FLO launched 45mm, 60 and 90 carbon clincher

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mariovalentim wrote:nor if they are providing specific brake pads


We will be providing specific brake pads with our carbon wheels that we require to be used for warranty purposes.
Chris
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mpulsiv wrote:
Krackor wrote:Flo45 wheelset weighing in at 1459g. A big improvement compared to their previous alu+carbon models. This actually compares favorably to some other competitors. Boyd does their 44mm clincher set at 1475g, Zipp 303 is 1625g. Bora One 50mm is 1485g. If their aero claims are accurate, then this could be a lot of performance for a low price.

No mention of braking performance on the carbon brake track though.


Don't get your hopes up. These are going to be sold out just like FLO 30 in the first 2 years due to such high demand https://intheknowcycling.com/2015/06/05 ... in-the-flo
First batch will be available in April and you might be a lucky one if you happen to be in front of computer and click on "buy" before others get to it. Very much similar shopping experience as "Black Friday" deals online. Again, this just speculation based on previous sales of FLO 30. Let's hope for better inventory when FLO 45 become available for ~$1200.

Thumbs up for launching FLO 45 and providing Aero Data across all wheels they sell.


We've had stock since November and have only recently been out of stock due to the fact that we are brining out a new product line. Have we been sold out in the past? Of course, but we are growing as quickly as possible. Typical orders in the past have included 450 carbon wheels and our first order this year will include 1000. We are doing what we can. Keep in mind that growing a business isn't always as easy as hitting the "more wheels" button. As an example consider the cost of R&D to develop 7 new wheels. It all take time.
Chris
FLO Cycling: http://www.flocycling.com
FLO Blog: http://bit.ly/b3Zlpq | FLO Facebook: http://bit.ly/d8KDhI

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nathanong87 wrote:everyone claims that 'braking is as good in the wet'. bollox.

not even a hater, i have a flo disc and flo 90 front.


To be clear... From what we have seen... it's as good as aluminum when wet. Not as good as a dry wheel.
Chris
FLO Cycling: http://www.flocycling.com
FLO Blog: http://bit.ly/b3Zlpq | FLO Facebook: http://bit.ly/d8KDhI

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Krackor wrote:I was able to snag a set of Flo30 back in March '14. I think it took me one or two tries before I got the timing right. It's certainly not as convenient as having a shop with a stock of wheels sitting around waiting for someone to show up and buy them. However, if Flo's business model is contributing to their low prices I'm happy with the trade-off. In my view it's certainly better than other companies who offer a "pre-order" of an undisclosed number of units, to be delivered on an undisclosed day, and to be delayed an arbitrary number of days without notice or refund. At least when you make it through Flo's order process you get what you paid for on roughly the date it was promised, without any runaround or false promises.

I might just be bitter about my pending Etap and Wahoo ELEMNT pre-orders.


That's exactly why we don't do pre orders any more. There are too many variables that upset the customer. We've tried many options. Is our current system perfect? No it's not. But it has worked the best for us.
Chris
FLO Cycling: http://www.flocycling.com
FLO Blog: http://bit.ly/b3Zlpq | FLO Facebook: http://bit.ly/d8KDhI

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kkibbler wrote:Oof, and I just sprung for a set of Reynolds...

I'm not familiar with these wheels. What exactly is their business model? How are they hitting these price points? Their About page indicates that they own their molds and the wheels are produced in Taiwan.


We hit the prices by selling direct to the consumer. Standard distribution looks like this...

Factory -> Owner -> Distributor -> Bike Shop -> End User.

Our model looks like this...

Factory -> Owner -> End User

Knocking out two lines of mark up really cuts your cost down, specifically when the increases are large between those hand offs.

All of our mold are owned by us. They are our proprietary shapes, and yes we are using arguably the best rim manufacturer in Taiwan to build them.
Chris
FLO Cycling: http://www.flocycling.com
FLO Blog: http://bit.ly/b3Zlpq | FLO Facebook: http://bit.ly/d8KDhI

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mariovalentim wrote:
cobrakai wrote:
Lelandjt wrote:What is the advantage over Farsports?


