I personally don't think they're worth the premium over HED wheels, but that's just my opinion (and I have mostly HED wheels on our bikes).

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http://irondad06.blogspot.com/

http://irondad.blogspot.com/

the pros I know that race with Zipp believe them to be better.

I feel that a lot of people will want to believe something is better just because they paid more for it.

They do seem like excellent wheels but I'm not convinced that they're any faster than a CH Aero cover and a used trispoke off ebay. Quality is a whole different issue however.

I am impressed with the weight and quality of the 404's. But then I know a guy who broke spokes on his 303's for no seeming reason.

I personally prefer the Zipps over the HED wheels. I had only one Zipps wheel break when I tried a manuever over a set of railroad tracks that failed and ended up cracking the rim. (It remained solid enough to keep going, but the crack made the braking pulsate). I fault that one more to user error than a problem with the wheel.

I didn't really like the quality of the build on the HED spoked wheels, and I had a teammate have his HED wheel delaminate the the bond between the brake surface and the rim, so it made a weird sound with every revolution.

Both companies have moderately generous replacement policies, but the HED delamination had to be covered under the "crash" replacement even though there was no crash involved in it.

I think the only thing Zipp does better than making great race wheels is to market great race wheels.

I've had both (H3s and Zipp 404s). Yes, the Zipp is most definitely better in my opinion (weight, hubs, my perceived aero, ride quality, etc). That is why they charge the premium for them. Are they worth 50% more than the HED alps or similar, probably not, but neither is that $3,000 carbon frame a lot of ride too when an aluminum one would do just fine. I doubt you would ask this question if the wheels cost the same - and Zipp knows this...

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Fatigue is biochemical, not biomechanical.
- Andrew Coggan, PhD

I also like the fact that when you go to alot of the marque racing events, Zipp will be there with their own both. You get to meet the reps, ask questions about their products, and spin their wheels. I have not seen HED for several years and I only have seen their wheels displayed by independant bike shops.

It may mean nothing to most people, but for me, it means that Zipp is out there trying to be available for the customer.

I would like to some type of study (OK, I'm sure there is one) showing that they are a better wheel - especially for the price. Since we're talking price....are they that much better b/c of the design vs. HED Alps? Could the reason so many of the pros ride them be due to the fact that they are given them due to sponsorship, or sold them at a deep discount? That would be my thinking, but I could be wrong. Could the average age-grouper be that much quicker w/a set of Zipp's, or would they be able to turn in the same time w/a lesser costing wheel?

I don't know! I know Zipp's are good wheels, but they sure are expensive.

I've never seen a Zipp booth, but maybe that's just for the midwest guys like Waterski ;-)

Honestly, though, I don't think any company is more "available for the customer" than Hed. There have been scores of posts here about the excellent customer service provided by Hed.

I know that Zipp wheels look great. They look fast. CSC is using them and other pro teams and their always advertising them with Peter Reid or something so they are definitely lust worthy. It does not seem that HED advertises much at all which is true, but after Lance, Discovery and the Tour De France that got the really well known again. From what I hear though it seems that the Zipp ride quality and weight seem to be the determining factors, at least the main ones. Now it seems as of Reynolds, Blackwell or the other companies are charging a lot too. Do people only use these Zipps for racing? It would be nice to use them all of the time. I just have a hard time justifying spending that much on wheels. I really like the HED ALPS and HED 50's, but you just don't seem to see as many people using them. The Alps for instance seems pretty lightweight too.

I'm trying to hide from my wife....Shhh!!!

I told her I'd quit wasting time here, but I gues bad habits are hard to break.

I know I ride much more aggressive with my Zipp disc then any other wheel, if only for the reason that one cannot be passed by a non-disc rider for fear of being called a "poseur', for riding on a $2000 wheelset (I didn't pay $2000). I'm a Top of the MOP cyclist, who can't really run. Therefore, I get caught on the run, but I don't wear racing flats.

