I’ll assume flo wheels have sealed cartridge bearings and not cup/cone loose ball bearings.

There is a good chance your wheel builder could drive your old bearings out and press in new units. Be a good time to take a look at the free hub body as well. Hubs will then be as good as new for a lot less money.

Yes, the Flo 30 was discontinued. It's unfortunate and leaves a hole in the market for a somewhat aero, sub-$600 wheelset that hopefully someone will fill.

If you have time to wait for a sale, Flo had a lot of 15-18% discounts around the holidays, which would make a set of Flo 60 aluminum rim wheels under $900.

You might also be able to get more life out of the wheels you have. Flo sells replacement bearings and freehubs, and has Youtube videos on how to replace them.

If i were in your position, I would get some HED Belgium C2 rims, White Industry Hubs (come in many colors to choose from), Sapim CX-Ray spokes, and have your buddy build you some custom wheels. That should keep you at or below $1000, relatively light, wide, bomb proof, maintainable, and sexy. The cat 1s in your area with Zipps will be jealous of your build.

Hed Ardennes

Ditto the HED Ardennes. They are awesome. Give MyBikeShop.com an email or call. They hooked me up with Ardennes Black wheels this fall.

Not as cheap as the old FLO 30s. But, they are very light and strong. And, Ardennes crushes the wide category above everyone else.

The bontrager aeolus comp 5's can usually be found new takeoff for around $500. There are a ton of them on craigslist, facebook in my area. Carbon fairing aluminum braking surface.
The prime wheels from wiggle are actually pretty good, esp for the price/weight ratio.

I'd go with the Kinlin XR31 rims and build them up around whatever hubs you want. At $60-75 per rim, you could easily stay under $500. I believe they test just as aero as the FLO30 and each rim weighs about 80 grams less.

I personally had a set of AForce AL33 rims just built up. Little more pricey on the rim at $150 each, but I was able to get a deal on all the parts and just had to pay the labor. Full cost came out to $600 with Bitex hubs, Sapim spokes, and brass nipples. 20/24 build came out to 1555 grams with rim tape. 19.6 mm internal width is really nice and a brand new set of 25 mm GP4000S II tires mounted on very easily with just minor thumb pressure.

Can't help on the decision making, but if you're looking to off-load the Flo 30s, let me know. I'm looking for a set.

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Strava

I was going to suggest exactly the same thing. Those are the clinchers (maybe tubeless compatible even?), and there is a similar tubular version as well. Build them with CXRay spokes on a quality hub (I personally like ultegra or dura-ace hubs since I can service them myself with just cone wrenches) and you've got a fantastic set of wheels. I have a wheelset that's years old built with the IRD Cadence rim (a kinlin with different badging) that despite having been raced and trained upon, is still true and solid and quite lightweight. It was a recommendation of my wheelbuilder for lacing up a 24h powertap hub.

Do you work at Google or Facebook?

DT Swiss PR1600 Spline 32's. List price is $735, but you can buy them from some european websites for less than $500. 18mm internal width, 22mm external. Most 25's will fit without excessive light-bulbing. Most 23's will fit quite nicely.

I have an archived German language Procycling Magazine velodrome wheel test where the Splin32's hold their own against a variety of 40-55mm carbon wheels, and were only 7 watts off a pair of Roval CLX64s and Swiss Side Hadron 625's at 40kph. If you're interested, PM me and email address and I'll send you the .pdf.

If you prefer a custom hub, you can get just the rims (DT Swiss RR511)

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

If the brake track doesn't have a deep groove in it, i'd just clean it up with an emery cloth pad, and throw some new bearings in. Should be <$30 and about 15min work.

If the rims are very worn, you could order some Kinlin 31 rims and swap them onto your current hubs & spokes, pretty sure the ERD is close enough with the Flo 30s to work without recutting spokes.

Yes

It sounds like I have the option of either buying:

HED Ardennes
Pros
- Lightweight
- Within my price range
- Stiff
Cons
- Shallow / not aero?

HED Jet 6+
Pros
- Aero
- Can be found within price range, close
- Stiff
Cons
- Not lightweight

Then of course a custom build is possible.

I see a lot of suggestions for lighter, less aero wheelsets - since these are for crit racing shouldn't I be focused on Aero?

Thanks for the suggestions so far!

I double recommend either of XR31 or AL33 rims with hubs of your choice. Super build kits from bikehubstore.com. November offer some built wheels with AL33. Should be perfect for crits.

I would not classify the Ardennes as shallow and not aero. They are a shapely 24mm depth rim. They may not be as aero as some 30mm rims, but they probably are not bad at all. They are far from a box rim.

My shortlist of budget wheels in that <$500 realm is:

*Fulcrum Quattro LG (recently renamed Fulcrum Racing 4). 35mm deep, 17 mm internal, 23 mm external. 1725g (claimed)

*Kotavelo R42SE. 41mm deep, 18/24mm width. 1714g claimed

Both are a little heavier (~1700g) but not unreasonably so.
Both alumin(i)um.

