I just keep on my race wheels all year. They cost a lot, I enjoy how they look/feel, and I like getting my money's worth from them which I don't think I do if I store them inside 99% percent of the year. However, you will get a variety of opinions on the matter and nobody can provide an answer for you but you.

Is it wise to get wheels checked out by a legit wheel guy every year or two or before races?

Crashes happen. Wheels get damaged easily.

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New Training/Racing Log - http://www.earthdaykid.com/blog --- Old Training/Racing Log - http://colinlaughery.blogspot.com

Now that I'm doing most of my training indoors it doesn't really matter, but when I was doing a lot of miles outdoors, I broke spokes on occasion, stuff gets corroded, potholes knock the wheels out of true, etc. I liked having a set of race-only wheels which didn't take all the abuse.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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I don't ride with my race wheels for the following reasons. (404 aluminum clinchers)

1. I don't like dealing with valve extenders or having to buy tubes with longer valves.
2. I prefer to keep my race wheels with a fresh set of tires and latex tubes already installed so there is no pre/post race fuss of swapping things out.
3. I've bent my fair share of rims from hitting nasty pot holes, and I rather bend a $40 hoop than a race hoop.
4. I've broken spokes during the middle of a long ride before, and riding a 32/32 spoke training wheel will get you home where a 18/24...not so much.
5. Often times during training rides the guys I ride with like to hit up some mild gravel or dirt sections just for fun.

I bought race wheels (used) to go faster during races...not to go faster during training. So I use them accordingly. If you bought them for different reasons then you should use them accordingly as well. Different strokes for different folks.

Couldn't hurt. Unless you ride indoors all of the time, wheels may knock out of true slightly over the year and may requiring truing.

Assuming you are not talking about something that would be a bad fit on your general training rides (i.e super deep rims or a disk in a windy area or you train rough roads and lightweight wheels are not the best choice), I say ride your best stuff as often as possible.

Saving race wheels to avoid breaking them before a big race is a legit concern but most damage can be fixed pretty quick so your window to stay safe does not have to be the entire year except for a few race days. Even a broken rim can be obtained and swapped out in couple weeks and if you are just talking a spoke or two, take that down to a few minutes if your mechanic likes you. Personally, my race wheels have proven to be more than up to the task of getting me over my normal training grounds without breaking so I only put them "on the shelf" in the winter to save them from the abuse of dirty, wet and salty roads.

Yes. Live and love your race wheels.

I only have one set of wheels, tires, and tubes. And I ride and race on them all the time. Last year it was a pair of 60/90 carbon clinchers. This year it will be a 90/disc. I love them. They are cool. The risk of damage is minor in the grand scheme of things, and I happily accept that risk for the pleasure of using them every day.

To your point, if you want the handling skills on race day with whatever wind might be there, then train on those deep carbon wheels.

I ride race wheels all year.. occasionally I will remove the Super9 disc, in favor of just a deep wheel but that's it.

In the off season I ride my race wheels without a disc cover and whatever tubes and tires were left on after my last race.

In season I want to race on a faster setup and don’t want to fuss too much with my wheels. So, I ride training wheels...

No right answer for everyone.

Ps - I hate the way my bike looks and feels on the training wheels, but that’s the sacrifice I make to limit the time messing with my setup before a race

Like most questions, the answer is probably "yes, in moderation". Maybe the answer is not one extreme or the other but just training with your race wheels every once in a while to remember how they feel and any differences, especially as you get closer to your "A" races. I don't think you need to have them on all the time to race fast with them. My 2 cents.

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Strava

Ten years ago training on race wheels would have seemed a bit pretentious. Now the the roadies have largely adopted them as every day wheels, I think that has mostly gone away.

I have 404s with latex tubes and race ready tires on my tri bike all the time. Fact is, I don't ride my tri bike a ton so swapping wheels out isn't really worth the effort.

Tires become slower as the tread wears and the rolling resistance increases. Not by much, but some. Also, I personally like the feel of training with heavy unaero training wheels and then putting my racing wheels on and (theoretically) going fast.

