While looking through various picture galleries of bikes at the Tour de France TT I noticed a variety of tri/quadspoke wheels but not a single H3 from HED. In years past it seems that many teams would go out of their way to ride H3 even when under sponsorship with other wheel companies. What gives this year? Is the H3 now considered so slow that not many teams are using them now?
I saw trispoke wheels by Mavic, Pro, and Vision, and a quadspoke that I believe was Mavic (could be wrong on that one).
Most of the team sky riders where stil running HED3 wheels on the front as I believe there was only 3 of the new shimano trispokes available to the team. The HED3 at the yaw angles these guys see is still one of if not the quickest wheels out there.
Most of the team sky riders where stil running HED3 wheels on the front as I believe there was only 3 of the new shimano trispokes available to the team. The HED3 at the yaw angles these guys see is still one of if not the quickest wheels out there.
I would guess that the low-yaw drag of the new Trispokes is not why they have become popular again from numerous manufacturers. I would bet that the general trispoke design has lower rotational drag figures than a spoked wheel. The new fatter H3, or running the fatter front tires that Sky has been using, increase the low-yaw drag to the point that they are close to a spoked wheel.
It would be interesting to see the H3 tested at ERO. Those guys could tease out the rotation drag (and possibly fork interaction) issue more easily than most wind tunnels.
While looking through various picture galleries of bikes at the Tour de France TT I noticed a variety of tri/quadspoke wheels but not a single H3 from HED. In years past it seems that many teams would go out of their way to ride H3 even when under sponsorship with other wheel companies. What gives this year? Is the H3 now considered so slow that not many teams are using them now?
I saw trispoke wheels by Mavic, Pro, and Vision, and a quadspoke that I believe was Mavic (could be wrong on that one).
The HED H3 is still one of the very best tri spoke wheels getting around, but more and more of the teams now have very good 3/4 spoke wheels available to them from their sponsors. Cannondale and Lampre have Vision, Garmin, Katusha, Cofidis and AG2R have Mavic, Giant, Sky, Orica and FDJ have Pro, Astana have Corima, so there’s half the teams with 3/4 spoke wheels already available right there.
Could be a question of sponsorship dollars as well.
If your sponsor ( i.e. Vision, mavic, shimano, corima) is already providing you with a 3-4 spoked wheel free, and it willl be pretty fast in all likelihood, why pay extra to BUY a HED 3 ? HED has never been a big sponsor in procyling.
The HED H3 is still one of the very best tri spoke wheels getting around, but more and more of the teams now have very good 3/4 spoke wheels available to them from their sponsors. Cannondale and Lampre have Vision, Garmin, Katusha, Cofidis and AG2R have Mavic, Giant, Sky, Orica and FDJ have Pro, Astana have Corima, so there’s half the teams with 3/4 spoke wheels already available right there.
AG2R ride Fulcrum, so basically Campagnolo. The team leaders Peraud and Bardet rode Lightweight discs on their main bikes, and Bora discs (TeXtreme, like Shimano’s) on the spares.
The HED H3 is still one of the very best tri spoke wheels getting around, but more and more of the teams now have very good 3/4 spoke wheels available to them from their sponsors. Cannondale and Lampre have Vision, Garmin, Katusha, Cofidis and AG2R have Mavic, Giant, Sky, Orica and FDJ have Pro, Astana have Corima, so there’s half the teams with 3/4 spoke wheels already available right there.
This was my thinking as well. A lot of the current wheel sponsors already have 3 spoke wheels so it didn’t make much sense to have a new wheel sponsor. Does HED sponsor any cycling teams?
