I am hoping to pull the trigger soon on a Carbon Clincher front wheel.
What are your experiences with carbon wheels? Durability? Braking? What brake pads do you use?
I will be using as race only. Weigh 175-185lbs
I’ve been using a Corima 4 spoke and a Corima Deep for the last year. Both are full carbon. No problems whatsoever with durability. Braking is definitely not as good as a metal braking surface. Get some carbon-specific brake pads (Swiss Stop Yellow are probably the best there is). Still, stopping is not nearly as fast, and you have to be careful of overheating. Carbon heats up quickly, which can cause problems with your tires (i.e. blow outs). I found that if I am on the brakes too much, the Swiss Stops will start to squeel. That’s your sign to pull over and let them cool down. On the plus side, it has only happened to me when coming down a steep road with a lot of switchbacks, so I had the be on the brakes pretty hard.
So, while these have worked fine for me, my next wheelset witll probably have a metal braking strip. That may be years from now though, and I’ll still use the carbon ones til then.
What Rokko said. I have both Reynolds Attack and Assaults and think they are a bargain (comparitively). No idea of their aero factor to the competition…
Echo the comments on cabon braking surface. I have Zipp 303, 404, 909 along with every combination of brake pads (DA and RED brakes) and they don’t come close to the braking power of a metail surface (say, Mavic ES) with a standard brake block (DA or Red).
For all hilly road races, I’m sticking with the Mavics after finding a ditch last year on the downhill with the Assaults.
Durability (Assaults/Attacked) has been great. No problems other than the Reynold’s freehub to Red Powerdome compatibility (in which Reynolds was very happy to replace the freehubs)
Testrider.com has a review on both…although it seems they are fluffing up to Reynolds.