Combine 303 and 808?

Triathlon Forum
1

I’ve now decided that I’ll get a pair of Zipp 808’s, but I can’t decide if I should get a PowerTap SL 2.4 with the set.

I have an Ergomo PM on my TT bike, so I first thought I’d just get a plain set of 808 without a power meter since I’ll be using the 808’s mainly on the TT bike. I have a set of 303’s on my normal bike which I use for climbing and road racing.

However, some of my most popular rides / races are on roads where the first couple of hours are dead flat, and the last couple of hours are in the mountains and/or rolling terrain. So I started to think, would it make sense to use the 808 backwheel and a 303 front wheel for these kind of races and rides? If so, I would have to get the 808 with a PT so I can switch the 808 back wheel between my TT bike with Ergomo, and my normal road bike.

I just can’t make up my mind… Anybody have some thoughts on this to help me out?

2

I am not sure about hilly races - I doubt the extra weight of the 808 front over a 303 would result in a slower time in all but a hill climb time trial or a bunch race were the excelleration gains may be decisive. As a road race set up I guess a powertap 808 rear and a 303 front would work fine. I am not sure I would want to use such a nice wheel set for training.

I would use a 303 with an 808 in very windy conditions and I think this would be a good combo in these conditions. Last year I rode a 25mile TT in very wind conditions with a 404 front and a disk and I would have swapped out the 404 before the disk as this gave me the most grief in the gusts.

3

I’d run the deeper wheel up front and the 303 in the back. Actually now that I thought about it for 5 sec, I’d run 808’s all the time instead.