i’m looking at two wheelsets, one that has a 45mm deep rim, and one that has 58mm… not hard to figure out what i’m considering: zipp 404 v. tilium SS. but all brand names and costs aside, do the 13mm get me anything? i don’t get blown around on the bike so i’m not too concerned about crosswinds and handling. i hold 17.0 - 19.0 mph from IM to oly. all things equal, i have to think the 404s are the way to go, but for a $300-500 premium, it’s hard to justify.
not trying to decipher between customer service and such, just hoping to get some good advice whether aero benefits are linearly correlated to increases in rim depth… OR if there is a point where the benefits level off and increase less dramatically beyond a certain rim depth.
I previously posted an interesting wind tunnel test in which it was noted that the Hed CX and Campy Shamal had similiar aero readings. The CX was marginally more aero but the Shamal was less affected by cross winds. I’ve used both these wheels and have to agree with the report as the CX does seem much more affected by cross winds than the Shamal. What’s interesting is that the CX a a much deeper wheel and I would have thought to have been faster, but apparently according to the wind tunnel, was not the case.
Hard to beat the 404’s but as others have pointed out on other threads, there are other wheels using the same rims but at least cost.
I think that there’s more to aero-ness than just chord length, as noted in many other components. As an example, the question had been asked about which fork was more aero- the Cervelo Chord Aero that comes stock on the P2K and P3 or the Wolf. Gerard indicated that the Wolf was actually marginally more aero despite the shorter chord length because of various other refinements. I think that the same statement applies to anything else. For example, the Zipp 404 isn’t just deeper than a Tillium or Alps, it’s got this “magic bulge” in it’s profile that’s supposed to make it more aero, so I don’t think you can just make a blanket statement that wheel x is more aero than wheel y because it’s deeper. There are many other factors to consider.