raleighnut
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Wheels - where do I begin?
- Thread starter Usehernamegood
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Mugshot
Cracking a solo.
Yeah, every bugger is getting them now they've dropped the price AGAINAnyway, I've had a pair of campag zonda's for a while and a few of said mates have tried and bought them lately, one just yesterday, I like them and when they have tried them they were sold, The zondas seem to be a good choice for quality at the price.........
(not that I'm bitter or anything). I've had mine for around 15 months or so, and I really like them, had mavic aksiums on the bike before. They're light and smooth and stiff and compliant, they really feel like they want to go as soon as you turn the pedal, at the price point (current, not what I paid
, still not bitter) they are hard to beat. They roll beautifully with a lovely quiet freehub, they're quick on the flat, climb like a mountain goat and descend like something really quick too. Now have I missed anything, oh yeah, get ready for the KOMs cos you'll be a strava god with these hoops. 
Seriously, they're nice (well I think so) and a bloody good price too (
), biggest issue is they're as common as muck now 
Yellow Saddle
Guru
- Location
- Loch side.
I think @winjim nailed it beautifully. Unfortunately @Mugshot committed the classic CC crime of repeating myth and lore. Sorry, but we are committed to honesty here, aren't we?
Mugshot - terms like light and smooth and compliant are no-go terms because they are meaningless and/or cannot be quantified. All wire-spoked wheels other than ones with cubed bearings are light, smooth and kinda-compliant. Wire-spoked wheels were invented for airplane use and are lighter than the solid wheels of the time. If you want to go beyond that, you have to state figures which in themselves are more or less meaningless.
As for compliance - we've been through that here. A wire-spoked wheel "gives" about as much as the thickness of a sheet of paper. If you want to compare, you'll have to say this one "gives" as much as an 80gsm sheet and that one as much as a 120gms sheet. Both dimensions are minuscule and meaningless and cannot be perceived by a human. The compliance of your saddle, the frame and the tyres is much much more.
"Roll beautifully" is also meaningless. I've never seen a wheel that rolls ugly or for that matter, rolls middle-of-the-road.
Stiff....another term that requires qualification. Most wheels are stiff enough to not touch the brakes and bearing in mind that the brakes are about 1mm from the rim, that's pretty stiff. I don't see how within that narrow parameter more stiffness is good or bad.
Freehub noise. Now here's an issue that's important for non-important reasons. Some of us like silent freehubs, others pay good money for freehubs that scare little children and old ladies. It is personal but certainly worth mentioning. There is no mechanical advantage to be derived from either sound.
To say a wheel is quick is meaningless. You are quick or your are slow. The wheels only do what you tell them to do. The incline is irrelevant. We've discussed that ad infinitum here and there are even some maths to illustrate the various points of view.
As a point of note, 24 spokes as on the Roval is not suitable to most of the population. They are specialist wheels for lightweight racers. You will walk home if you break a spoke. Having said that, there is a place for them or, if you really, really like the looks of them then walking home once every 20 000 kms is a small price to pay.
Someone on here mentioned hand-built wheels. Now, I used to make a good living from selling hand-built wheels in a market that was besotted with the word hand-built. I milked it 'till the cows came home. The concept of hand-built kinda goes against the grain. For instance, please don't try and sell me a hand-built cellphone. I prefer robots to build my electronic equipment, spraypaint my car and manufacture the carpets I walk on. The only reason a hand-built wheel could be better than a machine-built wheel is that by hand you can get more tension in the spokes (which is good). A machine can build a perfectly good wheel but it has to be brought up to final tension by hand. Hand-built wheels are sometimes stress-relieved. A good wheelbuilder will do it. But machine built wheels can also be stress relieved.
A hand builder cannot help you in some instances. They can't build you a tubeless wheel or most types of aerodynamic wheels. This is because the components are not available to wheelbuilders. It has nothing to do with the skill, it is just that 16-spoke hubs and 16-hole rims are not readily available, nor are tubeless rims. For those you have to buy factory wheels.
I want to debunk two more frequently-perpetuated myths: Cup-and-cone bearings can be sealed or unsealed. Ditto for cartridge bearings. We define bearings firstly by their construction style and then by their seal. The two properties are not exclusive and can be mixed. Then, humans accelerate infinitely slower than wheels can be accelerated, so a wheel's spin-up rate is irrelevant.
Then, most exotic designs are purely for marketing purposes and help the company differentiate its products visually. I'm talking spoke patterns here. Engineering wise, the best pattern is 3X on both sides. Exceptions to the number of crosses are dictated by component dimensions only.
Mugshot - terms like light and smooth and compliant are no-go terms because they are meaningless and/or cannot be quantified. All wire-spoked wheels other than ones with cubed bearings are light, smooth and kinda-compliant. Wire-spoked wheels were invented for airplane use and are lighter than the solid wheels of the time. If you want to go beyond that, you have to state figures which in themselves are more or less meaningless.
