I put some time on the only set of 8.9 clinchers available (wih DT Swiss 190 ceramic hubs)

I love my 6.7 clinchers. My friend's 404FCs are fantastic wheels, and I would be perfectly happy with either, but I went with ENVE because of the fantastic warranty and the bombproof build quality that I've already seen on other ENVE wheels.

5 years

I'm open to being proven wrong, but haven't seen any data that says that. Post-design testing...yes. But I understand the CFD and other design analyses were wheels-only.

That's an absurd statement. Do you realize the impossibility of running a rotational-translational problem on a complete bike and adding in a bike and rider?

The *PRIMARY* CFD work Zipp does is certainly for wheel alone, because the front wheel has essentially zero interaction with the rider, and interaction with the frame itself doesn't change a great deal about how the wheel performs overall. That is, the fastest design will still be the fastest, regardless of fork shape (within reason).

This also highlights what the consensus is from folks I have talked to who have ridden ENVE wheels - at higher yaws, the wheels are much more difficult to handle than Zipps. This because, while Simon Smart is a lot of things, he's not a team of engineers. It's great that ENVE bandies about his F1 credentials, but they aren't actually any better than Michael Hall, who was the engineer behind the Firecrest shape, who spent his pre-Zipp career designing Indy car wings.

The Firecrest wheels focused on a real problem - wheel stability - and they solved it by partnering with Dr. Matthew Godo of Intelligent Light, who was the first person EVER to solve a rotational-translational problem in CFD (a wheel that is spinning that's also moving through space).

A CFD model that considers bike+rider developed by a company of ENVE's size (and budget) is going to absurdly simplistic. If that's how they actually developed their wheels, I'm shocked.

ENVE makes "nice" wheels. But if you think the engineering development of their wheels is even a shadow of Zipp's process, you are very mistaken.

As far as wheels go, the ENVEs are aerodynamically fast and apparently made well. The consensus I've heard, however, from numerous riders, is that they handle quite poorly in crosswinds.

bobby11 - You asked how I came to the conclusion about the zipps?

Nice try. Your conclusion was a guess based on ENVE user reviews & had nothing to do with the material that Rapp posted.

I see. So Rapp's response was icing on the cake. Hopefully you get that refund from KS.

Yeah he did make some good points about the CFD modelling process. It wouldn't be a bad idea to try and find someone local with a set & test ride them. It might be a long shot, but who knows.