Since I'm biased on the sujbect I won't comment on whether our wheel are 'worth' it or not, but I'll provide some insight as to our costs.

The biggest cost factors in our wheels that nobody else has are related to two factors: 1. continual evolution and 2. US manufacturing and materials.

We are the only company with a continual evolution policy towards our wheels and rims, meaning that we continually research and then change rims or hub or whatever as quikcly as possible. The 404 for instance has now seen 5 shape evolutions and the addition of dimples in 6 years. This is unheard of in the industry where the other popular TT wheels have remained essentially unchanged for as many as 15 years. In 2000 our 404 was competitive with the Hed3 from 0-5 degrees in the wind tunnel and uncompetitive everywhere else. The next year we evolved the shape to be slightly faster than the H3 from 0-8 degrees, but removed about 60 grams of weight. By 2005, the new dimpled shaped rims are significantly faster than an H3 from 0-22 degrees of yaw in the wind tunnel and lighter still. The problem here is that continued wind tunnel time and evolution of the rim shapes means that we can only ammortize tooling over 1 or maybe 2 years before we update to new tools. The evolution of dimples alone added about $40,000 to the cost of a rim tool, compared to a rim tool in China which will run about $1800 US, but I guarantee that as soon as we have a better 404, we'll be in production on it.

The same can be said for spokes, we were the first company to work with Sapim in Belgium and adopt the CX-ray spoke, this is the worlds most expensive spoke at about $2.50 each, but is the most aero spoke we've ever seen in testing and due to a special heat treatment has more than double the fatigue life. People said we were nuts to use spokes this expensive, but two years later Campagnolo and Reynolds both went to the same spoke, thus rasing their wheel prices as well. Hubs are another example, we design and make our own hubs specifically for each wheel. This allows us to custom tailor the angle of each spoke hole to the depth of rim, and design the hubs into the wheel as a system instead of just buying off the shelf hubs. We also use the industry's most expensive Swiss bearings, these are more than 2.5 times rounder than any bearing available elsewhere, and are rounder even than the ceramic bearings most companies are selling, but that comes at a price, we pay slightly more for the 6 cartridge bearings in a hubset than we could buy a completely assembled hubset from JoyTech in Taiwan. This is basically because precision and tolerance of parts comes at an exponential cost, so that you can buy 25 millionths balls by the kilo, 10 millionths balls are a few cents each, and the 1 millionths ceramic balls in the Z wheels cost about $6 per ball, so you are paying ever more for smaller and smaller gains, and this is true for an entire wheelset. Every last detail of a Zipp wheel is pushed to the limits of existing technology in terms of aerodynamics, strength, weight, stiffness and durability, but each incremental gain comes at a cost.

The other cost driver is US manufacturing and materials. We are dedicated to manufacturing in the US as we feel that we can evolve faster, and if engineering is 20 ft away from manufacturing we are better able to not only evolve the product, but solve problems when they arise. With chinese or taiwanese manufacturing it is very difficult to evolve the product since engineering and design are disconnected from production, not to mention if there are problems with a product you can be stuck waiting weeks for your shipment of parts from Asia to get it fixed where we can now just fix it ourselves very quickly. Being in Speedway, IN most of our people come from auto racing composites and make in 1 hour what a Taiwanese makes in a day or a chinese make in a week, labor cost is high, but our people have a high degree of expertise and most of them have been working with composite materials for years so you definitely get what you pay for. Other than Trek, we are now the only carbon rim/wheel manufacturers in the US right now, so we face an uphill battle on costs, but I think that the quality and speed of evolution are well worth it. We also machine all of our hub parts in the US as we can use higher precision machinery and have more control over tolerancing and fits than is possible currently in Asia. This has allowed us to innovate new processes that would not have previously been possible, like using wire EDM to cut ratchet rings and pawls that are more than 2 times harder and more wear resistant than other technologies can produce, but at the same time more than 10 times more dimensionally accurate. The result is a hubset with a 180 gram rear and 82 gram front hub that spins with about 1 watt less energy input at 30mph than an other hub currently available and as much as 2-3 watts less than some. For many 1 watt is no big deal, but if you're Dave Zabriskie 1 watt was all it took to beat Lance in the Tour prologue last year, so in some instances it can be a very big deal (he also had ceramic bearings which can save another 0.5-0.8 watts). But that brings up another key point, we do no specials, so a wheel for you or for Peter Reid or CSC or whatever, will be picked from the same production, off of the same hook and shipped without discrimination. Many of the pros use Z series stuff, which is more expensive still, but when a shipment goes to CSC for example, the wheels are simply pulled from inventory if we have it, or put into boxes as the wheels are finished and shipped right along side wheels for your local bike shop, there is no cherry picking or special manufacturing for those guys, as we feel that every single wheel should be pro-level.

