I've seen someone ride a H3 into the back of a truck at 30mph. No damage to the wheel other than a flat tire.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I have a set of HED Alps for racing. Two weeks ago during the Spirit of Racine HIM, another cyclist pulled sharply left just as I was passing him (and announcing my intent with a 'on your left'). The guy crashed into me, I stayed up, but the impact was enough to bend my rear Alp wheel to the point it couldn't be straightened anymore (plus I opted to DNF after the bike leg, due to pathetic slow time, even with calipers open the wheel was rubbing hard). Now I believe this would have happened with any wheel, all this detail just goes to show that at least in my experience an Alp rear is not necessarily more solid than other wheels ;). FWIW, I chose to send it back to HED, as they claim they can rebuild it. In my experience, Alps are maybe not as sexy as Zipps, but certainly not much if any slower.

I once met Steve Hed. He was real nice to me until I told him that my Alps were my race wheels, not my training wheels. He sort of shook his head, said something about I was leading an incomplete life and walked away. We're no longer friends, but that's okay because I took his advice and have been training on them ever since and they are pretty much as bombproof as it gets. I've had to true my Circuits more than my Alps, which is sort of freaky. I now have Zipp 404s for racewheels because I switched to tubies, but we are just dating, the Alps are my true love.

The Alps are a much more versatile wheel than the H3 for training.

I have a set of Velocity training wheels and a ALPS front and HED3 rear race wheels for my tri bike. My dilema is. I now spend most of my time training on my new/rebuilt road bike that has a set of ZIPP 503's on it. Older wheels but nice for training. Should I swap out my HED race wheels and train on my Velocity's or just train on my ALPS/HED3 setup the few times I ride my tri bike on training rides?

Mark

I had a relatively early batch of the Alps. The rim began to "wiggle" left and right at each spoke insertion point. Obviously to me, and apparently also to the folks at HED, the wheel wasn't performing well under the stresses I was placing upon it. I weigh in the mid-180's. They offered to swap my Alps for the H3. I gladly took them up on their offer, and the H3 are darn near bombproof. I've hit speed bumps so hard that I flew into the air, sure the wheel was going to be damaged. Never could find any damage on them, raced them for a couple of years, still as true as the day I received them. REALLY tough wheel...I'm going to say they are much tougher than the Alps, but, the H3 is much more affected by sidewinds than the Alps.

I don't see a reason to run the Alps in training. The Alps are a decent RACE wheel for light people in windy conditions, but, why train on them when there are so many cheaper and very rugged choices? You CAN train on the H3, as well as race on it, as long as it isn't too windy for your skills/bike handling characteristics.

Very nice people at HED, great customer service.

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Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur
(That which is said in Latin sounds profound)