Wheels Lab Tests

Wheels, Tires, Tubes, Tubeless, Tubs, Spokes, Hookless, Hubs, and more!

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The spirit of this board is to compile and organize wheels and tires related discussions.

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Siriuslux
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Location: Luxembourg

by Siriuslux

It seems, there's a mistake in the spreadsheet. The Mavic Cosmic Ultimate T are made for tubulars, not for clinchers. Therefore the question for Mavic would be: How do the Cosmic SLR45 Disc perform? They seem to lack in the spreadsheet, while the Cosmic SL 45 are there.

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C36
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by C36

flying wrote:
Fri Jan 20, 2023 11:17 pm
The Campy Bora WTO 45 reads Disc on left/Model & Rim on right Rim/Disc ? In any case no drag #'s
Thanks, I updated and filtered the sheet from my phone and messed-up few entries, I will update this later.
TobinHatesYou wrote:
Sat Jan 21, 2023 5:15 am
The Hunts having poor stiffness despite utilizing carbon spokes is perplexing. I'd almost suspect the wrong tensions were used by whoever built the wheel...
It's consistent with all the wheels I saw, I filtered-out few non-public data-points and they are always flexible. That also match some discussions with them, they see carbon spokes as a way to save weight without dropping the stiffness... but their SS spoked wheels being already flexy... so their carbon spoked too.
Aress wrote:
Sat Jan 21, 2023 10:07 am
I sad that we dont have the drag info for the corima mcc dx 47. I'm close to pull the trigger but if its still slow i cant justify the 3k they ask
As Tobin mentioned, if you are on good roads and 25mm (real) are your optimal, then no pb. Now their stiffness is quite amazing and difficult to imagine how it feels until you test. This week-end I swapped from Hyper (50N/mm) to the rare 2022 Cosmic Ultimate Tubulars (high 50s N/mm) and the difference is quite impressive.

If you need wider tires, either you compromize (25mm fron and 28 rear for example), take some extra drag and maybe some front-wheel stability, or switch to the Cosmic Ultimate, more modern rim with 28 external and 100g lighter.
cajer wrote:
Sat Jan 21, 2023 8:51 pm
Hmm I don't see any issues avaible to buy in the tour app. It's just blank... despite having bought issues from them before. Could you please share the use vs drag plot for the wheels?
They moved from their own app to https://kiosk.delius-klasing.de/ that is available both online and through an App.
CyclingGiraffe wrote:
Sun Jan 22, 2023 1:59 am
How is this spreadsheet sorted? It seems generally to be by measured stiffness, but then the Vision Metron, Zipp 303, Shimano 9200 and Fulcrum Speed 40 (among a couple others) seem to be improperly ordered?
Thanks, I forgot to reapply the ranking when I added few more wheels.It's filtered by the average pair-stiffness. for example the 2 Aeolus are near 49.5/49.0 but in quite different ways, with a balanced behaviour (elite 50) or with a stiff front and a soft rear (55/43 for the RSL62)
Last edited by C36 on Sun Jan 22, 2023 10:49 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Aress
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by Aress

Aress wrote:
Sat Jan 21, 2023 10:07 am
I sad that we dont have the drag info for the corima mcc dx 47. I'm close to pull the trigger but if its still slow i cant justify the 3k they ask
As Tobin mentioned, if you are on good roads and 25mm (real) are your optimal. Now their stiffness is quite amazing and I unless you tried, difficult to imagine how it feels. This week-end I swapped from Hyper (50N/mm) to the rare 2022 Cosmic Ultimate Tubulars (high 50s N/mm) and the difference is quite impressive. Now if you need wider tires you will have to compromize (25mm fron and 28 rear for example, of just take some extra drag and maybe some front-wheel stability).
Or switch to the Cosmic Ultimate, more modern rim with 28 external and lighter.

