Best wheelset for IM 70.3 Wiesbaden / Germany

Triathlon Forum
1

Hi,

I hope I can get some valued expert opinions to help me chose the best possible wheelset for IM 70.3 Wiesbaden / Germany.

Some background Information:

IM 70.3 Wiesbaden is a hilly course with 1.430 meters total ascent. The longest continuous climb is 5.2km at 6.3% grade, the steepest section of which are 2.8km at 8.1% grade.

My weight is ~78kg. My current FTP is 274 Watt, I aim to increase that to >285 Watt which would give me >230 Watts at IF 0.81 on raceday. My bike is a Scott Plasma 3.

I have to pick between two wheelsets:

  1. HED Stinger 6 front with Continental Sprinter Gatorskin tire, butyl inner tube. HED Stinger 60 rear with Continental Sprinter tire, butyl inner tube. Wheelset weight around 1560 grams without tires.
  2. HED Jet Plus 9 front with Continental Attack tire, latex inner tube. HED Jet Plus Disc rear with Continental GP 4000 S II tire, Latex inner tube. Wheelset weight around 2040 grams without tires.

Obviously, the Jet’s are a lot heavier. On the other hand, I assume that the tires have a lot less rolling resistance, in addition the Jet’s should be aerodynamically superior (which won’t help me uphill but on the descents, I guess).

So which one would you pick?

Many thanks in advance and best regards,

Frank

2

Stinger wheelset and swap tyres. Lower wheelset weight with low rolling resistance will be far more important than max aero benefit due to the amount of climbing on the course

3

I will run my disc and a 60 front with Latex/Contis

But my biking sucks and I am not too worried about weight (I am a smidge lighter than you) [-p

See you there!

4

are you sure about the overall setup?
I did it with my road bike instead. I would go back again with a road bike

You would gain with your setup on the super fast descents but for the rest, I see it for a road bike

5

It’s not that steep… and I’ve raced 70.3s with more climbing and the aero benefti still outweighed the weight. Go full-aero - Jets. The tyres alone would make a huge difference.

Added benefit is the alu brake surface - if you’re going to be braking into sketchy corners on a descent, that’s a pretty nice advantage.