Read their blog posts for the development of these new wheels and I think that will become obvious...

I wish they had brought a 'known fast wheel' into the tunnel with them like a zipp 404 or something. Comparing against an open pro rim and their previous rims doesn't really give an idea about how it the rims fare against their competitors. The weights are competitive though. Anyone have comments on their vortex hubs?


I echo your post, really odd to see a lack of comparison with the big boys, also all their aerodynamic testing was done considering only the rim (no tyre, spoke, hub or frame) which doesn't sound right, however I'm not an expert.


That is not correct. All of our CFD was done using a rim and tire. We took a lot of time to build a very accurate tire/rim model. On top of that, all of our tunnel tests were done with rim, tire, spokes, and hub.
Chris
FLO Cycling: http://www.flocycling.com
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cobrakai wrote:
Lelandjt wrote:What is the advantage over Farsports?


Read their blog posts for the development of these new wheels and I think that will become obvious...

I wish they had brought a 'known fast wheel' into the tunnel with them like a zipp 404 or something. Comparing against an open pro rim and their previous rims doesn't really give an idea about how it the rims fare against their competitors. The weights are competitive though. Anyone have comments on their vortex hubs?


Our VORTEX hubs are highly serviceable, have Japanese EZO stainless steel bearings, and have been really great performers for us over the last 4.5 years. If you have any specific questions please let me know. We also have a full service video on our how to page.
Chris
FLO Cycling: http://www.flocycling.com
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duvivr6 wrote:@mariovalentin, agree with your comment, but hey whatever the test is it states it's aero-er. Most important part for FLO it sells their wheels.
I feel they are still heavy and not much cheaper that the other offerings out there.


You think our new carbon clincher wheels are heavy? Also, @mariovalentin's comments on our testing weren't accurate. I corrected them in the post above.
Chris
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joepac wrote:The analysis on their website of the time spent at each yaw angle is pretty interesting... I wonder if it's only for tri riding or if it includes pack riding? And what speed or speeds it was done at? What wind conditions?

We rode individually, while drafting, climbing, descending, along the coast, in wooded areas etc. This was not just for tri riding. The analysis covers all of the rides and our finding showed that regardless of where you rode, you yaw angles were close enough to consider the same.

These seem to be pretty nice wheelsets, weights are extremely light (i.e. probably underestimates but even so still competitive). Lots of aero for the money. Looks to be the best deal along with the Rails from November (you get a better hub and tested against the 404 FC).

http://www.novemberbicycles.com/blog/20 ... rfscs.html
Chris
FLO Cycling: http://www.flocycling.com
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cobrakai wrote:
Lelandjt wrote:What is the advantage over Farsports?


Read their blog posts for the development of these new wheels and I think that will become obvious...

I wish they had brought a 'known fast wheel' into the tunnel with them like a zipp 404 or something. Comparing against an open pro rim and their previous rims doesn't really give an idea about how it the rims fare against their competitors. The weights are competitive though. Anyone have comments on their vortex hubs?


We didn't bring a competitors wheels into the tunnel for the following reason...

There are several reasons and the biggest reason is that there are so many variables that go into wind tunnel results. We studied a lot of those while in the tunnel this year. For example, tire pressure effects, your results. Something as small as a 5psi difference matters. I think no matter what we did to be as fully transparent as possible, people would doubt our results. I personally think the only way to have a direct comparison that people would believe, would be to have a representative from each brand at the same tunnel, at the same time testing together. While I personally would love to be part of a study like this, my guess is that most companies wouldn't share the same excitement for the idea.

I hope that makes sense.
Chris
FLO Cycling: http://www.flocycling.com
FLO Blog: http://bit.ly/b3Zlpq | FLO Facebook: http://bit.ly/d8KDhI

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53x12 wrote:
mariovalentim wrote:
cobrakai wrote:
Lelandjt wrote:What is the advantage over Farsports?


Read their blog posts for the development of these new wheels and I think that will become obvious...

I wish they had brought a 'known fast wheel' into the tunnel with them like a zipp 404 or something. Comparing against an open pro rim and their previous rims doesn't really give an idea about how it the rims fare against their competitors. The weights are competitive though. Anyone have comments on their vortex hubs?


