Hard training/racing reviews on chinese tubular carbon rim ?

[LouisN]

Apart from the huge chinese wheels threads here, I'd like to have some more precise information on the asian wheels that have been bought and used by the forum members as road race wheels.
I read the "open mold wide rims" thread but didn't find any thourough review of the rims (or wheels) actually used for hard road racing (well, besides two members and I PMed them).
Interested in you specific reviews.

Louis

[ITTY]

I used a set of 50mm ebay tubulars for one season. They held up just fine throughout lots of hard races, but their life ended abruptly when I slid out in a corner and smashed sideways into the curb. One wheel completely shattered, the other cracked. I don't think many wheels would have survived that crash, but they might not have failed so spectacularly. Anyway, I had no issues racing on them before that.

[Tinea Pedis]

What does 'serious road racing' even mean?

I've seen guys who don't race be harder on their equipment than mates who race. I've not experienced any situations when I've raced that have been any harder on equipment than I've encountered at some point out training. It's just sometimes a little more skewed by racing, as I don't commonly ride my race wheels or need to suddenly manoeuvre my bike at 60km/h.

Alos, there are plenty of reviews Louis. This one

viewtopic.php?f=113&t=108774

was even just the thread below this

[LouisN]

Yeah I consider some reviews to be quite informative, even if it isn't from road "racers".

In the "wide profile rims" thread, there is a lot of information about the sources, models, profiles, weights, etc...but not much info on how the rims hold up to real life use.
As a volunteer mechanic, I take care of around 30 bikes from the local kids's club. You're right, I can confirm even if they don't "race hard", the younger kids break stuff more often than cadets do.
More precisely, "hard racing" would mean riding the main part of the ride mostly between 35-50 km/h, lots of braking (if you're an "average" in your pack, meaning you're mid-pack), fast cornering (lots of criterium races here), hard accelerations from attacks, counters, etc...
No, you don't have to have an official "licence" to fit as a serious racer. Heck, I consider myself a serious racer and almost never enter races
I also read prendrefeu's thread, wich gives me good details about general quality of some rims, but it's mostly targeting clincher rims, and thus a lot of talk around the brake tracks, what tubes to avoid, etc..

EDIT: I changed the title ...

Louis

[bm0p700f]

I do not have a asain wheel but I have some 50mm deep carbon clincher which I built onto Miche Primato hubs as I wanted a reliable hubset. I have been using them for 1500 miles or so so still early day but wow. I would not bother with expensive Enve rims or Renoylds, Zipp e.t.c. Braking with Campagnolo carbon pads is superb. I use them for some racing/getting dropped, chaingang rides, TT's and very long rides. They have been faultless, quite stable in crosswinds. I have used them in the wet and braking is so so but rim wear is non existant unlike a friends vision wheels which are showing some wear after 1/3 of the miles. the rims even though they are 500g each (25mm wide 50mm deep so they will never be light) don't feel heavy. The roads I ride on and race on are pretty rough in places and they have even survived big impacts in potholes that have blown both tubes and wrecked the tyres. When I say faultless I really do mean it. As for how they accelerate I would say very well. I did a crit race and a very windy one at that two weeks ago and I managed to hang with the boy's a catagory up from me and they can sprint out of a corner.

Louis go for them in tubular or clincher form. I have had several to build with and all the ones I have had of goto bike have been perfectly round I really mean that as well at least as round as an HED or Archetype rim perhaps better.

[LouisN]

Thanks for your feedback guys.

I finally pulled the trigger on 40 mm wide (27) tubular rims from Carbon-Cycle.
Can't wait to get them

Louis