I have cosmic elites. It's my favorite all around wheel. I train on them and race on zipp 404's. If I didn't have 404's I would be fine racing on the elites. Plus, they look good on the bike!

Wait until you can buy a high end wheel set, or you will buy twice.

Flo 30 front and disc cover rear is probably the best bang for the buck in wheels IMO. I train on Flo 30s and will bring them with me to races next year as "back up" wheels or incase it's extremely windy.

Don't know much about the Mavic wheels, sorry.

There was a wind tunnel test of 30ish mm alloy wheels a couple of years back and the mavic cosmic elites were middle of the pack. I'd expect the Flo 30s to be a bit better in terms of aero.

I have both. Flo 30's are better: lighter, more aero, and wider. The perfect training wheel and a terrific price. Very good value. There's nothing wrong with the Mavics -- they're just not as good in those three areas. Otherwise they're a terrific training/racing wheel that has been around awhile and stood the test of time.

Of those 2 wheels, the FLO's are more aero, but still way, way less than the 60.

From Flo testing the 60s are faster than the 30s by 20-30s (depending on how fast you are) in quite windy conditions on a 70.3.
Or 1-2s if low wind.
Not really a huge gain

While the Mavics are a nice wheel, they are pretty old school in terms of design. So narrow, not very aero, flat bladed spokes, somewhat clunky hub design, rather heavy, and don't work particularly well with wider tires. Flo 30s are about the best bang for the buck out there. The hubs are nice, the rims are about as good as a 30mm deep wheel is going to get and Sapim makes some of the nicest spokes.

The overall quality isn't quite what you would expect from something like a HED wheel, but I think they are great wheels.

Or consider the AC Victory 30's. They have a "better" toroidal shape then the Mavics and are wider. The also come tubeless ready and have bladed spokes.

Oval 327 or 330 alloy wheelset would be a good choice too.

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´Get the most aero and light bike you can get. With the aero advantage you can be saving minutes and with the weight advantage you can be saving seconds. In a race against the clock both matter.´

BMANX

For me, Zipp's all the way.....sorry it's not one of your choices but I've tried so many Wheelset and brands and always came back to my Zipp.

Thoughts if I were to add zipp 202s to the list?

Sorry. Meant the Zipp 30 alloy clincher. Slight difference!

Was your first car a Lamborghini?

The 30's are not really anything special. Just a "cheaper" Zipp that's still too expensive. Go with the Flo's. Or the HED Ardennes+ line (or get built up HED Belgium+ rims on your own hubs).

Zipp 30's are not worth the money. At all.

"Back up" to what? Are you racing with aluminum brake track wheels also? Which? Or do you change out the brake pads each time?

A few years ago our shop sponsored a local cycling team and gave them all Zipp 30's as training wheels, the guys each road well over 12-15k miles that year, not one wheel had an issue. That is 12 guys hammering a wheel day in day out and not one broken spoke or failed bearing. I have seen Flo 30's hubs blow within 2-3k miles and seen several spokes break as well. I am not saying Flo is a bad wheel, just that you get what you pay for. Same for Mavic, they are just bombproof wheels that always last (except for that carbon spoke model and one of the ksyrium years).

Go with the wheel set that looks the best and has the best warranty. Don't base your choice on soly on hyped aero #'s that won't make a difference anyway.

You are sort of comparing 12 wheel sets to all of the wheel sets we've ever sold, aren't you? Have we ever had an issue with a hub? Of course, but all have been easily repairable AND we repair them without question. Most of the times it's a lack of maintenance that causes the problem. Regarding spokes... we've got about 225,000 spokes on the road at this point. Once in a while they break, but we also send those out for free... EVEN when people crash or shift their poorly tuned derailleur into their wheel. I'm guessing if you look hard enough you'll find a few broken spokes or damaged hubs with the other brands as well.

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Chris Thornham
Co-Founder And Previous Owner Of FLO Cycling

The Mavic's are great training wheels, and I ride the heck out of them. For me, I'd rock those until I could afford some 808s if I already had the Mavic's. If you don't have the Mavic's already, I'd step up to the 808. The 808s are a fantastic wheel, and you can find a good pair used cheap nowadays. Even an older set, even with the aluminum track, are considerably better than the Mavic's. Don't get me wrong, I love the Mavic's as a training wheel, but the Zipps are just a better wheel (especially on race day) to me after having many sets of them, of different years and types. I wouldn't fool with the 30s, but that's just mho.

You have perfectly good training wheels it seems. So don't upgrade those (you won't get much for them on the used market anyways), just get race-day wheels. deep front (or Hed 3) and a flo / renn disc on the back.

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