Yes, definitely upgrade. The new wheels will also probably be wider rims, so the tire profile will corner/handle better.

Newer aero rim designs are much more stable than the old V-shaped ones. A solid option is the HED Jet 4/6 combo (the front is always the wheel that creates handling issues).

Also take a look at the wheels that the top female pros used at Kona.
https://www.slowtwitch.com/..._Equipment_7551.html
If they can manage these in Kona crosswinds....
(Anne won the race weighing 51kg).

---

ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

What "training" wheels do you have ? Why do you think they're embarassing ?

Louis :-)

Something like the Jet4, Enve 3 or a 303 or 202 on the front should be just fine. All of these wheels were designed to be fairly predictable in windy conditions.

The funny thing about wheels is that the deeper wheels show the biggest gains when it is windy, which is when people don’t like riding them. There are still decent gains to be had with an shallow aero front wheel. Decent tire are also a must and can be huge improvements. The Conti 5000s tubeless tires on something like the a Jet 4/6 combo would be a great choice.

Wheels have a relatively low bang-for-buck in speed but pretty high bang-for-buck in bling. The balance between speed and bling is up to you. I'm all for people spending money on whatever they want if they can afford it.

I agree on bang for the buck. But isn’t the bang for wheels still pretty significant. It’s just that the buck is also big.

I suppose it can be, depending on what wheels are on the bike right now--but I guess that's always true: bucks are pretty unambiguous but bang depends on what your starting point is. Wheels are probably a better value proposition than upgrading the frame.

Solid disc wheel on the rear and a 50 to 60mm rim on the front.

Been using my training wheels to race for 3 years before upgrading to carbon wheels. Like everyone else mentioned, best bang for your bucks. :)

I have 2 different sets of wheels, they include OEM wheels that came with a (cheap) Cervelo, so good, but not great.
Next I added a cover the the OEM's (..I'm cheap) and finally a set of HED3's (front and back).

My fastest IM (life time best) distance time was done on the cover with the OEM front wheel. The fastest HIM time was done with a HED front and the cover on the rear. and the fastest 40K time was done on the HEDs (the 40k and 90K times were done in the same season),

When the times are broken down there was 0.5Kph difference in speed between all three.
(within my AG I had the fastest bike time in all three races)

But the HEDs look best.

Bike handling skills are always useful, to go beyond that statement is to make assumptions ....:0)

Thank you all - this is exactly the kind of advice I hoped to get when I posted.

To answer your questions, my current "starter" wheelset is Shimano 11 with Continental Grand Sport tires. As to why I find them embarrassing, I'm afraid they make me look like someone who threw a lot of money at a fancy bike but doesn't know what she's doing. But I don't care about the bling factor at all, so if you all tell me that my money is better spent elsewhere, I'm all ears! I know I need to continue to get more aero and to improve my handling skills. I just don't want to be throwing speed away because I haven't bothered to upgrade my wheels.

Throw on some Continental GP5000 tires with latex tubes.

That'll give you plenty of watts all by itself.

Use the silca tire pressure calculator ( google it ) to ensure optimal rolling resistance via proper tire pressure before every ride.

I never ride wheels under 65 mm unless I'm on my cross or rain bike.

Just follow your coaches advice.

And if you don't have one, then spending the money on one is where the biggest gains will be.

This post is 100% not slowtwitch approved, as the answer isn't accompanied by spurious mention of cda, tubeless and carbon weave.

Noting you are FOP for olympic courses and aren't talking about increasing your race distance then the equation is very different to the longer distance stuff you see dominating this forum.

I'm a strongish rider and actually enjoy hitting out some decent times on 'embarassing' kit. Funny, I've never felt embarassed by it, but equally I don't have any negative views of the people 3 hours behind me on $15k rigs.

If the wheels will make you happy, then go for it. But don't buy them because you feel others tell you that you should.

Oh, and the tyres / latex tubes will make a big difference to the feel of the bike and speed with absolutely no handling penalty.

