are typically aluminum rimmed wheels with a carbon fiber (or just plain plastic) fairing on it. You can tell a fairing wheel because the holes for the spokes are big, huge actually, relative to the spokes. This is to allow the spokes to move laterally in the fairing - they do so because the spokes are not anchored in the fairing, they're anchored up at the rim, and the rim naturally flexes relative to the hub. It's a fairing, right, so it's not structural.

Big companies that make fairing wheels are HED, Bontrager, and the aforementioned Mavics (I think their Cosmic Carbone were the first fairing wheel with a structural fairing). HED's fairing wheels are labeled Jets, including the Jet Disc.

A fairing wheel have certain "default" characteristics. They are typically more comfortable because they use full length spokes, longer than structural tall profile rim spokes by at least 2-7 cm. They are typically weak for a given weight since the fairing is not really structural. Usually they have a higher spoke count or a heavier rim, to make up for the fact that the voluminous fairing has no structural function. They tend to be more flexible laterally for a given weight, again because of the full length spokes and the need to either increase rim mass or increase spoke count.

I haven't had the opportunity to cut up a faired wheel, but my understanding is some of the wheels are made with fairing specific rims, with a cross-section optimized for strength, not for appearance or aerodynamics. A rim could be manufactured with the fairing in mind, with specific adhesion areas to anchor the fairing. All this is a good thing and could actually justify the official reason for faired wheels.

Which leads me to how a fairing could be legal in the bike racing world, at least at the UCI level.
I never understood how fairing wheels could be legal because aerodynamic fairings are not allowed by the UCI. Well, I read how. Basically manufacturers claim the fairings are "rim stiffeners" to increase rim performance. This is official mumbo-jumbo to get around the actual benefit of the fairings, namely the aerodynamics.

Although I'd say that a true carbon fiber fairing may stiffen the wheel a bit, the Mavic initially used a vacuum-formed black plastic fairing in their first generation Cosmic Carbone, one so flimsy you could squeeze the halves together. Try doing that with a structural carbon rim - you can't squeeze them at all.

I was initially disappointed in those first generation Cosmic Carbones when I realized the fairings were just fairings, as compared to my various other structurally rimmed wheels. However, the rims were designed to be faired, and so that kind of eased my disappointment. Nowadays, with a true carbon fiber fairing, and over a decade of optimizing rigidity, I'm sure the wheels work better than the first generation of wheel.

A faired wheel has one significant disadvantage - in almost all circumstances (the exception below) you must remove the tire to true the wheel. This is because the fairing hides the spoke nipple. This also discounts such wheels from being fully tubeless clincher compatible, because ideally a tubless tire rim will have no spoke holes in it. A fairing wheel with no spoke holes under the tire would be impossible to true.

The only exception to the above would be a wheelset which had the spoke nipples were in the hub.

I'd consider a faired wheel for myself just as readily as a structural one, especially for a training clincher wheelset. In fact, given the opportunity, I'd use Jet 6 wheelset, a front/rear pair of the rear wheel pictured above. The typically heavier weight of a faired wheel is fine for training, and the clincher rim makes removing the tire easy for any necessary truing.

Finally, using tall profile wheels in training, especially front ones, is critical in developing a honed feel for the bike's handling characteristics with such wheels. Reserve a tall profile set of wheels just for race day and you'll be either asking for problems or find yourself a bit uncomfortable in gusty or unpredictable windy conditions. Both are not good when you're in the middle of a tightly packed field with a mile to go before the sprint.

Structural Rims

A structural rim, the Stinger 6, sister to the Jet 6 shown above. Note the spoke nipples poking out of the rim.
Image from HED Cycling

The Zipps, Reynolds, and HED Stinger wheels are made with structural carbon fiber rims. The spoke nipples are anchored in the "v" of the rim, whether hidden (Reynolds) or not (Zipp, HED). HED3s and other 3-4-5 spoke wheels are structural simply because if you remove the carbon spokes (or "wings", since they're typically 7 or 8 cm wide), there are no spokes left. Anyway, a structural carbon rim, a tall one (I'm skipping the climbing specific non-aero ones) will have a taller rim and correspondingly shorter spokes.

These wheels, if the rim is constructed properly, are stiffer laterally. The shorter spokes and hopefully laterally stiff rim contribute to this rigidity. To be fair the initial structural carbon fiber wheels were not very stiff laterally. Structural carbon fiber rims are usually lighter too, mainly because you can use carbon for the rim material since the rim/fairing is one integrated piece.

Having stated my willingness to train on Jet 6s (oh, if life were only so rough), one of my ideal set of race wheels would be the Stinger 6s. Or a Stinger 9 rear, since a taller rear wheel has almost no disadvantages.

Tire Type?

It's much easier to make a clincher wheel using the fairing method. Just get a normal clincher rim, glue a fairing onto it. The aluminum rim is plenty strong for the job, efficient, reasonably light, and very cost effective.

Making a carbon clincher, on the other hand, is tough. Carbon fiber works best in tension, when the threads are in line with forces pulling on both ends. Clincher bead walls don't exhibit that kind of stress so they do not allow a manufacturer to use carbon fiber in an ideal fashion.

This is all relevant because clinchers rely on the rim to hold in air pressure, a substantial force at 100-150 psi (typical range, although it can go higher). There may be 70 or 80 square inches on a rim, so a total of 700-1200 pounds of force trying to blow the two sides of the rim off.

It's relatively easy to make all-carbon tubular rims because the tires themselves hold all the air pressure. Initially that's all you saw, tubular carbon wheels, and Zipp still refuses to make carbon clincher rims.

Some manufacturers have figured out how to make strong carbon clinchers. Reynolds is the one that comes to mind, I think others include Lightweight and LEW, the latter being closely tied to Reynolds. They use heat and pressure, keys to controlling carbon fiber quality in the curing process. They also skip any cosmetic top coat, resulting in a sort of smudgy looking grey finish. Surprisingly, the familiar carbon fiber weave is not necessarily the best structural material for specific purposes. More and more manufacturers acknowledge this, with bikes and rims and everything else starting to lose the familiar woven pattern initially associated with carbon fiber.

Campy, or as someone pointed out, Corima for Campy, make carbon rims but due to poor design or construction, the rims are limited to 118 psi for 700x22 tires, lower for wider ones (according to page 5 in their manual). In contrast, Reynolds recommends a maximum pressure of 150 psi for their carbon clinchers on their FAQ page.

That may be fine and all, but the unofficial info I've learned is even better. I had the opportunity to talk with a (now-former) Reynolds engineer that gleefully recalled inflating tires to insane pressures until either the tires blew off or the rims exploded. They were repeatedly blowing tires off the Reynolds clincher rims before the rims blew apart, and at pressures well into the upper 200 psi range. No other carbon rims withstood that abuse, and yes, that meant that they blew apart a very expensive Campy wheel.

And yes, those experiments were done for work, not as a drunken Friday night "Hey, I wonder if..." kind of experiment.

Note: Such experiments were carried out under controlled circumstances, with proper safety gear. If you try the same experiment with your clinchers, carbon or not, I take no responsibility for whatever happens. At best you'll end up with something similar to what's pictured below.

Picture of an aluminum clincher rim after a 150 psi tire blew the rim apart.
From Bethel Cycle, sponsor of the Bethel Spring Series.

Summary

It's clear that the market has two types of tall profile wheels - the fairing wheels and the structural tall wheels. Each has their place, their strengths, their weaknesses. If and when you go looking for a set of aero wheels, keep the two types in mind.