Well, WELL, WELLLLLL ALRIGHTTTT!!! Yeah Baby Yeah.
Just back from crit training, and I can honestly say from the first time I accelerated, I was floored with how much easier it is to accelerate on the FS 50mmCCs.
But let me qualify that. My previous wheels were stock standard Bontrager Race L, weight ex tape, skewers, tubes and tires? 1920grams!!!
So that's almost a 650 gram difference with the FSs.
I let a mate put them on his bike too and he was really impressed as well, super responsive due to lightness, and very stable at speed.
Reluctantly, he gave me the wheels back, then I did 20 minutes at 30 to 37. Accelerations from 30 were so much easier. Steering felt more stable.
We then started a paceline of 10 guys, at 35 then built to low 40s, rotating through. In the last 2 laps we lifted it to mid 40s then a sprint.
I then did a few gentler sprints out of the saddle afterwards.
The main diff I feel is acceleration has gone from pedaling in tar, to pedaling in air. The difference is profound. I can wind it up from 35 to 40 with significantly less effort.
Drafting and holding line definitely seemed more stable. However, just so you know I am not punch drunk, through the Ss, I did feel like the back slipped sideways a couple of times. It's a feeling I have had with the old wheelset, which was resolved by tightening the cassette lockring.
My bike weight has gone from around 8 to 7.4kg.
OK, first impressions. The tires were already on when i saw them. The rims look nice and uniform, the spokes are stamped Sapim, and are tensioned as I'd expect, (Ashley said the rear needed the slightest attention), the hubs look like a mid priced hub looks.
They spin nicely, the freehub is louder than my Bontragers, but not as loud as many higher priced hubs.
Braking seemed pretty close to my alloys, though I didn't really push them.
OK, the downside:
- The skewers are light, 24grams, vs 67 for my bontragers. The axle might be the spec'ed titanium, but the lever is a very light and soft alloy, very poorly engineered, round and therefore hard to apply pressure to, and has not worked well since the 2nd time I tightened it due to loose clamping action.
- The two spare Sapim spokes they agreed to send and were listed on my invoice were not included.
- I got external nipples. The invoice didn't specify and I can't remember if I did in an email, so will have to check. Internal nipples look better and are apparently more robust, but are more difficult to true (tape has to come off) from what I've been told.
- I discussed the under specc'ed weight with Ashley. He's tested them and feels there's nothing obvious wrong, and affirmed the quality is surprisingly good, and they are stiff. When I talked about spokes being pulled through the rim before specced tension was reached, his response was "ha, that happens with Zipps too".
- Tubular carbon are less likely to have issues with rim distortion or failure during braking, but I'll be riding these on road rides, so didn't want to do tubbies.
I'll be racing on Sat at Lakeside in a reverse direction crit. There's a big hill and I'll be trying breaks with two team mates, so they'll get a nice workout. I'll use another set of skewers and take them for another ride tomorrow morning. I'll take photos of them on my bike tomorrow, but my bike is blue and white, so they aren't a great color match. I'm thinking of getting some white stickers (Lightweight
) to help with the aesthetics.