Other than the Ardennes, I don't think anyone here has recommended anything that's not at least the equal of FLO 30's, aero-wise. You can make a case for either direction (aero or light) in crit racing, depending what your strengths and weaknesses are. If you're the kind of rider who mostly sits in the pack, but sometimes struggles to keep up with the post-corner surges, the better acceleration of light wheels probably trumps aero. If you're the kind of rider who's likely to lead a long breakaway off the front, aero probably trumps light.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

Is there aero info for the Ardennes? I'd be sceptical of anything that shallow having aero claims.
The Al33 appears to be a very close replicant of the Flo.

On the weight side, 200g is a fraction of a percent of total weight, and has almost insignificant impact on acceleration, especially compared to the aero impact (if you want to win a crit you're going to be leading at some point, even if only for the last 50 metres, when you'll really really want aero).

https://novemberbicycles.com/blogs/blog/wind-tunnel-testing-the-al33-xr31tfsw3-and-other-alloys.html

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

200g is a big percentage of the rotational weight of wheels. It is 10% to 15%, and that much weight gain in wheels really feels like a lot. The bike feels more sluggish in small accelerations and around corners. Aero does trump wheel weight, but there is a massive difference in what it feels like. (200g of static weight anywhere else on the bike is not a big change.)

On the thought of aero, the subsequent post from November shows most of the wheels very similar at low yaw. In a criterium, is there ever high yaw? If not, then aero differences in a criterium may be a non-discriminator.

Lol "rotational weight". (not saying it's not a thing, just saying it's a very small thing)
secondly, "feels" is a different thing to actual time difference.

https://wattmatters.blog/home/2013/02/the-sum-of-parts.html
(YMMV and all, the figures presented may not be indicative of medium depth rims)

Your original statement that 200g in the wheels has an almost insignificant impact on acceleration is inaccurate. It is very roughly equivalent to 800g on the frame. That is something most folks would notice. Watt Matter's first chart of acceleration from a standing start shows that. There is a material difference in the initial acceleration from a standstill. The benefit of the wheel mass diminishes with speed, but it is quite noticeable. Throw a set of 1,400g wheels on your road bike and try them out. It will blow your mind.

I'm not disputing that over the course of most rides, aero is more significant than wheel mass. However, wheel mass dramatically changes the dynamic feel of a bike. It changes the handling characteristics of the bike too.

If all the weight is concentrated at outer edge of the tire, it's a 2x factor. Can't get bigger than that.

The "dynamic feel" you mention might be related to inertia. It will take extra force to change the orientation of the wheels with high inertia. If you are throwing your bike bike and forth a lot (not a good practice even in a sprint, IMO) it could even translate into a bit of a benefit for the light wheels.

The blog post used a .023 reduction of cda to compare the "light" wheel to the "aero" wheel to draw their conclusions. Can the smart people translate how many grams of drag .023^m is approximately worth? That seems like A LOT for wheels.

In terms of this thread's discussion, nobody is advocating using a box 32 spoke wheel over an aero wheel. But if you have something like the AL33, XR31, FLO30 compared to a Jet 6, how much of a aero difference are we talking about. If all of those shallower rims can be built up 200g lighter than the Jet 6, then what really is the net difference when accelerating?

I have a similar custom build (White industry hubs and CX-rays), but different rims. These are classy wheels.

Maybe it will blow my mind, and I wish I could justify a set of light wheels to find out. But that doesn't mean it's faster.

Review the other examples presented in the linked sources in Alex's article:

http://www.biketechreview.com/...63-wheel-performance

https://www.slowtwitch.com/...nd_Inertia_2106.html

If you are near a Performance Bike Shop you might still be able to find a set of HED Jet 5+ for 600$. That is a great set of wheels.

As someone else mentioned, the Bontrager Aeolus 5 Comp is a great wheel and sub-600$. They aren’t quite as wide as the Jets, but still accept a 25 with no issues. Register for a Trek email alert and they will probably send you a promo catalog with a 20% coupon on the back cover. They are also pretty common on eBay.

I never said it was faster. I said it feels different. A lot different. (Thought it is faster at low speeds, before aero takes over. But, none of us are riding at low speeds, right.)
Rotational inertia is proportional to the square of the radius of the rotational distance. So, it is not limited to 2x. It can get infinitely greater. I just picked 4x from another bike blog because I was too lazy to do the math myself to figure out the exact factor for a 311mm radius axis. I'm still that lazy. But, here's the formula for rotational inertia for a thin-walled cylinder (basically a bike wheel).

I = mr2

The main reason I suggested HED Ardennes is because they corner so well for me and you mentioned you were going to be racing crits.

I got a set early last year and took them to the mountains in Georgia near a city called Helen. I've ridden there many times up and down the mountains. I'm a fairly decent descender but when I used those wheels my bike felt like it was on rails. Taking the hard turns downhill at high speeds was easier than other wheels I've used.

Since they rode so well for me I felt that you would benefit from their performance as well.

This. I haven't raced criteriums in 30 years, but I am surprised that aero is such a strong discussion topic today for criterium racing. I always thought of criterium racing as lightest, most agile, quickest bike for burst accelerations and instant handling. I never recall wind playing much of a factor in my races. Maybe it was there, but it did not seem like it given the locations. And, I did my fair share of lead outs, but I was not often pulling alone for long.

