FarSports 50mm Carbon Clincher Review Thread, The

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Imaking20
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by Imaking20

Sweet!

hiro11
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by hiro11

I have over 3,000 miles on a set of FSC-50CAs (alloy brake track, Novatec hubs, CX-Ray spokes) clinchers. These weigh 1,540g for the set without tires or skewers so they're pretty light for this type of wheel. I weigh ~150 pounds for reference.

Long story short, these wheels have been pretty terrific. I have not had to touch them with a spoke wrench despite the fact that I use them as everyday training wheels and haven't been gentle with them. The rims are quiet rolling. They're stiff wheels, no brake rub out of the saddle.

Two complaints:
There's slight pulsing in the braking on one of the rims. It's a little annoying but perfectly ridable.
I had to overhaul the rear cassette body right out of the box as it had metal filings in it and didn't run at all. Farsports should have caught this. However, 20 minutes and a little Shimano freehub lube later it was fixed and it's been working fine. Very easy job to fix.

Overall, very pleased with these wheels. Quite a deal at less than $600 shipped. I'll continue to ride the crap out of them.

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alpinestar
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by alpinestar

Hi there

I have a cheapo set of 50mm China clinchers, on novatech hubs. I bought them used and dont know where they are from. There is a problem with the front wheel breaking on the front there is a slight pulsing sensation. I had it in a pro wheel stand with my brother in law, and found that the rim is ever so slightly thicker in one spot, a few 100th or so, but enough to give the pulsing sensation.

Is there anything to do about it? Can it somehow be machined off, or should I just leave it?

Its not a huuuge problem, here in Denmark its rather flat, so no serious decents or anything...
Otherwise the wheelset is quite nice, and stiff....

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mellowJohnny
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by mellowJohnny

I would leave it. Over time it may sort its self out as that spot wears faster than the rest of the brake track, but who knows. I think if you can live with it, leave it.

makerr
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by makerr

I have an 86mm carbon rim that has a problem similar to yours. I greatly reduced the intensity of the pulse by lowering the brake pads so that they contact the very bottom of the brake track, and also made sure that the pads had a healthy toe in. This helped me quite a bit, it may work for you.
Good luck

alpinestar
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by alpinestar

Ok think I will try with different pad posistions and see if it goes away over time :)


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efeballi
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by efeballi

Thought I'd resuscitate this thread.

Weight: 1480g with rim tape

Rims: 50x25 mm "U Shape"

Spokes: Sapim CX-Ray

Hubs: Novatec

Drilling: 20/24H

Finish: matte 3K

Rider weight: 156 lbs/71 kg

Tyres: Conti GP4000S 25 mm

Tubes: Decathlon garden hoses, Schwalbe thin butyl tubes on standby. Homemade valve extender.

Brakes: Shimano 105

Pads: Cork pads supplied with wheels

Skewers: 44/66g OEM

Tyre pressure: 90/100 psi

Review terms: Circa 3 months of training and spirited group riding, including heavy wind, rain and snowmelt conditions.

Build:

Very good. Spoke tensions were even and no spoke was rotated. Rear wheel is slightly out of true radially, but nothing to be alarmed about and probably easily fixable. The stiffness is also very good, with a far more direct feel than my Ultegra wheelset.

Hubs:

I'm underwhelmed by the Novatec hubs. The drive side of the rear axle is either off center or its diameter is less than NDS, which causes the wheel to sit crooked in the bike. Fixed by making a tin spacer to increase diameter. The rear bearings are also near death and developed a fair bit of play.

Braking:

There are many horror stories about carbon braking, and while I can see where they are coming from, it's more than good enough in the dry. With correct brake pad position, I can achieve 90% of alu braking performance in the dry.
The rims do heat up a lot though, and they are not for prolonged braking. I did not notice brake fade, however.

Wet braking: Bad. The rims take a few revolutions to dry up, and only then you get some braking. Definitely needs improvement. A friend of mine on WW uses Campag red carbon pads and says the wet braking is greatly improved.

Aerodynamics:
My riding style involves a lot of riding in the wind (read:breakaways) and these wheels were a great help. Especially above 40 kph the wheels make my job quite a bit easier. However it also makes its presence felt in crosswinds, I do get blown around a bit with these wheels. But it's not a huge concern.

Ride Quality:

I'd say it's on par with my Ultegras. The added stiffness reduces vibration absorption but the wider tyre bed increases tyre volume, which absorbs vibration. They feel like I descend on rails especially considering the aero qualities.

Remarks:

I'm impressed. These wheels are my go-to for good days now, and I would definitely use them for racing. When the rainy season is over, I'll change the rear bearings to ceramic ones and breathe new life to the wheelset.


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Last edited by efeballi on Thu Mar 26, 2015 11:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
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NealH
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by NealH

That's a pretty good update. If you could do it over again, would you change hubs or anything else?

efeballi
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by efeballi

I wouldn't change anything. The price delta for DT240 hubs were too high, so I would opt for Novatec again. Worst case, I'll buy a new rear hub.
The finish, the braking surface etc. are just how I wanted them to be, wouldn't change them.


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Samuel Sanchez Gonzalez
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by Samuel Sanchez Gonzalez

efeballi wrote:The rims do heat up a lot though, and they are not for prolonged braking.


BaSalt = BullShit? :lol: :oops:

efeballi
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by efeballi

My rims do not have the basalt braking surface, but still you could probably say that.