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2018 Races: IM Santa Rosa, Vineman Monte Rio, Lake Tahoe 70.3

I hear ya! Like I said......everyone is going to have a different opinion on the matter and they're all correct!

Life is to short to ride boring wheels...

Agreed!

So true.

Last 2 years I’ve been riding my Chinese 404s on my one long ride outdoors (trainer rest of time). My 808/ disc where the race wheels. Got Envelope 7.8 and thought about selling the 808s and keep riding the Chinese, but why? 808s with Zipp course 25/28, butyl tubes, let er rip.

Hello ErickBar and All,

Race wheels and tires are like bananas ..... they get old.

Use them now .........



To the extent you can .... practice (train) like you play (race) .... with your equipment

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Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

Maybe I'm the only one here who actually rides and races his bike a lot. Leave the race wheels in the closet for training or (a) they won't be fully reliable on race day, and (b) you'll need to replace them every year, which makes no sense.

For those of you who think your wheels will go out of date anyway, I'll remind you that if you used the fastest front/rear wheel combo from 1990 (trispoke/disc) right now, you would be within a whisker of the fastest wheel combo available today. That's nearly 30 years!

Sure you risk damaging them by training on them. But it’s maybe less of a worry than changing brake pads, brake width setup, derailleurs adjustment if the cassettes don’t line up exactly, etc.

What I can guaranty you is this - if you train on your race wheels, you will get a slow leak/flat the week before your race and then have to change tubes/tires. But if you don’t train on them, you will get a flat the day before the race and still have to change tubes/tires. Both have happened to me - on tubulars.

lol, sure.

I hear a lot of complaining about crosswinds on ST, but not a lot of effort to actually ride deep wheels (i.e., race wheels) to practice their handling skills. Hmm.

1 and 2 for me

So race wheels from brands such as Zipp, Enve, HED, Reynolds, Flo, etc only have a ride life of about 100 rides? I seem to be missing that on their webpages.

Yeah that's exactly what I said, because 100 rides/yr must be riding a lot, right?

Bingo!

The real answer is to determine what your set of race wheels will be, and buy two identical sets. Ride one set all the time so you know how they roll and react and pull out the other set for races.

I used to only use my race wheels for racing. Then I realized that I really enjoy riding on them. So about 5 years ago I started to ride my Zipp 404's for all my training rides. Although I did break one spoke in the 5 years of riding I have had no other problems. Last year I bought a new set of Zipp NSW 808's, because I thought it was time for an upgrade. I rode them all last summer for my training and racing. I still use my Zipp 404's but now on my road bike which doesn't see as many miles. I ride about 5000 miles a year and race a couple of half ironman and ironmans each year. Enjoy your high performance kit!

For a triathlete? Maybe? Especially with how many do trainer time. But regardless, I’m sure they have a life expectancy of more then 365 rides.

Assuming you generally ride in the dry and keep your wheels clean (if you don't, the brake surfaces will wear down first), around 10k they need to be rebuilt -- spokes start breaking etc. For me, in the 10-15k range the hub and/or rim will crack.

Just a comment: if you don't ride enough to know that, maybe you shouldn't post snarky replies to the people that do?

100% sense. why would you want to put any extra wear on tires/wheels/cassette? why would you want to risk avoidable potential damage to wheels (holes in a disc from flying cinders, cracking a rim on a surface joint or pothole, etc.)?
we do TT's nearly every weekend as part of a series, and race tris maybe once every third week, in-season. we have ample opportunity to perfect bike handling skills, without added risk to our race-only equipment.

we get plenty of use out of our race wheels, without putting $4,000 wheels at unnecessary risk. we train on shallow-rim carbon wheels, so swapping brake pads is only necessary when they wear down. we have cassettes on our race wheels that are several years old, but don't have more than a few hundred miles of wear on the teeth. same with tire tread. and tubes. I want my race-only equipment reliable on race day; less use is better for us. and, whomever mentioned about adjusting derailleurs when swapping in wheels... what are you doing, besides introducing greater risk of mechanical failure, and greater wear on cassettes and chains?

