I've been an advocate for - and spent a few bucks over the years - on light wheel sets. Lately I've moved toward a bit of a contrarian view based on the notion that wheels and tires with a bit more heft, once you've spun them up to cruising speed, store more rotational kinetic energy in compared to lighter ones. Granted, that's not really a benefit when it comes to long climbs at slower speeds, nor if you're looking for quick acceleration, but when it comes to cruising along at a fairly steady output staying on top of a comfortable gear at a comfortable cadence, like Surly sez "fatties are fine".
All this is undoubtably a reflection of how I approach cycling at this point in my riding career, but I thought I'd throw it into the conversation. Steve in AVL On Monday, June 2, 2025 at 7:51:08 PM UTC-4 Mackenzy Albright wrote: > I ran a tubeless set of 650 Velocity blunt SL laced to hope hubs. With > Switchback hills they were very light. They definitely felt great - though > I am not much for performance so don't know if they "wound up faster" or I > rode faster at all.. Eventually I swapped out for Mavic 717 laced to XTRs > and racing ralphs. I liked the 26" handling better vs the lighter wheel > setup. > > Eventually the Blunt SL's eyelets cracked around the entire back wheel and > sporadically around the front. > > I am happy with middle weight wheels with a good set of tires these days. > > On Monday, June 2, 2025 at 3:08:49 PM UTC-7 maxcr wrote: > >> I was happy when I swapped my 36h Atlas wheels for 32h Quills with >> tubeless RH tires on my (now gone) Charlie Gallop. The bike certainly felt >> lighter and easier to pedal from a stand still. >> >> Check out the Crust rims >> <https://crustbikes.com/collections/wheels/products/crust-randonneur-rim-brake-wheelsets> >> which >> are advertised as lightweight, although I doubt you'll gain much from the >> 32h dyads you have. >> >> Max >> >> On Monday, June 2, 2025 at 1:45:06 PM UTC-4 [email protected] wrote: >> >>> Yes. Carbon wheels are amazing these days! I'm a heavyweight guy and >>> have nothing but good luck with a set of 45mm deep carbon wheels with >>> bi-tex hubs and pillar db spokes from BTLOS. I even got the extralight rims >>> and aluminum nipples! I have two sets of these wheels one for my carbon >>> Trek and the other for my Della Santa and they weigh 1305g and 1304g for >>> the pair. The lightness is immediately noticeable on both bikes. In >>> contrast, I have a set of wheels on my Ellis which are HED rims (Ardennes >>> +) and although they supposedly light for aluminum rims (I think the >>> wheelset is like 1600g?) they feel like a boat anchor compared to the >>> carbon wheels. >>> >>> Note, a week ago, I broke a spoke on a climb. I wasn't pushing too hard >>> and then I heard a pop. What was weird is it was the left/nondrive side >>> spoke. I brought it into a local shop and he said the nondrive side spokes >>> were straightpull and didn't have a lot of tension. So after replacing the >>> spokes with one that came with the wheelset, he re-trued and re-tensioned >>> the entire wheel. Took it out yesterday and it rode fine. >>> >>> Of course, YMMV! >>> >>> Good Luck! >>> >>> PS - a wheelset with extralight rims/pillar spokes/bi-tex hubs/shimano >>> freehub is like $700 or so shipped. Well, that's before all this tariff >>> nonsense...not that much more than a good lightweight aluminum rim >>> wheelset. >>> >>> On Sunday, June 1, 2025 at 8:09:22 PM UTC-7 [email protected] wrote: >>> >>>> I'm curious about putting lighter wheels on my Roadini. Anyone running >>>> really light weight wheels? Carbon? Noticeable changes in >>>> speed/comfort/stats? I wanna try em, but I don't want to drop $1000+ to >>>> find out it's not worth it. >>> >>> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/8d130d78-86f1-4f2c-bf72-cb37536ac688n%40googlegroups.com.