I echo your post, really odd to see a lack of comparison with the big boys, also all their aerodynamic testing was done considering only the rim (no tyre, spoke, hub or frame) which doesn't sound right, however I'm not an expert.



Previous Flo wheels (before carbon clincher) have tested well against the bigger name brands. Not to mention, bang for the buck, nothing comes close to these guys in terms of performance.


Image


This is a prime example of why testing another brand's wheels can be misleading. While I'm certainly not unhappy with these results, specifically knowing that our new wheels are up to 28% faster than the ones tested here, the SW Turbo cotton was the absolute worst tire we tested on our wheels. We tested 20 tires during our last visit to the wind tunnel and if I could have put my own wheel in the tunnel to test, I certainly would not have chosen the SW Turbo cotton. It would have been the last tire on my list. It produced nearly double the drag that the Continental GP 4000s II tire did on our new FLO 60 Carbon Clincher. So what would that graph have looked like had I been able to chose my own wheel/tire combo?

*Edit: Missed an '
Chris
FLO Cycling: http://www.flocycling.com
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by Krackor

Canadian wrote:We didn't bring a competitors wheels into the tunnel for the following reason...

There are several reasons and the biggest reason is that there are so many variables that go into wind tunnel results. We studied a lot of those while in the tunnel this year. For example, tire pressure effects, your results. Something as small as a 5psi difference matters. I think no matter what we did to be as fully transparent as possible, people would doubt our results. I personally think the only way to have a direct comparison that people would believe, would be to have a representative from each brand at the same tunnel, at the same time testing together. While I personally would love to be part of a study like this, my guess is that most companies wouldn't share the same excitement for the idea.

I hope that makes sense.

Good to see you responding to questions here too, thanks for stopping by.

You say that 5 psi matters in the wind tunnel test. What's the magnitude of the effect of a 5 psi tire change? Is that on par with the measurement precision of your test equipment? On par with the difference between two closely competitive wheels? What do you mean by "matters" here?

I agree with your approach to testing - cross-brand comparisons really should be left to third-part reviewers, like one of the cycling magazines. There's too much potential for bias or crafting the test to match the R&D conditions for your own wheel and skewing the results.

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by SLCBrandon

Canadian wrote:
53x12 wrote:
mariovalentim wrote:
cobrakai wrote:
Lelandjt wrote:What is the advantage over Farsports?


Read their blog posts for the development of these new wheels and I think that will become obvious...

I wish they had brought a 'known fast wheel' into the tunnel with them like a zipp 404 or something. Comparing against an open pro rim and their previous rims doesn't really give an idea about how it the rims fare against their competitors. The weights are competitive though. Anyone have comments on their vortex hubs?


I echo your post, really odd to see a lack of comparison with the big boys, also all their aerodynamic testing was done considering only the rim (no tyre, spoke, hub or frame) which doesn't sound right, however I'm not an expert.



Previous Flo wheels (before carbon clincher) have tested well against the bigger name brands. Not to mention, bang for the buck, nothing comes close to these guys in terms of performance.


Image


This is a prime example of why testing another brand's wheels can be misleading. While I'm certainly not unhappy with these results, specifically knowing that our new wheels are up to 28% faster than the ones tested here, the SW Turbo cotton was the absolute worst tire we tested on our wheels. We tested 20 tires during our last visit to the wind tunnel and if I could have put my own wheel in the tunnel to test, I certainly would not have chosen the SW Turbo cotton. It would have been the last tire on my list. It produced nearly double the drag that the Continental GP 4000s II tire did on our new FLO 60 Carbon Clincher. So what would that graph have looked like had I been able to chose my own wheel/tire combo?

*Edit: Missed an '



Am I wrong in reading this chart and not seeing a Flo used with a Turbo Cotton?

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by Krackor

Blue line w/ squares is the Flo 9 with "SW Turbo 22mm" tire.

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SLCBrandon wrote:

Am I wrong in reading this chart and not seeing a Flo used with a Turbo Cotton?


No you are correct in reading that.
Chris
FLO Cycling: http://www.flocycling.com
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