I've been watching this progress for a while, Hunt Bike Wheels out of the UK has been doing rim design and wind tunnel testing looking to design disc brake wheels optimized for wider tires. They are kind of like Boyd Wheels of the UK. Self designed, but Asia produced.

https://www.facebook.com/...os/1976722489206127/

https://www.facebook.com/...os/2016202055258170/

Well, then the rim designs are not optimized for speed but for other parameters like what is popular or what they think people want, etc.

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 It is obvious that if you remove the constraints of having to fit inside a standard brake caliper and have a brake track, designers have more options with a disc brake wheel. They have a much freer hand in shaping the rim, especially the wheel/tire interface area as they don't have to worry about a vertical area for the brake track at the outer edge. And you can make a wider rim. It certainly seems conceivable that once manufacturers get serious about optimizing road disc brake rim shapes and not just reusing the shapes they already have, they could at least come up with wheels that more than offset any increased aero drag from the disc brakes themselves.

I think it depends on race conditions. I've been in races where I've made the wrong choice in wheel stability and got dropped on a windy descent. (road race).

And I did 100-mile TT using the HED tri-spoke with 20mm tubulars pumped to 140PSI, after 4-something hours on chipseal and rough road, I believe I made the wrong choice there after hammering the shit out of my body.

Like anything, it's about selecting the right tool for the job.

You're misunderstanding.

The basic premise is that wider tyres are better overall, and the rim is then designed around the tyre in order to optimize aero for that tyre. That means a wider rim is necessary to maintain good airflow, which means that rim brakes won't work (not well, anyway). That wider rim also improves crosswind stablity which means that the rider can then run a deeper rim, which should be faster than a shallower rim of the same width. If you do all of those things, then you should be able to get a wider tyre on par with a narrower one, within a margin of error.

That's the way the theory goes, anyway. Not saying anything about whether ENVE has actually achieved that, I suspect there is still a ways to go.

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I took my tri bike out on the roads last weekend for a quick spin to make sure everything was working, test out the bottle cage retention, etc. I was quickly reminded how shitty our roads are around here.

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Looking forward to another confirmation-bias-fest.

Again, l think blindly accepting a clearly false premise can lead one down the wrong road.

Even the stability argument is a red herring. Because, with proper shape and design, both wider AND narrower rims and tires can be equally stable in winds.

Again, this is assuming that one is using the equipment in a race where time (i.e., speed) is the important criteria.

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Sure, that makes sense. But in a race, the "job" is to go as fast as possible.

In any case, unless you are very very big or very very heavy, of course 140psi is way too high, even on 20mm tires.

If it helps, I do use (very) wide tires and rims, just not for racing.

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And by the same token, failure to revisit one's beliefs can also lead one down the wrong road.

(by definition, in a race, speed is ALWAYS the important criteria. The differences just come in the timing of said speed within the dynamics of the race)...

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Agreed. Just because rim brakes have been around forever and some people think they are the most incredible things ever, does not mean we should stop exploring other options.

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There's nothing you can do to rim shape to hide the additional spokes that disc brake wheels need or the lacing pattern or the hub shape... all of which are drag disasters.

https://www.swissside.com/...tional-drag-insights
https://www.swissside.com/...de-aero-tip-hub-size

those links don't talk about lacing pattern, and it isn't clear that the hub shape needs to be affected by disc brakes.

and yes, there is something that rim shape can do. a deeper rim makes the spokes shorter. (I suspect that's the actual benefit of zipps humpback whale profile, simultaneously reducing spoke length and the side-on area of the rim)

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Bingo. It's all about matching the shape and size of the rim to the shape and size of the tire.

Right, but they're plying the meme that wider rims are an exclusive advantage of running separate braking discs. They aren't.

If wider rims don't fit in a certain set of calipers, then choose different ones...or ask for calipers accommodating wider rims to be designed. It doesn't require an entirely new bike and wheelset...oh wait...these guys sell wheels...never mind ;-)

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Because it establishes a record of believability, that's why...

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

Not sure what the sarcasm is about, yeah, they do design and sell wheels to fit into other peoples bikes', so they have to make what will fit into other peoples' bikes.

Not sure why that's a big deal.

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But what if you don't just "believe" anything they say, but explore each statement on it's own? IOW, I don't really care that it's ENVE making the statements, it could be literally anyone.

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That argument works both ways, remember.

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Wheel designers (i.e. Zipp, etc.) ALREADY basically ignored (shape-wise) that braking occurs on the rim...just look at the cross-sections. In fact, don't you recall that the Zipp made a big deal about the curved brake track on the ALUMINUM 101 rim that required a special grinding process to get the best aerodynamic shape (braking on it be damned!)? They wanted to allow the same shapes they could already do on the carbon wheels. If there's an "aero" rim out there that still has straight, vertical brake tracks, it's not necessarily on the "leading edge".

This idea of how not having a caliper allows a "free hand" to rim designers for some wild shapes is just a bunch of wishful thinking and/or marketing hooey...

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

How does revisiting ones beliefs lead you down the wrong road? That does not mean rejecting them. Just reevaluating them in the face of new facts and evidence. You may end up in the same spot, but at least your confidence is higher that your belief is correct.

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"Show me the data!" :-)

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So then it comes down to data. Where is it?

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Me too ;-)

But you gotta design it before you can test it. I'm not convinced that ENVE (or anyone) is even close to optimizing aerodynamics around wider tyres yet, nor have frame manufacturers designed any great solutions around disc brakes. So for now, I'm sticking with the trispokes.

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Because if some new technology is touted as a "must have" (data be damned) and it results in many people replacing bikes and wheels they wouldn't otherwise do, that sells more wheels. That's why. Follow the money.

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