Well, the much-anticipated ADA wheels have finally arrived, just in time to be glued-up got the season!

The wheelset is constructed of a 51mm carbon ‘rim’ with a Kevlar braking surface and is integral with the carbon hubset and Kevlar fibre spokes. The ‘hardware’ is alloy. The very innovative freehub drive head is integral to the rear wheel and the freehub pawls are designed to engage the drive head without the use of springs. The ‘rim’, as the spokes are an integral part of the entire system, has no spoke holes and makes for an extremely solid and clean gluing surface.

With respect to weight, the following are the actual, measured weights:

Front axel assembly: 40g
Rear axel and freehub assembly: 129g
Front wheel: 430g
Rear wheel: 496g
Total wheelset weight: 1095g

The other interesting thing about these wheels is that they are not some fragile, good-road-TT-only wheels. They are seriously beefy! In fact, Richard Groenendaal uses them for ‘cross!

nice wheels. So they are lighter than Lightweigts...... can you post some pictures of the spoke leaving the rim, and the kevlar braking surface, because those are the biggest differences with Lightweights I think....

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Hey Geoff, how much did they cost and how long did you have to wait for them?

This was built for Cross Worlds as well....Cross is actually pretty easy on wheels at the top level.

I know that some people are gonna jump on me for this, but I think that everyone is waiting patiently for a full run down on the performance of your ADAs. In case you haven't noticed, a lot of people talk a lot of bad stuff about ADAs, but other than some lab numbers don't ever really have any real world experience on them, so give us the dirt. (even though I know some people will say "why would he dog on a wheelset he paid a lot of money for")

Ye Olde Balde One - how are the spada Spada-Winium? whats the official weight on them?

Sorry, I haven't been on for a while. With respect to photos, I will post some more with closeups of the hub and the rim/spoke interface.

Regarding performance of the wheelset, we are still in winter mode here. It was -11 degrees here yesterday and we got a fair bit of snow to go along with the 65kph wind. I am in the process of gluing them up and cannot wait to ride them. Phonak sent me my new BMC (finally) and I have put the SRM on ready to try these ADA's. I will post a report when I do.

With respect to price, the final bill was 1625 euros. I think that I ordered them at the end of November. Cees sent them on January 18 and I jsut got them last week (Canda Customs at its most-efficient). If you want to e-mail me, I will fill-you-in on the plusses and minuses of the process...

The ADA website shows a price of 3.200 euros for a set with kevlar braking surface. How come you got them for 50% of the price?

My question exactly. 1625euro for the ADA's makes the ADA's very very interessting.

I would be the first to admit that spending 3.500 euros for a pair of wheels would be insane. Fortunately, Cees has come to the rescue.

Cees sometimes provides wheels as demos and test wheels for pro riders. When the pro riders get 'their' wheels, they include the individual's pro rider license number in the wheelset. The demo wheel can not obviously be sold as a 'new' wheel, as it had been preiously ridden and glued...and that is where we come in...

On the rare occasion when Cees has a wheelset come back from a demo or a test set, he can re-finish the wheel so it is 'like-new' and offers the wheels at half-price. As you can see from the photos, the wheels are in perfect shape. The only cosmetic flaws on my wheels are some scratching of the freehub body (which could be easily replaced, if you were so inclined).

As promised, these are photos of the hub/spoke interface and the rim/spoke interface...

The ADA website says you buy these wheels w/o any guarantee. I think 1600 euros for wheels that have 0 guarantee is still insane So be careful using them....

And their looks is really poor compared to the original Lightweight (and performance is said to be so)

Cees' policy for the re-manufactured wheels is actually very reasonable.

The guarantee for the new wheels is, in the event that you damage the wheels in a way that is not repairable, then Cees will sell you a new wheel for 50% of the price of the original wheel. Obviously, if you only paid 50% of the price of a new wheel to begin with, he is not wanting to provide a new wheel for only 25% of the cost of a new wheel. You would basically have to pay the 50% of the new wheel for another re-manufactured wheel.

Interestingly, Cees' guarantee for new wheels applies equally to racing incidents and other crashes! Most other manufactures (Campagnolo, Mavic etc.) do not provide any such guarantee for crash damage. If you are concerned about crash damage expenses, by all means purchase the full-priced set. Even better, Carbonsports (manufacturers of the Lightweight wheels that you speak of) offers a guarantee allowing you to purchase a new wheel at only 30% of the cost of a new wheel.

Speaking for myself, I have never owned a wheelset where the manufacture would give me a new set for 50% in the event of race damage (having said that, I have only once wrecked a wheel in 16+ years and Ambrosio was not offering me a new one for 50% of the cost...), so it does not worry me that much. I would rather get the discount on the initial cost. As with many people who are engaged in our sport, I generally accept the risk of crash damage.

You don't get a new one fom Carbonsports for 30%, but they offer a 30% discount on a new one in case your wheel is beyond repair, thus you have to pay 70% of the list price.
When you do these calculations you have to take into account that Lightweights cost only 50% of the ADAs in the first place (for reasons unclear to me, but that's another story).

But as Geoff says, crashing a wheel is not something that should happen too often, and both manufacturers policy is better than that of many other companies.
Geoff, have fun riding your wheels and be sure to let us know how they ride!

Martin

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Martin, thank you for your correction, you are absolutely correct. I have just looked at the Carbonsports website again and I had misread the information the first time through. Unfortunately, my German is not as good as your English!

what is the price on the lightweight wheels? what is the price on the ada wheels?