In the Prologue & Solvang TT @ the Tour of California Astana used a rear disc with Bontager on it. I looked at Bontrager’s website but did not see any disc wheels. Why is that?
In the Prologue & Solvang TT @ the Tour of California Astana used a rear disc with Bontager on it. I looked at Bontrager’s website but did not see any disc wheels. Why is that?
they used a disc with bontrager stickers on it
which may or may not actually be a bontrager wheel
maybe it was a wheelcover!! lolol
Bontrager and HED work together.
I’m pretty sure some of them are Lightweight discs.
Lightweight disc with Bontrager decals.
They used to use Zipp dimpled discs with Bontrager decals on them. Re-badging still happens a lot in the pro peloton.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/...tana_Leipheimer_disc
Leipheimer used a Lightweight disc wheel from Germany-based CarbonSports, covered with a giant Bontrager decal.
As mentioned below, last year Astana started running the Lightweight brand of disc, so they more then likely still are. It appears from the data that the Lightweight disc is the lightest disc on the market. Takes less power to turn the lighter wheel, good for more speed.
I’m sure its good for more speed going uphill, and accelerating out of tight turns, but assuming you can get the bike to the UCI minimum either way, its trivially slower to have the lighter wheel, according to this math:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=2171971;search_string=wheel%20weight%20math;#2171971
Takes less power to turn the lighter wheel, good for more speed.
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Jack,
Thank you for the link to the thread, I had not seen this. I did say more speed, just not how much. Just ask anyone that you know (including yourself) if you can feel a change in rate of acceleration with a lighter wheel and I think the answer is always yes, people do feel the difference. You know as well as I do, the sooner you can get the bike up to speed the shorter your time will be over a given distance.
Absolutely it is easier to accelerate a lighter wheel
but in a TT you are mostly not accelerating, you are maintaining a costant speed, where the weight of the wheel does not matter.
so if we simplify it that much, wheel weight only matters at the start and coming out of slow corners.
however it is a bit more complex than that, since the pedaling motion is not perfectly smooth, there are tiny decelerations and accelerations as we pedal
and it turns out a heavier wheel is faster, due to this, as the link states, with the math to support it.
the difference is even more negligible than the aero properties of good TT frames though =)
Jack,
Thank you for the link to the thread, I had not seen this. I did say more speed, just not how much. Just ask anyone that you know (including yourself) if you can feel a change in rate of acceleration with a lighter wheel and I think the answer is always yes, people do feel the difference. You know as well as I do, the sooner you can get the bike up to speed the shorter your time will be over a given distance.
Jack, you really can not say that weight does not matter, there would be a big difference in a 910 gram wheel (Lightweight brand) and something that is say 2000 grams (for instance) in time saved or lost from accelerating or slowing down. How many truely flat TT’s of Tri courses are there in reality?, not many. That means a person is constantly going up and down in the speed range where the wheel weight makes a difference. Like it has been said before, they make these wheels light for a reason, they are faster overall then a heavier wheel in the majority of courses people race on. Engineering calculations are interesting and all (I hope) but there are times when the numbers do not always line up the best with real world results.
Gralden, the guy did the math for uphills too (its in the link), the heavier wheel is still faster (assuming total bike weight is the same)
If you have a real world test that shows otherwise, please present it. The only one I’ve seen was flawed because they made the wheel heavier by filling the tube with water, haha.
light wheels have value for sprinters and criteriums and for people who can’t otherwise get their bike to the minimum weight allowed by their racing rules.
but for a non technical time trial, its probably not important at all unless you need the light wheel to hit the minimum weight limit.
and yes to be clear I am saying its entirely possible that this is true and Levi doesn’t understand it or believe it, or it may be that with his TT rig the light disc helps him get to the UCI minimum weight.
Jack, you really can not say that weight does not matter, there would be a big difference in a 910 gram wheel (Lightweight brand) and something that is say 2000 grams (for instance) in time saved or lost from accelerating or slowing down. How many truely flat TT’s of Tri courses are there in reality?, not many. That means a person is constantly going up and down in the speed range where the wheel weight makes a difference. Like it has been said before, they make these wheels light for a reason, they are faster overall then a heavier wheel in the majority of courses people race on. Engineering calculations are interesting and all (I hope) but there are times when the numbers do not always line up the best with real world results.
there are other good things about the Lightweight disc too, like the fact that they use a very good reliable DT Swiss hub, and also, the it is semi-lenticular, which is slightly different (for better or worse i cannot say; all i know is that the mavic comete disc is lenticular and is widely regarded as a very very fast disc) from a flat disc in terms of aerodynamics, and also in terms of comfort. Finally, the design makes the disc very laterally stiff, which of course is what lightweight wheels are known for - their lateral stiffness.
Good points.
there are other good things about the Lightweight disc too, like the fact that they use a very good reliable DT Swiss hub, and also, the it is semi-lenticular, which is slightly different (for better or worse i cannot say; all i know is that the mavic comete disc is lenticular and is widely regarded as a very very fast disc) from a flat disc in terms of aerodynamics, and also in terms of comfort. Finally, the design makes the disc very laterally stiff, which of course is what lightweight wheels are known for - their lateral stiffness.
I looked at the Lightweight website. Is doesn’t look like there is a U.S. distributor. Anybody know where I can find these? Thanks.
You can buy them from Wiggle:
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/Cycle/7/Lightweight_Rear_Tubular_Disc_DT_Wheel/5360040291/
They are a very reputable webstore, with free postage to the USA, and Lightweight prices are pretty uniform regardless of where you buy them.
you can also buy them from Competitive Cyclist in the US…
Most hubs especially from Bontrager are rebadged DT swiss hubs
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