Stiffness of wheels.

[FrancoisO]

Where can i have look to see if Easton Tempest/AC90 are stiffer than 2008 Zipp 404s

 

[Johan Brits]

Ask Johan Bornman - he`ll know,

[MintSauce]

He might not because he does not approve of 'poofter' wheels....I reckon those both qualify

[Spinnekop]

Maybe this will help:

 

http://www.rouesartisanales.com/article-15505311.html

 

 

[Wannabe]

Where can i have look to see if Easton Tempest/AC90 are stiffer than 2008 Zipp 404s

 

 

Why? According to JB you will not get any performance benefit from it.

It's all a Marketing blurb.

[turtlek]

apparently stiff enough is stiff enough

[FrancoisO]

What must we look for then?

[singletrackmind]

One that costs less

[FrancoisO]

Like what?  What if not stiffness is a good indication foor a good wheel?  Aero, bearings?

[Red Zone]

Stiffness definatly is important, I had some cheep wheels that would flex when I climbed out of the saddle or cranked a big sprint. My new Eastons are stiff and I realy feel the difference. The build quality and tensioning of the spokes as well as the stiffness of the rim are probably equally NB, my old wheels may just have been built with slack spokes.

[GoLefty!!]

I'd be more concerned with the stiffeness of my fork and rear chainstays than the stiffeness of my wheels

[Wannabe]

Francois, sorry for my flippant answer. Also thought that wheels that are lighter / stiffer/ with smoother turning hubs or bearings will give you performance benefits. I was firmly shown to the error of my thoughts. Read post about Training and or Racing wheels. There it is stated that this is all a figment of my / our imaginations, as NO performance benefits are to be had, or it is so miniscule that you and me will never know/feel the difference.

So when my Ksyriums (racing wheels) finally give up the ghost, and my Rolf Vector's (training wheels) also die, I'm gonna go to my LBS and buy myself a set of R500.00 no name brand wheels with el-cheapo hubs and bearings, spaghetti type spokes and sloppy rims. Apparently the high end wheels do not give you any advantage, except for bragging/posing rights.

[Johan Bornman]

Stiffness of wheels.

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Just about all bicycle wheels are stiff enough for the job they have to do. We know that since they rarely touch the brake pads, a distance of a mere 1 or 2 millimetres from the rim.

 

I?ve had occasions where the wheels touched the rims and just about all of those cases were wheels with not enough spokes (24 and below) and the rider was <?: prefix = st2 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><?: prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas:contacts" />Vleis VisagieonName>?s cousin.

 

The notion that you can make wheels stiffer by increasing the tension in the spokes is a fallacy. Steel is a hookean material. This means that the input and output remains linear up to a certain point where the material will start to fail. In other words, if a wheel deflects 1mm when you apply 10kgs, it will deflect another 1mm with the next 10kgs. Tightening the spokes will see the wheel still deflect 1mm for 10kgs.

 

As someone here paraphrased me, stiff enough is stiff enough.

 

However, poofter wheels prevail and Campagnolo actually redesigned its rear break to cope with wheel with too few spokes. Hence the return to the Campag single pivot back brake. This brake allows for a bigger gap between pad and rim. If you watch TdF carefully, you?ll see some guys opening their back brakes as they start to climb. The Campag guys do it from the brake lever and the Shimano guys by fiddling with the brake opening cam.

 

The question here centred around which of two brand-name wheels are stiffer. I don?t have a clue ? I can?t even picture the Eastons since I don?t see these things every day and I have a bad memory. However, I used to build Zipps for the importer and I can say without a doubt that the Zipps are incredibly stiff. One broken or slack spoke will cause 1/2 the wheel to go out of true. The trick then is to find the epicentre of the wobble because it is the fault of only one spoke, not several and you don?t want to turn the wrong spokes.

 

One can easily sit on one of these Zipp rims and see zero deflection. I can?t sit on Open Pro type aluminium rims.

 

But, you can gauge the stiffness of wheels easily. The bigger and beefier the rim, the stiffer the wheel. Stronger rims require less spokes and conversely. If the rim is big and heavy, the wheel will be stiff. You can?t have light (aluminium) and stiff. It is impossible, no matter what American Classic tells you. Their rims are too light for their own good.

 

Unless you are one of those guys who?s wheels touch the blocks, stop worrying about stiffness. Do you care how stiff your car?s wheels are? It is not an issue.

 

Like Wannabe says, look for the things that matter, quality of hubs, quality of build, type of spokes used etc.

 

 

 

 

 

[Kriek]

What about the mavic R-sys?They're quite light and stiff?

[turtlek]

Johan after yesterday my rims touch the brake blocks more than once on either side of the rim every revolutin is this a bad thing???????????????????????????

 

 

 

seriously now johan speaks alot of sense here and i can fully agree with this notion of stiff enough being stiff enough and in all honesty why do you want to compare apples with apples when the only real difference is looks if you really want a good wheel go with the wheel that looks and feels the best to you on a ride i am sure your lbs will let you ride a set of each to see which one you are going to buy

 

 

 

so in the end dont worry about stiffness or weight unless youre going to be racing against the boys in le tour next year!!!!

[turtlek]

What about the mavic R-sys?They're quite light and stiff?

 

 

 

and when you go through a pothole you spend more money on them than you did for a new set of wheels thanks to the spokes breaking