The aero wheels in the discussion only begin to meaningfully separate for yaw angles that are higher than 5%. How likely is anything above a couple percent yaw in a criterium? If rare, then a 90mm aero wheel would be no different from a ~30mm wheel. And if that is true, I would pick the absolute lightest wheel that met aero minimums.

Shh... don't tell Howard!

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The point is, ladies and gentleman, that speed, for lack of a better word, is good. Speed is right, Speed works. Speed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

I feel like I am over-posting on this thread, but I have continued to ponder this... Most of the analyses like these focus on a few simple steady-state scenarios, like a solo TT, a hill climb, something with moderate rollers. Most of those situations have one major acceleration from a stop, and then bank on the conservation of energy over the hills.

But, I wonder if anyone has modeled something like a 40-lap criterium, where you may brake and accelerate 160 times around the corners plus a bunch of other times that the pack bunches and then opens back up. And, you are in a draft almost all the time. So, those couple-hundred accelerations become a pretty big deal. If you are mid-pack in a criterium behind the draft of other riders, how much impact would slightly more aero wheels (at >5% yaw) matter compared to the lower power require to re-accelerate lighter wheels?

Yes, all of our bearings are sealed cartridge bearings and replaceable.

---

Chris Thornham
Co-Founder And Previous Owner Of FLO Cycling

Chris,
I see on your website the "pre 2015" and "after 2015" FLO30's use different bearings. Is there an easy way to identify which ones I have (other than a receipt, which I don't have)? Thanks!

Also I see posts here referring to:
HED Jet 6+ can be found for under $1000.
HED Jet 4/5 can be found for well under $1000 .

Where can these be found? I can't seem to find them anywhere.

All FLO 30s will use the 2012-2015 bearings sets. If you're doing a rebuild, buying a new freehub is easier than trying to replace the bearings inside of the freehub. You can replace the hub shell bearings on the front hub (2 bearing total), the hub shell bearings on the rear hub (2 bearing total), and then add a new freehub which will cover the other two bearings in the rear wheel.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Take care,

---

Chris Thornham
Co-Founder And Previous Owner Of FLO Cycling

If we're talking about the direct effect that it has on acceleration, the question isn't the rotational inertia, but how much rotational energy is required to bring it to speed. That's .5*I*w^2. And w is v/r because bigger wheels rotate slower for a given bicycle speed. So:
E = .5*(m*r^2)*((v/r)^2)
= .5*m*(r^2)*(v^2)/(r^2)
=.5*m*v^2
Which is equal to the linear kinetic energy for that mass. Hence, it requires double the energy of non-rotating mass. The rim's mass is basically being accelerated to the speed of the bicycle in two different ways: once in the direction of the bicycle's forward movement, and once around the hub.

Now, inertia might be interesting if we're characterizing interactions between the bicycle and the rider. But I don't know how well anyone has ever characterized that...

If it's just the bearing... cheapest will be to replace them. Otherwise the Jet 5/6+ would be a nice wheel as well as the Flo 60s. IMO

^^^^

The Hed Jet 6+s go on and off sale. I got mine for 899 from Competitive Cyclist last year. They're not on sale now. The 5s are 1299 at mybikeshop.com now. I have not seen the 4s at under 1000.

I have a set of Flo 30s. I also have a set of the Hed Belgium C+ rims built with CX-Rays on American Classic hubs. The Flos are around 130 grams heavier. I have used both in crits and can't really tell the difference in a race. My Heds were around 750 and are just under 1500gms.

Flo is clearing their 60 aluminum rims at $199 (28 and 32 hole available. The Hed Belgium C+ rims are $150. For the extra $100, I'd consider building the Flo 60s on hubs of your choosing. If you increase your budget to $1200, I bet you could build them on a Powertap G3 hub. If you weren't concerned about the carbon rims, you could buy the AMP35/50 wheels from Powertap for $999. They had a 30% coupon back in December, but that may not be available.

A single good front aero wheel will be ~.018m^2 at zero yaw. A good ~30mm wheel with minimal aero spokes would be ~.020m^2. Figure maybe half that difference for the rear, so .003m^2 total, compared to a total CdA of ~.30m^2 for crit racing? So the drag difference is only 1% or so, maybe up to 2% if you have higher yaw. The .023m^2 example must be for really shitty wheels. But on the other hand the difference in weight isn't that great either. 300g (x2 for acceleration) out of 85,000g is only 0.7% difference.

The decision about rim depth for racing will depend on what sort of move will result in your best chance of winning or placing. Nobody wins a crit if they are constantly slowing down and speeding up, as that will wear you out in a hurry. You need to be near the front and stay there. Riding at a semi-steady pace will favor aero even when drafting. Occasionally putting your nose in the wind will favor aero. A solo flyer will favor aero. Sucking wheel the whole race with a sprint at the end might favor light wheels.

If you want light wheels, don't even look at clinchers. Get carbon tubulars.