triathalete?

Poetic license

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Amateur recreational hobbyist cyclist
https://www.strava.com/athletes/337152
https://vimeo.com/user11846099

I like that

I dunno about a 'significant purchase'...

I managed to get a clincher PRO disc on eBay for £46. Just need to get an 11 speed cassette machined for me to fit the 10 spd freehub, and I'm away.

I LOVE the UK TT scene, as soon as someone sees the possibility for a 0.5 watt gain they sell everything for ridiculously low coin.

£46 for a good disc wheel is an outlier IMHO. I'm 100% on Team Disc (I have an Aeron X "training" disc and a Roval 321 "racing" disc) but just looking to offer some explanations why discs seem so scarce at the races. And I think it's really a "two step" significant purchase.

First, the rider has to buy a tri bike - not because a disc wheel can't be used on a road bike, but you just don't see that in reality. And of course money spent on a tri bike offers way more return than buying a disc wheel, as the tri bike should be transformative to getting into a powerful, aero, and comfortable position. But from my observations at the Malibu triathlon, the road bikes far outnumbered the tri bikes. So you start with a relatively small pool of potential disc wheel purchasers.

Second, for that relatively small pool of riders with a tri bike, their second significant purchase is the disc wheel. Notwithstanding your £46 disc wheel and acknowledging that deals can be found on wheels, most riders in the market for a disc wheel will look to buy new. And while there may be some options down at $500 or so (Aliexpress), a lot of riders aren't comfortable with that and so at the low end will be looking for a disc from a "brand" like Ron, Flo, Hunt, etc. They're looking at $800-$1,000 for a disc, which seems to qualify as a significant purchase, and that's without getting into the realm of the more expensive options like Roval, Zipp, Aerocoach, Enve, etc.

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Amateur recreational hobbyist cyclist
https://www.strava.com/athletes/337152
https://vimeo.com/user11846099

Yes, you go faster

But I wonder how much faster... I was looking at the FLO wheel website and they say their carbon disc rear wheel saves you 4 minutes over an Ironman when compared with a stock rear wheel (Mavic Open Pro). I would imagine the OP's 808 is already a good deal faster than the Mavic wheel, so we could be talking about a potential time saving of a minute or less over an Ironman. This may or may not be financially worth it to the OP. I have a feeling the relative importance of disc wheels is over-stated because there is a financial incentive for the wheel companies to market their products as "making you faster". It could be that losing three pounds of rider weight (which most of us could do, essentially for free) might actually lead to greater time savings over an Ironman distance than a brand-new $2000 disc wheel.

I am also not sure that the time savings and watt savings quoted for disc wheels tell the full story. If a wheel is making you about 1 second faster per kilometre, you only need one slight wobble caused by wind (or a truck driving past) and you've already lost that second.

To the OP, I would suggest that the biggest difference between his 808 and a brand new $2000 disc wheel may well be psychological in nature: he may "feel" faster, which could certainly have a non-trivial impact on his performance.

You are asking a value of money question now. The answer is a full disc is faster than an 808. How much value you put on "how much faster" is a value question and individual desire. You an always figure out dollar per watt or time (in a perfect world like a wind tunnel) and make a judgement call of value however like you said in the real world conditions change. Rent a disc, ride it, and figure it out.

That's the fault of the front wheel, not a disc. The disc in back moves the pressure of center rearward making the bike slightly more stable. Plus a truck going by will change the yaw angles to higher yaw angles where a disc should be better.

A disc will save you 2-4w right off the bat vs a deep spoked wheel. After that as the yaw angle gets high the disc becomes exponentially faster over a spoked deep wheel. A disc can also have negative drag, a spoked deep wheel will not.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I'm also interested to know what road/course conditions the 2-4 watts refers to. Is that only on flat or downhill sections? Would you still be saving watts riding uphill for example, given that disc wheels are usually heavier than the deep-rim wheels? I raced Ironman Canada this summer and some of the uphill sections were long, so I wonder at what point (if ever) the extra weight of the disc becomes more of a penalty than the time saving from aerodynamics.

You should upgrade that Argon 18 :)

Obviously low speed sections have lower watt savings.


This questions has been evaluated and there are several good blog posts on it

I award thee three internets.

I think the other con and likely a big reason that we don't see more at races these days is because it is a "race day only" wheel. I think a large number of people don't like dropping some cash on a wheel they don't get to ride/show off on their Sunday group rides. Buy a set of 808's and you basically keep them on your bike and maybe (hopefully) put new tires on for race day.

I rock a very old beat-up set of non-firecrest 404's for my everyday wheel... makes it even more special on race day when I mount up the Super9.

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Team Zoot