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no sponsors | no races | nothing to see here

I was saying I don’t believe rims wear out within a year if people ride them during training rides. I doubt most triathletes are riding 10-15k miles a year here. Being strictly a roadie who does go north of that figure I have yet to screw up a wheel, but then again 70% of my training is done on a trainer with a cheap rim in the rear. I was saying I believe you were a little short sited without directly saying you’re wrong. It’s not like a called you a moron for what you said. It’s the Internet, people might disagree.

But if you enjoy snark then thank goodness Slowtwitch is blessed with your presence to pass along your knowledge to all of the brain dead idiots such as myself who would think differently then your line of knowledge.

"Maybe I'm the only one here who actually rides and races his bike a lot." -lanierb


Yes. You are the only one.

I’ve been riding my Zipp 404’s for the last 4-5 years. I just slap a cover on the back for races. They are still in excellent condition. Go use them.

Huh, I don't see that. I'm non-gentle 175lb. bike racer, and I've done two rebuilds in over 100k miles of riding over 10 years or so. And I've never cracked a rim or hub. I've worn out brake tracks on rims that never needed rebuilding.

I typically run non-stallion HED wheelsets, though my current trainers are Flo 30's with factory 24/20 spoke count.

Then again I know some 130lb. bike racers who seem to have non-stop wheel drama, so maybe my experience is atypical.

To answer the OP, I don't race on training wheels, though. Because I use different tires. And given that I race frequently (bike racer), swapping tires frequently is annoying. Also I want to know the race tires are reasonably free from crap, and not full of cuts and embedded bits of metal from training rides.

Also it's typically a bit quicker to change flats on training wheels. No valve extenders, etc.

I don't think that's true--it isn't for passenger car tires, where rolling resistance decreases as tires harden with age and lose mass and tread depth with wear (see NHTSA Tire Fuel Efficiency Consumer Information Program Development: Phase 2 - Effects of Tire Rolling Resistance Levels on Traction, Treadwear, and Vehicle Fuel Economy [August 2009], pp. 73-77; Tires and and Passenger Vehicle Fuel Economy: Informing Consumers, Improving Performance--Special Report 286 [National Academies Press, 2006], pp. 99-103). I would suspect the same is true for bicycle tires. Do you have any sources?

I read that, but couldn't track down the research.

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2018 Races: IM Santa Rosa, Vineman Monte Rio, Lake Tahoe 70.3

1) race wheels are expensive, more chance of damaging them on the shitty roads
2) wear & tear on tyres
3) you're going to look like a complete cunt
4) no-one is going to want to ride with you (refer no. 3)

I'd expect reduced tread thickness to reduce, not increase rolling resistance. Can't think of any reason it would be the other way around.
Tyres that perform quite well aerodynamically when new may suffer impaired aerodynamic performance as the tread wears and the profile changes. I think this is true of GP4000SII for example.

Haha, I am going to be that guy. I have only had a single set of wheels for my tri bike. I just switched to a 90mm front and disc rear. These are my everyday wheels. When I go out on training rides, I will be the old fart on the overly tricked-out bike for no reason. And, I will freakin' love it. :)

I ride my Zipps 404 firecrest all he time.
Currently have 67000km on them with no sign of brake track wear.
Use the right brake pads, oil alloy nipples to prevent corrosion, change bearings when they need to be changed and keep an eye on spoke tension.

If I wiped down my wheels, the only sign that they are not new is a few nicks in the stickers.
You paid for them use them.
Leave the latex in, they ride nice and get less flats.

I keep my race wheels on my TT bike. I change the tires every race season... currently riding force/attack combo.

I don't ride it all the time though, use my road bike and mountain bike for a lot of non-race riding aka training.

Don't change wheels on any of my bikes.

:)