Lastly, there is some cost in our event support, but we feel that this is very critical to our business model. We have people working tech support and supporting our product at every single US based Ironman event and many if not most of the other large regional Triathlons such as Wildflower and others, these same guys also work neutral support during these races so it is a pretty grueling schedule they keep. There is a definite cost to have two employess on the road dedicated to servicing racers and athletes as well as visiting bike shops, doing tech clinics and so on, but this keeps us connected to the market and so is very important.

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http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
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I've seen alot of the ITU guys use the ALPS wheelset. They're probably better than most people give them credit for.

Thanks Joshatzipp. This is a very detailed look at the costs factors that go into Zipp Wheels. As I mentioned earlier I think Zipps look great and I have picked up a Zipp disc wheel and it is super light, the carbon wheel itself did look really well put together and the hub spun very nice. It was an awesome disc wheel. I think in bike terms in general you do get what you pay for, but such as myself, the bikes, wheels, components I have are most likely better than I will ever be, although I like the way it performs and lasts. Zipp seems as if it is controlling the market, but I still don't think I should have to pay the price of some of their wheelsets. I guess the costs do justify the higher costs for the wheels, but the prices are still high to some people. Thanks again for the detail though. I am very interested in the details regarding the bearings in the hubs. I know you have to pay for the cost of quality, but I don't know if I can afford it.

You may want to look into Zipp's new line of Flashpoint wheels, which have a lower price point. They ae new this year and were introduced at Interbike. Unfortunately I know nothing else about them.

I have owned Hed wheels and currently ride Zipp wheels and was happy and satisfied with both. Both companies have been good with customer service even if it was just for questions. I believe the hub quality on the Zipp wheels is among the best, far better than any of the Hed wheels I have owned, and not that the Hed hubs were bad at all. I just feel that more attention is paid to the little details on Zipp wheels, at least the ones I have seen. Is any of that worth twice the cost? That is a tough personal decision, If I had no more than $800 to spend on a new wheelset I would probably pick a set of Stingers. That said, I do not believe I will race on anything other than Zipp since I now own a set and could offset the cost of a new set by selling the ones I have.

Great explanation Josh! I knew your hubs were the best just by spinning/riding them. Sure seems like at least 3 watts to my powermeter legs compared with my training wheels (Reynolds Alta Race and/or Kysirium SLs).

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Fatigue is biochemical, not biomechanical.
- Andrew Coggan, PhD

I have to say that of all manufacturers who post here Josh impresses me in spite of my natural skepticism. Zipp certainly seems to do the research, they try out several shapes in the wind tunnel rather than just designing a rim on the computer, manufacturing it and then throwing it into a wind tunnel for a short test to see how it does.

Some of the features such as the dimples and bearings are probably not worth a lot of time, but I guess if every last second is important to you, you have to pay to get it. I only own one zipp wheel, a used 2004 404 front wheel but if I had the money for better race wheels they would be at the top of my list.

No.

Yes.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

You want a piece of me...?

I can post THAT picture again...

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Bastard!