I heard long ago that saving one ounce on the rim was worth saving 2.7 on the frame... I suspect this was for wheels in the neighborhood of 700C. I feel a "quicker" ride with lighter wheels in most aspects, acceleration especially... but sometimes that extra weight helps momentum, especially downhill ;-)
Thomas Seaman portland, oregon, u.s. of A.
nick Bordo wrote:
> From: nick Bordo <nicbordeaux@yahoo.fr>
> Subject: [CR]Wheels make you faster, not frames.
>
> I posted yesterday about riding an old bike on modern wheels, and tried to infer a point that I will state more clearly so people can violently disagree with me: the point I wanted to infer and nobody picked up on was: the most important part of going fast must be wheels. OK, less loss of transmission of energy through the frame and drive train is a factor arguing in favour of expensive frames -although a lot of expensive frames are works of art tubing-lug-paintwise but hopelessly flexible and/or inefficient- but in my experience, light, rigid, highly inflated and "friction free" wheels are the ones that make you really fast. Actual frame weight within a range of a couple of kgs is not important to me, it doesn't really come into the inertia equation. If I empty my pockets, I save 500 grammes. You know what saving that much weight on a frame costs ?
>
> The only thing you can throw money at which will make you faster is wheels. Or EPO and Testosterone from Italian doctors. If there has been a lot of discussion on this topic (wheels, not Italian Doctors), I'd really appreciate it if someone could point me to the thread.
>
> Nick Bordo, Agen, 47 France