Seeing as how some here are too humble to toot their own horn, I though I would do it for them. ;-)
Some pretty impressive test results, even more impressive that they conceded they aren't the "fastest" option out there in their own data.
Yep - agreed. It also shows at normal to fast speeds (20-25mph) speeds, the open mold 50s are pretty darn good; perhaps great bang for buck for an overall set that is reasonably light as well.
j
It is really good seeing a (velonews) homeboy make good. dkri is a class act and he was right on regarding LA and I was a sucker.
Those alloy wheels using A23 rims and red hubs are tempting.
Thanks all. It's been a fun, if demanding, process. We're putting out more and more stuff all the time. Once the tunnel process is over, you get hit with this Mack truck worth of data that you can barely even deal with when it's the result of what you've been working on since who knows when. Trying to package it into forms that people can actually use is challenging. Despite this - http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi - being one of my favorite books, it's tough to get it right.
We had a lot of criteria for our first "from the ground up" wheel. I don't think it's all that often that one starts a wheel for this category with the 18mm internal tire width as the cornerstone, but we've been so impressed with how the A23-based wheels ride that we did. Our theory there being that there's also a lot to be gained by having full confidence to rail (get it?) the corners and get yourself a lot of free speed that way. Then we wanted to keep it close to 50mm deep to hit the inflection point of meaningful aerodynamics, not having them get too heavy, and being useable pretty much no matter how hard it's blowing. Then we tried to wrap all of that in "fast."
We really wanted to be close to the 404 in the tunnel (and choosing to measure against that versus the nebulous "world's least aero wheel" that is so often the benchmark is a whole other story) but we knew it was a longshot to go faster. We won a couple of wind angles but they won more. With the rest of the parameters we're working with (depth wise, we are halfway between a 404 and 303), we're totally happy with that and feel that we've accomplished what we set out to do there, at least for this generation.
Been busy like crazy with emails and website comments and responses and everything else today, which is fun but hectic. I wouldn't trade it right now I'll tell you that. The funniest thing so far has been that, as I observe it, people don't know how to respond to a company that's got the curtains as far open as we do. At some point I will more fully articulate our position of "total honestly mostly motivated by ethics but also hugely reinforced by pragmatism," but I think the cycling world has had an object lesson in how hard it is to keep BS under wraps in the last week.
Thanks again, and if you follow the blog it's been and will be a busy week there.
The NC newsletter leads me to believe that the guy who runs things drinks a lot of beer. ;}
dkri, have you done any testing with enclosed (no spoke holes in the inner wall) rims for tubless? I know that all of the hole plugger tape works good but...
Definite no on the enclosed inner wall. Few people currently use tubeless on road, plus the tapes work really well. It would just about triple the time it takes to rough lace a wheel, and add cost to the rim.
DKRI - I admire the transparency. Tony the CEO at Zappos has always said that he uses Twitter and has been transparent on his blog about their business practices and motivation because it's important for employees and customers to know what's up.
I find the aero info educational and like that you are looking at balancing important attributes like handling, aerodynamics / speed, and safety.
Keep it going!
j
Edward Tufte is my man.
His rant on PowerPoint, its uses, and limitations should be required reading.
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