Well, I hope they changed something with their 2013 FC bc the 2012 aren't the be-all, end-all in my book. No wheel really is.
I've never extensively rode a tubular except for a demo set. The only question that I would have is, if the heat build up is as intense as I've witnessed, wouldn't those same temps melt glue? Additionally, if the op is up in the mountains and gets a puncture on tubulars, that's going to kinda ruin is day along with his, come and get me driver. The two weeks I demo'd tubulars wasn't fun. Got a puncture, shot some slim inside, spun the tire around, waited for the stuff to dry, aired up and had a slow leak. It sucked. I had to stop two more times to shoot some Co2 in it just to get home. In short, it made for a crappy ride and I was less than happy. Tubulars in crits, ok. Tubulars in mountains, no-go.
Back to Zipp, they dont like to deal with the end user direct. You have to take your wheel to a Zipp retailer and they deal with Zipp. For me, this is total bs! Why remove the guy who has the wheel problem right out of the equation! I'll tell you why. They're on their high-horse. They don't want to talk to us and barely the bike shops. It took me over a month to get my 303 FC hub upgraded to Shimano 11sp!! Totally unacceptable plus $250 to boot! So don't think any repairs will be a cake walk with them.

that's the first I've heard of tubulars being a "no go" in the mountains...

Someone should tell the entire pro peloton to avoid races with mountains included as the last few decades of success have all been down to extremely good luck.

_________________
charles@pezcyclingnews.com

I don't have a team car.
Temps run well above 100 degrees where I ride.
I don't recon a double century prior to riding it.
I have to ride with greater caution since the roads aren't closed.
I don't get paid to ride.

It's ignorant to compare an average rider and his experiences to those of a pro anyway.

This is my opinion. I never claimed it to be gospel. I'm offering up what I experienced in the past year of almost 9k miles and over 450k' of climbing. I feel I have something to contribute to the op and his selection. That's the problem with this site, people prefer to be sarcastic rather than constructive and it gets off topic quickly. I dont post a lot, but when I do, it pertains to my direct experiences and not what I hear in group or training rides.
Keep it real.

I think there is too much thought going into this question. Go look at the wheels, ride them both if you can and go from there. I've always liked Zipp's product although they are not perfect. That being said I think they represent a very well engineered product for the price (I wouldn't pay full retail on anything but there are good deals to be had).

To PezTech regarding my bearing post, I agree with what your saying but I don't feel you've understood my point. Customers want to be able to pick up a components that has 'ceramic' bearings and have it spin amazingly in their hands. My point was you could do this with steel bearings (I was not talking about poor quality bearings, seems a little pointless as who would consider them? & we're talking about expensive wheelsets). To do this you could simply use a lighter lubricant and less restrictive/protective seals. Not that this has much to do with real world drag rolling down the road because decent quality bearings only represent a tiny amount of drag in the first place. It would seem 'Ceramic' bearings are an opportunity for huge profit margins and most customers are unaware of how little real world benefit they have.

Having gone through this process I wouldn't bother with a manufacturers own hybrid ceramic because of the ludicrous price. I may consider hybrids from outside of the cycling market because of the coatings they are now applying the the races to reduce friction & wear. I have a set arriving in a few days to play with.

In the past I've gone with full ceramics for races I care about and as you surely know they require a fair amount of maintenance. I hope that better clarifys what I meant, I don't want to disagree with you as I've always enjoyed & benefited from your posts.

Tubulars are safer in mountains. If you're worried about heat, start with worrying about clinchers. How many guys on here have glue melting to the point that their tubs are coming off? In fact how many properly installed tubs get rolled?

I know I have to muscle off each tub once it's time to change - no chance those things are rolling off.

Not convinced about the 202 FC on a VFM basis. Suspect they are inferior to the 202 tubular - which is a great wheelset. doubt we'll be seeing pros on the FCs ... even if there wld be more marketing benefit to Zipp from that right?

I know nothing about tubulars except my brief demo with a set. I guess the point I was trying to make was, it would be unfortunate to experience a situation where a rider couldn't finish a ride bc of an irreparable puncture, especially one you paid to be in.
When I flatted on the steep descent on my 303FCs, I grabbed the wheel to remove it from the bike and burned my hand. It was that hot. I was making an assumption that that kind of heat could probably melt tire glue. I offer my apology for this incorrect assumption.

Tubular glue can obviously take some heat but I think a tubular rim dissipates the heat better. The other problem with a carbon clincher is the rim side wall doubles as a brake surface. As the carbon gets hotter the resin becomes weaker, this is only a problem if it gets too weak, if it never gets to that point then it doesn't matter. Zipp have found a resin thats up to it, composites are used in quite a few high temperature components and there is a lot of work being done to push resins heat tolerance upwards.

F1 brakes are basically made of a carbon fibre composite and resist to temperatures (over 750°C) well above anything that a bike brake could reach without melting, so indeed there are resins out there that can live up to the challenge, the only issue is the price.

Not quite Jano, they are made by a totally different process although the fabric they start with is similar. The Carbon brakes your referring to are Carbon-Carbon which goes through a long expensive manufacturing process totally different to the thermoplastic carbon composites we're familiar with. CC can take huge temperatures though and is a fantastic insulator, NASA used a variant on the shuttles leading 'hot' edges because of this.

Although the NASA story is completely unrelated I think it could show something. In the shuttles instance the heat is unavoidable and a material just has to take it. In car brakes & in our brake tracks this doesn't have to be the way. Cars for example use ducting to bring cool air in, Zipp now seem to have pads with grooves designed to take heat away. I don't know how affective these could be, after all surely it is a tiny amount of air but it's something although I suspect this problem will be solved with materials without needing additional outside cooling. Zipp have claimed to have done just that except it seems from extreme examples of continuos braking where maybe only a couple of people have had problems.

Coatings can also be used to protect the material underneath, ceramic is a popular choice for this, Zircotec in the UK are now doing high temp coatings for carbon, used in F1 for ducting exhaust gases to sensitive places, again not necessary for us but a different type and use of Ceramic is also used on production car 'carbon' brake's friction surfaces which may be useful for us. I don't know what Zipp do to their brake tracks but it could be along these lines.

HTH

If you think about how the rims are 90+% rolling in free air and only some 10% is in contact with the pads you realize that those fins on teh pads have almost no cooling effect on the rim, rather on the pads.

Regarding my point about F1 brakes, just to clarify, I just meant to give an example that shows that carbon composites can be used much better then metal for braking purposes. That the technology can not be translated 1:1 to biking is obvious, though I could imagine a few things that might wok, but then again the price would be prohibitive and the rims would not be very light.

All good Jano I understand what your saying