As for compliance - we've been through that here. A wire-spoked wheel "gives" about as much as the thickness of a sheet of paper. If you want to compare, you'll have to say this one "gives" as much as an 80gsm sheet and that one as much as a 120gms sheet. Both dimensions are minuscule and meaningless and cannot be perceived by a human. The compliance of your saddle, the frame and the tyres is much much more.
"Roll beautifully" is also meaningless. I've never seen a wheel that rolls ugly or for that matter, rolls middle-of-the-road.
Stiff....another term that requires qualification. Most wheels are stiff enough to not touch the brakes and bearing in mind that the brakes are about 1mm from the rim, that's pretty stiff. I don't see how within that narrow parameter more stiffness is good or bad.
Freehub noise. Now here's an issue that's important for non-important reasons. Some of us like silent freehubs, others pay good money for freehubs that scare little children and old ladies. It is personal but certainly worth mentioning. There is no mechanical advantage to be derived from either sound.
To say a wheel is quick is meaningless. You are quick or your are slow. The wheels only do what you tell them to do. The incline is irrelevant. We've discussed that ad infinitum here and there are even some maths to illustrate the various points of view.
As a point of note, 24 spokes as on the Roval is not suitable to most of the population. They are specialist wheels for lightweight racers. You will walk home if you break a spoke. Having said that, there is a place for them or, if you really, really like the looks of them then walking home once every 20 000 kms is a small price to pay.
Someone on here mentioned hand-built wheels. Now, I used to make a good living from selling hand-built wheels in a market that was besotted with the word hand-built. I milked it 'till the cows came home. The concept of hand-built kinda goes against the grain. For instance, please don't try and sell me a hand-built cellphone. I prefer robots to build my electronic equipment, spraypaint my car and manufacture the carpets I walk on. The only reason a hand-built wheel could be better than a machine-built wheel is that by hand you can get more tension in the spokes (which is good). A machine can build a perfectly good wheel but it has to be brought up to final tension by hand. Hand-built wheels are sometimes stress-relieved. A good wheelbuilder will do it. But machine built wheels can also be stress relieved.
A hand builder cannot help you in some instances. They can't build you a tubeless wheel or most types of aerodynamic wheels. This is because the components are not available to wheelbuilders. It has nothing to do with the skill, it is just that 16-spoke hubs and 16-hole rims are not readily available, nor are tubeless rims. For those you have to buy factory wheels.
I want to debunk two more frequently-perpetuated myths: Cup-and-cone bearings can be sealed or unsealed. Ditto for cartridge bearings. We define bearings firstly by their construction style and then by their seal. The two properties are not exclusive and can be mixed. Then, humans accelerate infinitely slower than wheels can be accelerated, so a wheel's spin-up rate is irrelevant.
Then, most exotic designs are purely for marketing purposes and help the company differentiate its products visually. I'm talking spoke patterns here. Engineering wise, the best pattern is 3X on both sides. Exceptions to the number of crosses are dictated by component dimensions only.
Yellow Saddle
Guru
- Location
- Loch side.
Well, if something is beyond your grasp, best not to advise in that field then.
OP
OP
Usehernamegood
Guest
Perfect - thank you.
Cyclist33
Guest
- Location
- Warrington
Now that's what I call advice, it is unfortunate that somebody will be along shortly to take the piss out of it.
As I said in another thread, all yellow saddle is trying to do is save people money that they could spend on, ooh I don't know, their kids, or a nice meal out, or a charity or whatever. It doesn't preclude spending it on the wheels, only to be aware when doing so of what benefits you're not going to get.
As I've also said elsewhere, I believe there is benefit to be found in aesthetics and existence values and some of these might also be quantifiable if not in physics but economics terms. But it still boils down to set a budget and buy whatever turns you on. For that, one needs no advice whatsoever.
Yellow Saddle
Guru
- Location
- Loch side.
Now there is a gem and perhaps the crux of the matter. It is like asking a stranger who you should marry or, more in the cycling vein, what saddle should I buy?
Mugshot
Cracking a solo.
The "Woosh" was for your lack of understanding, not mine.I dangled a little worm by listing as many phrases/myths/assertions that I could think of off the top of my head which one regularly sees on this type of thread or in magazine reviews hoping that somebody would take the bait. I wasn't disappointed
I did think I may have given the game away with my final sentence though, ho hum.
Cyclist33
Guest
- Location
- Warrington
Or, "which advice should I take?"
winjim
Smash the cistern
I thought that after moderator intervention we'd stopped taking the mickey out of each other, and were now actually trying to help.
I dangled a little worm by listing as many phrases/myths/assertions that I could think of off the top of my head which one regularly sees on this type of thread or in magazine reviews hoping that somebody would take the bait. I wasn't disappointed
I did think I may have given the game away with my final sentence though, ho hum.
winjim
Smash the cistern
Dangling a worm so people will take the bait? That's taking the mickey and not, I would imagine, terribly helpful to the OP.
winjim
Smash the cistern
Yeah, but we've specifically been told not to have any fun. Not on this thread
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