I'm not scared of running 23s, what bothers me is that the wheel in itself from what I've heard isn't that aero.
Despite only having 12 spokes being so wide they aren't really aero at all, so I would have loved to have aero data to confirm that

Maybe the stiffness makes them so good that aero doesn't matter :lol:

Zorka
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by Zorka

C36 wrote:
Fri Jan 20, 2023 4:08 pm
It was like forever than Tour did a proper high-end wheel test. I highly recomend to purchase it to support the magazine -->https://www.delius-klasing.de/tour-digital (5e for 1, 60 for a year and have access to several years of previous publication)
We have a Carbon Spoked special edition: the old and new Cadex, the Lighwegith and Cosmic Ultimate, Hunt, the special One-K, NewMen.
What are the key points (more to come with more time):

- After many years of lower stiffness numbers linked to extensive usage of very thin SS spokes (yes CX-ray, talking about you), in the low 40N/mm at the rear wheel, CF spokes allow to reach the 50s and for those who had the opportunity to test a really stiff wheel... that changes the face of how your bike rides.

- Really happy to see Mavic back at the top, half of LW price, within 3W of the fastest (219-216w), as stiff as 1700g wheels (DT ARC62) with 1250g weight and lifetime waranty. Rim width is 28mm in case someone wonder

- It was the case of previous wheels but clearly show that Hunt doesn't understand the wheel mechanics, they are always at the very bottom of the stiffness range. trying to save few grams using carbon spokes is totally missing the point if it's to be that flexible

- One-K... Super light (947g) and surprisingly aero with their bulky spokes heads, but shifting away from CF spokes to something like the Spinergy PBO, comes with noodle stiffness.

- Cadex, new wider spokes do their job with a stiffness jumping from 44nM to 49

- LW remains stiffness champions (something I though dropped on their last rim-brake versions) but with 24mm rims, it will impact aero and handling under x-wind (somehow they are not rated like this... but there is no number and Tour always had a tendency to favor german brands with few twists).

Edit : quick summary, did the filtering to put some reference points
Image
Good job, thanks for the chart.

Looking at 60mm and deeper wheels, there´s only 1,5w difference between worst and best:
Vision Metron 60 217.5W
DT Swiss 1100 62 216W
I suppose the rim brake versions would be a bit faster due to fewer spokes.

Even the slowest wheels tested (Zipp 303) are not that much slower on paper, but the difference is noticeable for sure. The question is huw much is 1W or 2W saved on wheels in real world.

I´m still on the rim brake wheels and during BF I bought Lun Hyper 65, unfortunately not tested by Tour Mag.
I am still tempted to buy DT 1100 ARC 62 regarded as fastest aero road bike wheels, but I am really not convinced the Hypers 65 are that much slower (if they really are) and DTs are almost twice as expensive as Hypers.

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C36
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by C36

Well yes, there is no crazy differences between aero-wheels as tested in a wind-tunel (steady state) and differences are made with lateral-wind. Without, between a 35 and a 80mm wheel you may have 2w max and the tire selection will make more difference than this (between tire aero and RR). At lower speeds the difference reduced further.

If that can highlight that we should be looking to other elements than the single aero pushed by marketing teams, like stiffness (measurable) and how the wheel feel (non-measurable, yet important since it directly impacts how you feel on the bike, then how you perform in key moments) and adjust width to our use rather than only going wide (some have use of performance 30mm external wide rims to ride low-pressure 28mm tires, some have no practical reasons to go beyond 26mm rims with 25mm tires).

Regarding the zipp 303, rather than the small aero penality, I would be more bothered by their flexibility... Zipp mastered aero as well as they have problems making mecanically correct wheels, I don't think I saw in the last 15 years, wheels that were not flexi and/or with hubs problems and/or spokes issues.
Last edited by C36 on Tue Jan 24, 2023 12:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

RDY
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by RDY

It'd be nice if Corima modernized their road and gravel clincher disc brake wheels so they weren't so heavy and narrow. I can't imagine any of them make up the weight penalty in aero gains, even if you are using 23mm tires. I guess if you're really heavy they might be worth it, but otherwise I struggle to see a good use for them.

eins4eins
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by eins4eins

Are all those numbers from the Tour Magazin test?
Some seem to be off a little. Newmen SLR 50 are listed with 1370gr, but they're advertised with 1490gr and i weighed them myself at 1530gr.