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efeballi
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by efeballi

This will be an end-of-life review of the outgoing non-tubeless 50 mm wheels and a 2-month review of the new tubeless wheels.

I've managed to overheat/melt the outgoing rims once (only the front), when slowing down for a red light. Brakes pulsated after said red light, indicating something was wrong. Rim still held together and I was able to return home. Now lives as a mirror frame.
Farsports promptly sent a new front rim after I sent some photos describing the situation.
The wheelset then lived for another ~15000 km in Istanbul (hilly, lots of traffic) and Milan (flat, lots of traffic, pavé everywhere) while barely going out of true. The hubs were shot, though, at around the 10000 km mark. I ordered a new rear hub, as the cost of new bearings (damn you 15267) approached the cost of a new hub. The front hub bearings were cheap, but the hub munched through them at an alarming rate, while also developing play. The hub can only sustain so many bearing replacements, the bearing seats were shot.

The Novatec is sort of designed as a 48H hub with 24 holes on either side. It occurred to me that I could do 2:1 lacing with this hub (the wheel was shipped 1:1), using 2 holes and skipping one on DS and using 1 hole and skipping 2 on NDS. I had my LBS cut round (non-bladed) spokes for 2:1 lacing and built the rear wheel 2:1, which also served as an exercise for my right hand after I injured it in a crash. It felt quite a bit stiffer but I'm not sure if it was due to the new spokes or the lacing pattern.

After observing short fibers on the brake tracks after rides and an incident where a brake pad was ejected from the pad holder, I decided that the brake tracks are worn and pulled the trigger to replace the rims. While I was at it, I also ordered a DT350 front hub to replace the Novatec. I plan to switch to tubeless after my current tyres are worn, so I went with tubeless.

All in all, these wheels served me well in 6 years and all kinds of abuse, and they still had a bit of life left in them if I hadn't decided on replacing them. Will relace the 20H as a TT disc rear wheel and the other as a front disc-brake wheel.

Now, to the new wheels.

Weight: 1530g

Rims: 50x25 mm "U Shape"

Spokes: Sapim CX-Ray front, DT Champion rear. Brass nipples.

Hubs:DT350 front, Novatec F281SB-SL rear

Lacing: 20H radial front, 24H 2:1 rear (DS 2 cross, NDS radial)

Finish: matte 3K

Rider weight: 160 lbs/73 kg

Tyres: Schwalbe One 25 mm

Tubes: Vittoria

Brakes: Fouriers S005 (Propel) / SRAM Red (Supersix)

Pads: Reynolds blue

Skewers: 44/66g OEM

Tyre pressure: 80/90 psi

Review terms: 2 months of riding. Hills, descents, crosswinds. No rain yet.

Build:

I built them, of course it's top notch...

...I kid. Building tubeless wheels w/o rim tape and non-magnetic nipples is a hassle. I cut a nail to put inside nipples, then fished the nipples in the wheel with a magnet. The nail separated from the nipple in the wheel a couple of times, then I had to wiggle them out while making maraca-like "chiki-chiki" sounds.
I hate the CX-Ray spokes that twist like friggin' noodles.

Both wheels were slightly out of true radially but it went away after a couple test rides. Now they run very true, with even spoke tension.

Hubs:

I think the same about the Novatec rear hub. My mistake that I ordered the superlight racing version (sarcasm), which has non-standard 15267 bearings in it. The DT350 is excellent though.

Dry braking:

Pretty good with good toe-in of the brake pads. Brakes scream as they heat up, giving you a measure of how hard you're pushing them. Wouldn't trust these wheels/brakes down a HC descent, at least not with traffic involved. Everywhere else, it's more than enough.

Wet braking: Cannot comment, not tested.

Aerodynamics:
Better than the outgoing wheels in crosswinds. The old wheels had the "double-bubble" where the rim widens under the brake track, like the pre-Firecrest Zipps' "hybrid-toroidal" shape. Farsports updated the profile, now the nipple bed area is more blunt and the rim has a true U shape. GoldenCheetah suggests a slight improvement in my drag coefficient with the new wheels, but with changes in my position and the new front hub, I think the improvement (or degradation) is negligibly small.

Ride Quality:

Excellent with 25 mm rims. I'm positive it will improve further with tubeless tyres.

Remarks:

I find it hard to pay 3x the money for name-brand wheels.

edit: punctuation, no rim tape

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jackie
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by jackie

was it easy to get farsport to work on the warranty? i send them photo when i got my wheelset that had some carbon chip off. so far the 2 reply back from them was. .. not great.. mind you. the wheel was brand new.. just mounted tubular only and havent even touch the road yet.
but they were saying it all okie.. wheel is still good and doesnt affect the performance.
fyi its a tubular so no chance of lever damage
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efeballi
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by efeballi

jackie wrote:was it easy to get farsport to work on the warranty? i send them photo when i got my wheelset that had some carbon chip off. so far the 2 reply back from them was. .. not great.. mind you. the wheel was brand new.. just mounted tubular only and havent even touch the road yet.
but they were saying it all okie.. wheel is still good and doesnt affect the performance.
fyi its a tubular so no chance of lever damage
Yes, it was quite easy, took me a day of exchanging e-mails with the representative. Maybe send a new e-mail from scratch to be assigned to someone else.
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