Tubies = Tangents. Tangents are my go-to tire. Love them.

I've had a lot of rubber on my 101s...GP4000s, GP Triathlons, Gatorskins, Open Corsas, Tangents, etc. Should say that I also also spent some time on 404 FCCs with GP4000s and they rode the similar to the 303s FCCs I was using. I'm just not impressed with them. I see the FCCs as being the wheel for the guy that's got $$ to burn and is looking for an image.

I feel differently about GP4000s. I don't think they roll as well. They feel smooth, and I'd most definitely pull a pair out of the trash if a customer tosses them before they're bad, but Tangents just do it for me. I have more confidence that a Tangent will hold a 90* turn at speed. Unless they are mounted on a set of FCCs.

The graph brings me to the same question you have, 10 grams of drag is approximately one watt. Nowhere in the graph we can see the 404 getting as closed as 10 grams compare to the 303 with the same tire.
I have 808 firecrest carbon clincher on my TT bike (they are absolutely fabulous !) and 303 carbon clincher, I went with 303 over 404 exactly because riding with 23mm tires on my road bike I thought the aero advantage of the 404 would be close to none (404 would still be faster with 21mm but I don't use such small size for road as we have rough roads where I live). If the graph is correct Waldo, I really wished I went with 404 !!! It would also have been a better match to have the 404 so that when weathier is windy I could use 808 rear with 404 front on the TT bike.

Waldo, please enlighten us, why 1 watt in catalog and much more showing on your graph ?

From the 404 firecrest page on website :



From Waldo earlier :



Big difference on the 404 results... definitely I'm confused , different wind tunnels maybe ???

Just ordered some 303's. Looks like the 404's are faster from the last chart?

p.VDB, those are clinchers. If your terrain is really bad I'd actually go with the 303 and a 27/28mm tire. Otherwise the difference in construction and tire between the two will have no effect on the overall durability of the wheel. We've had a total of 4 carbon clinchers come back with impact damage out of tens of thousands of wheels out there thus far-with the amount of material at the OD of the rim and the compaction we're getting, plus a pretty tough resin system, they can take considerable abuse!

pyf, the difference cited in the catalog is an approximation based on average yaw conditions and was based on results seen with several different sets of tires (working on clarifying which data sets went into that as it was handled by one of our other engineers). Different tires will narrow the discrepancy or even switch (at certain angles) the results seen in the graph I posted. The data I posted was the best combination of data in terms of same tire/same tunnel/same atmospheric conditions that I could easily retrieve from our database, and was from a test after the catalog was published.

_________________
Zippy engineer

New 695 with 303 firecrest carbon clincher

Interesting! That has to be a pretty "worst case scenario" to chose a tire for the 404 that will cause it to perform worse than a 303! It sounds like your marketing folks got a little carried away, and cherry picked data sets to narrow the difference to 1 watt.

Nothing nearly so nefarious as that. It's a generalization (and over-simplification) based on a relatively low average yaw, which minimizes the effects of the larger deltas seen with some tire comparisons at 15+ degrees of yaw. Still awaiting word from the engineer that handed the numbers off to our marketing guy, but he's taking some vacation so I don't expect to hear back from him in the short term.

_________________
Zippy engineer

Sorry! Didn't mean to imply you were doing something evil. Just figured the marketing guys took over from the engineers (as in Dilbert!).

PYF. Stunning bike.. all should have a close peek at that one. First why the AC hubs over Zipp? also .. Those Pedals... Yeah those Pedals..

goodboyr, no worries. It's a simplification, to be sure. It makes life easier on our marketing department (AKA Andy), and some consumers seem to also prefer if we distill things like this down to a single discrete value but it's certainly a bit painful to do so from the perspective of data integrity considering the variables in play. I think our catalogs would be a lot longer and likely more boring if the engineers ran that show, so it's probably better for everyone this way.

_________________
Zippy engineer

Amen to that!

ps. You make the best wheels in the world. That's why I bought my second set of zipps two weeks ago!

Well, like some other poster wrote, people that got money to burn...I guess that is me. I just picked up some 303 FC Tubulars. Waiting for them to arrive. Will let you know, but I would have to assume they are better and more aerodynamic than my generic 50mm carbon clinchers I am using now. Plus 300+gms lighter...and stronger.

I used to have a setup of 50mm Boyd tubulars. Good wheels, and good company and people to deal with. But I honestly think my 50mm clinchers from some Taiwanese place that are machine built roll better than my Boyds did. The Boyds have an ovbious weight advantage. I sold the Boyd wheels because they were my "race dat" wheels and hung on the wall 95% of the time, what a waste I thought.

Now, I decided to just run 1 set of tubulars for racing/training, and those are going to be the 303 FC tubulars. Going to sell th generic clinchers that are a nice wheel overall for anything, racing/training etc..they do it all well. Flatting might be a biatch, will carry some vittoria pitstop in case, hopefully I won't have to call the team car ever and that stuff will work straight up if I get a flat ever.

I had spent more money for my set of 50mm Boyd tubulars and 50mm Carbon clinchers than 1 good set of tubulars from Zipp. I would rather use my one good set and just risk a flat on race day...people always steal other people's wheels anyway, might as well join the crowd and be a d*&k like most people and save some money....haha

Very interesting that thing about aero advantage and so on.
But my initial question was if anyone has ridden them and could give me a good review...

Anyone know what a 303 CC and 404 CC rim weighs?

_________________
Snacking on carrot sticks - Where did it all go so wrong?
-
Finsbury Park CC