Wheels, wheels, wheels

It’s that time of year when the mainstay of my cycling activity is solo road riding, commuting and turbo work. Circumstances seem to conspire against me nearly every time I plan a group ride to the extent that, if it keeps up until Feb, I will have forgotten how to draft other riders! Not a bad thing in so far as it means I will be used to pushing a bit harder I suppose.

With a bit more downtime recently I have had the opportunity to spend more time doing non-cycling activities (read: socialising). However, thoughts of cycling are never far from the front of mind and have led me towards the next upgrade decision – wheels. Specifically race wheels.

Let’s be clear – I don’t need another set of wheels. I don’t believe that they will turn me from an eager points-hunter into a rampant points-winner unless I put in the significant training effort and have my fair share of luck. But I do want another set of wheels to race on. They have to look good, they must be clinchers and they need to be fairly light deep sections.

I currently race on two different wheelsets – Mavic Ksyrium SL or Mavic Cosmic Carbones. The Ksyriums are pretty light (approx. 1485g), strong, reliable, pretty stiff and reasonably fast. They’re good for hauling my lardy arse up hills, they’re confidence-inspiring on descents and they are my favourite set of wheels.

The Carbones are a bit more bling (not that much though) and roll a bit faster when up to speed. But they are not very light (approx. 1750g quoted by Mavic, but I think they are actually a bit heavier than this) and they are not particularly stiff. I can really notice this when sprinting or cornering hard – they just feel a bit woolly, a bit spongy. Not terrible, but worse than the Ksyriums.

So I started thinking – should I sell the Carbones and get a lighter set of deep section clinchers? Go for full carbon rims? Go handbuilt rather than factory built? The only two things I knew for sure were that they had to be deep section all-carbon rims (no bonded fairings on alu rims) and they had to be clinchers. I’m in the lucky position of being able to cycle to 3 crit venues and to puncture on tubs on the way there would likely mean missing a race. Since each race I go to involves lots of planning (with both work and family) then the risk of not getting to the start of a race due to punctures has to be minimised. So clincher it is, even though they are going to be slightly heavier and slightly more expensive.

Part One – sell the Carbones? Definitely. They’re in great condition so I should get a decent price for them on eBay (no one in the club was interested in them). They sell tomorrow, so I’ll be interested to see if I get the ‘fair value’ that I have in mind.

Part Two – find new wheels. The contenders: the new Zipp 404 carbon clinchers, Xentis Squad 5.8, Tune Schwartzbrenner 58, Reynolds Assault or DV46, Enve 45 clinchers. Out of contention were Mavics (nothing all-carbon as a clincher) and Campag (I cannot put Campag on a Shimano-equipped bike)! Also out of contention were the ultra-expensive Lightweights.

- Zipps – nice wheels, but out. Too expensive.
- Reynolds DV46 and Enve 45 – tentative maybes. A bit pricey. Not so deep section. Reynolds use DT Swiss 240 hubs, the rear of which does not seem to have a great reputation for building laterally stiff rear wheels in factory built wheels. Could consider a handbuilt version of these, or the Enve 45s.
- Reynolds Assault – cheaper than the rest, but advice and reviews seems to suggest they are a bit flexy. Someone in the club has some and had to have them rebuilt after a series of broken spokes. Not too keen.
- Tune Schwartzbrenners – I just cannot see past the white, painted-on flame graphics. Just horrible!
- Xentis Squad 5.8 – right pricepoint, 58mm rims, DT Swiss 240 hubs so maybe not the stiffest.


I decided on the Xentis Squad 5.8 – hey, it has an active turbulator on the rim to smooth airflow. Yeah, right! But the price was right, the look was right, they were clinchers and they were in stock with Starbike.com in Germany. OK, they were on DT 240 hubs, but that seemed to be the standard for nearly all the factory-built wheels I had seen.

Well, having been stung by my bank on the exchange rate and SWIFT fee, a week later the wheels arrived. They looked visually pretty good overall. The carbon weave for the main deep section surface looked classy. The weight came in within a few grammes of manufacturer stated weight. The finishing around the clincher edge was a little rough but since you don't see it when a tyre is fitted that didn’t bother me. What did bother me was that I couldn't fit a clincher tyre to these wheels! Using fingers and brute force (and lots of talc) I managed to get a GP4000s bead (which I use on all my wheels) to within about 35cm of being on the wheel on one side only. This was with the thinnest rim ribbon fitted. I didn't go down the route of using tyre levers to struggle further as I didn't want to knacker the rim and be unable to send the wheels back. Suffice to say that, having fitted loads of tyres to wheels, if I cannot get at least a foot of tyre bead over the clincher edge in a warm room then I know I won't have a hope on the road.

So back they went, minus postage costs, minus another bank fee to accept a Euro refund payment, minus another chunk to allow the bank to further profit on the exchange rate. Bugger! Turned out to be a rather expensive mistake. I have to say that Starbike were fine to deal with though.

Right, enough messing around, back to the wheel hunt. If it was stiff wheels I was after I thought handbuilt might be the way to go. That meant either a Reynolds or an Enve rim. After looking around again I opted for Wheelbuilder.com in the States – they had been brilliant in dealing with the details from all my emails and had given some good suggestions. Enve rims appealed, both for the method of manufacture (moulded spoke holes rather than drilled) and for the relative rarity value.


So I’m currently awaiting a set of Enve 45 carbon clinchers build onto Chris King R45 hubs with Sapim CX-ray spokes. 20 spoke front, 24 spoke rear, 2 cross rear for (I hope) decent lateral stiffness. A slightly shallower and lighter rim than the Xentis (wheelset should come in at about 1400g) which should be good for crits and road races alike.

I’m awaiting a delivery date now, and the dubious pleasure of taking receipt of both the wheels and the import bill. That’s the hit I’ll have to accept for what will be, let’s face it, a pretty special wheelset.

Phew – this was a long post! Perhaps I’ve spend too much time researching, but it’s been fun!