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C36
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by C36

eins4eins wrote:Are all those numbers from the Tour Magazin test?
Some seem to be off a little. Newmen SLR 50 are listed with 1370gr, but they're advertised with 1490gr and i weighed them myself at 1530gr.
It’s a mix of Tour (German), Le Cycle (French) and some (few) private lab test (with autorisation to share). Other sources use different measurements so can’t mix.

The Newmen were part of the last edition of Tour magazin and that’s the weight reported (no valve but with rim tape if needed and without thru axles), now it would not be the first time there is a typo in a magazine but just to be sure, did you weight the carbon-spokes version?
Last edited by C36 on Tue Jan 24, 2023 2:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

eins4eins
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by eins4eins

No, my mistake then. Didn't even know there is a carbon spoke version. Newmen doesn't even list them on their website i think. A shame that they're so narrow. Could've been a really interesting wheelset otherwise.

NordicSal
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by NordicSal

Would be really interesting if someone could write down a few points about how to read this info.

Points answering questions not limited to but like these:

What is good/bad stiffness and why?
What is good/bad aero and why?

So much knowledge in here that's not shared because a lot of you are already in the know.

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C36
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by C36

Siriuslux wrote:
Sun Jan 22, 2023 8:32 pm
It seems, there's a mistake in the spreadsheet. The Mavic Cosmic Ultimate T are made for tubulars, not for clinchers. Therefore the question for Mavic would be: How do the Cosmic SLR45 Disc perform? They seem to lack in the spreadsheet, while the Cosmic SL 45 are there.
My bad, I copied the error from Tour Magazine, according to Mavic Tech document, the proper wheel name should be "COSMIC ULTIMATE 45 DISC 2023"
https://technicalmanual.mavic.com/tech- ... ronu=30875

Siriuslux
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by Siriuslux

Thanks C36!
I just checked the Mavic website, and there the Cosmic Ultimate 45 Disc are 19mm internals width, so the rather old style dimension.

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C36
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by C36

Siriuslux wrote:Thanks C36!
I just checked the Mavic website, and there the Cosmic Ultimate 45 Disc are 19mm internals width, so the rather old style dimension.
They are 19 internal by 28 external meaning that your tires won’t balloon as much as you see on 23+ inner rims where it’s difficult to have 25-26mm real tire width since the tires balloon quickly to 27-29+mm.

I would rather see this as a benefit.

Siriuslux
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by Siriuslux

Hi C36,
I agree with you, the external width makes for a good profile and transition of the air from tire to rim. In the past I liked the nartow tires, nowadays and in times of tubeless tires, I prefer to go to wider tires, i.e. 28mm or even a little wider, and there the wider inner width helps to have a greater air volume and be able to have a) a good air reserve in case of a puncture and b) be able to reduce tire pressure and have a low rolling resistance under real life condition combined with good comfort and lower friction loss due to absence of friction between inner tube and tire, and inner tube and rim.
I am a big fan of tubeless, also since I experience and understand the advantages of tubeless in cars since 45 years or so.

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Mr.Gib
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by Mr.Gib

Just looking at that data, I am pleased to see that wider doesn't seem to be slower. All the 30mm and wider rims of adequate depth performed well. I always wondered what price I was paying for running 32mm wide rims. Apparently none according to this testing. However, assuming equal tire/rim aero optimization, a 28mm wide rim must be faster than a 32mm wide rim? Perhaps the differences are so small that they cannot be measured.
wheelsONfire wrote: When we ride disc brakes the whole deal of braking is just like a leaving a fart. It happens and then it's over. Nothing planned and nothing to get nervous for.

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