Thinking of borrowing my girlfriends 404 for the next few road races and crits but I’m not sure if there are anything I need to take into consideration such as structural integrity of older wheel carbon wheels or wheel etc. Are these old 404’s just flat out better in every way over my current training wheels except for climbing?
Yes, the 404s are just flat out faster (but slightly heavier). The tradeoff for a crit is that you’ll be drafting most of the time, and there are lots of accelerations out of corners where weight matters, so the 404s are still better, but not by as much as they would be in a road race or TT. No aging issues about 5yo carbon fiber.
are they tubulars or clinchers? if tubies you’ll want to check to see how well they’re glued.
If the Zipps are tubular, then the 404 should be ~400g lighter than the Ksyrium Elite. If the Zipps are clincher then they are close to the same weight. Either way you’ll have an aero benefit, which you won’t want to discount even when riding uphill or in a pack. Go for the Zipps!!