Thanks, Duncan!
This season was actually supposed to be my first 70.3. You know how that turned out.

If we believe the combination of folks selling them and the folks on ST riding them............the newer tech in front wheels means they're more stable in cross winds. Somebody mentioned the "vees" of old versus the modern shapes.

I don't know if you have a nice enough buddy local to you, but you could perhaps ask around to borrow and try riding somebody's deeper front wheel on a day with a touch of wind. Like, do a training ride with them and swap fronts at some point during the ride for half an hour.

There's nothing wrong whatsoever with using the kit you have. However..........there are also a lot of folks out there who are like the old grandpa on the front porch yelling at the kids to get off his street with their fancy aero wheels and low CRR tires. Point being, I wouldn't pass up on 5, 10, 20 watts just for the sake of "being that cool guy smashing it on old kit". Sure folks could gain by a coach..........but let's address the topics separately and stay on topic for the question asked.

If you have the cash, it's your hobby or passion.........go for it.

RS11? Those wheels aren't bad at all. They have aero spokes and only 16f and 20r. The biggest downside is the narrow outer rim width of 21mm. The budget fast option would be Conti Supersonic 20mm tires and latex tubes (for racing), with a disc cover on the back.



If you want better wheels then get the Hed Jets. You can run a deep rear wheel or disc (cover) as it won't be hard to handle.

One thing I have not seen discussed yet, how many seconds is she likely to gain on a sprint/oly with great wheels? Now take away a few seconds because she is not comfortable on those wheels. Then look at your previous races, would adding a few seconds make any difference to how you placed? You can then make a $ per second or $ per watt decision.

I spent 18 years racing on the same bike, stock, straight from the factory with cheap training wheels. I raced on it last season and had a great time. I got on the podium a few times in little local tris. At the very end of the season, I spent $9k on a bike and wheels. I was not able to discern any great effect on bike performance on the little sprint tris that I'm doing right now.

"To answer your questions, my current "starter" wheelset is Shimano 11 with Continental Grand Sport tires."

What model number are your wheels?

The wheel says Shimano RS11 and RBF0699943. Does that answer your question? I bought the bike new in 2017.

It also depend on the type of terrain you ride on.... and how windy it's when you actually race.

Good modern wheels are fairly stable, but they are not perfect.

ex: I'm 160 lbs and descending with my Enve 7.8 could be terrifying if there is some cross wind. But they are perfectly fine on flat (with even more wind). If i had to do it again, i will get a set of 5.8 front / 7.8 back.

I will be surprise if you have much stability issues with a front that is <60mm.

The model number of your wheels is WH-RS11.

RBF0699943 is the serial number.

You might be surprised to discover that good, shallow depth carbon wheels actually handle better than the “training” wheels that came on your bike. Take a look at ENVE 3.4s.

Those wheels cost nearly as much at the OP's PR5

Personally I am a little surprised that anyone who switched from stock shallow depth wheels can't tell a gain in speed/time when switching to a nice set of Zipp, FLO, HED, Enve etc. To me the gains are very measurable. Get comfortable on the new wheels, train some on both your old wheels and new wheels until you get comfortable on both, then use the fast wheels for races. I think you will be pleased.

I'd find it very difficult to justify a purchase of these or similarly expensive wheels since any performance advantage over more reasonably priced, similar depth, well designed and built wheels from another manufacturer is likely to be very small if measurable. The same money could almost certainly buy far more performance elsewhere, or you could just buy much cheaper performance wheels and save the difference.

This is especially so for anyone who has thus far been happy with RS11s and is uncertain whether they even want to invest in more elaborate wheels.
There's a vast, somewhat sensible, middle ground which offers essentially the same benefits for a lot less money. ENVE stuff is about "prestige" as much as anything IMO, and the OP wisely doesn't appear to care about that. Something like a HED Jet 4+ would be a far more sensible purchase.