Light versus heavy clincher ride/race performace/results

[el condor]

I was wondering how everyone feels the ride/race with a rather heavy clincher wheel set versus those fancy expensive light clincher wheel sets, no matter whether full carbon, carbon with alloy braking surfaces or aluminium ones. Please state the rim profile and explain what- for example, could be accounted for your impression.
I own a lot of wheel sets-all sorts, light and heavy including tubular, but let's stick to clincher for now, the reason I started this thread is the fact, if I look back at my 25 years of cycling-racing, I realise that my best performances using clincher wheels around 4 out of 5 or around 80%-happened when using rather heavy clinchers including mountain tt's. Wondering if some of you have a similar impression-experience/observation.

Please by using the poll use all five options by stating in the light or heavy section which one was the better/faster performing clincher wheel set.

[Horze]

Heavy wheel will hold speed well due to inertia.
There are other psychological considerations. Lighter wheel will encourage rider to push possibly taking into red-zone. It takes longer to recovery out of it.
If grad is not so high you have more gain from a "heavy" wheel.

[eric]

The question is incomplete. If both wheel sets have the same aerodynamics, the light wheels will outperform the heavy wheels. If it's a level time trial the difference will be small. If it's an uphill race with a lot of surges (so both total weight up the hill and the cost to accellerate the wheels have an effect) the difference will be larger.

Also, performance depends on a lot of factors, many of which have much more effect than wheel weight.

[Rick]

The light set beats the heavy set in every scenario,

[el condor]

The light set beats the heavy set in every scenario,

Light wheels-often more flex and to me often doesn't make me "feel" going fast, like not feeling the wheel.

[tymon_tm]

stiffness

i once found a 2-kg ~40mm deep bada$$ clinchers actually 'faster' than a DA WH-something low-profile CLs. in the hills. ok, maybe not alps, but 1-5 km ascents definitely hills i consider. and i weight somewhere around 65kg.

the inertia thing, yes but i assume it's rather the case with flat roads where speed is greater. i've owned and ridden some fancy wheelsets, but somehow 1,8 kg Cosmic Carbones are my all-time fav

[BmanX]

The light set beats the heavy set in every scenario,

WRONG! A heavy aero set will beat a light non-aero set every time until you are going up a grade of 6% or greater for a long period of time. Outside of climbing for long periods of time the heavy more aero wheel set wins.

A set of FLO 60mm at 1961g will be faster than my 1300g EDGE45 wheels every single time until we go uphill.

[53x12]

The light set beats the heavy set in every scenario,

Maybe if it is the same rim design, just made from heavier material. However, as already noted, aero will trump weight in every scenario except for steep climbs. However you need to ride in the flats to get to the climb, then need to ride down the other side of the mountain. The best is if you can incorporate both aero and ww in the same wheelset. There are a few options if you want this.

[BmanX]

Aero and light is Always right. Something in clincher with latex tubes and maybe a 4000s tire and a wheelset around 1400-1500g and Zipp, hed, or Enve is best.

[53x12]

I would personally go with tubulars instead, but that is just me. But a good quality clincher set also works.