I know it would be nowhere near as strong as carbon or look as cool, but why hasn’t any companies developed a deep plastic rim wheel? Similar concept to the plastic wheelbuilder disc covers, why couldn’t a company develop a wheel that had a 50 mm plasitc rim around their own wheels? I feel like it would be hard to make somethat that could just screw on a normal rim like wheelbuilder, but if a company fabricated it into the metal rim it would be firm and wouldn’t fall off. SIMILAR aero benefits to a standard 50mm deep front or rear wheel but for a fraction of the cost.
have you not seen the hed disc?
carbon is light(er) and looks better. the material costs aren’t that high, but because it’s a deep section wheel and because it’s carbon, people are deliberately paying a fortune. from a manufacturer’s point if view, why would you want to have cheaper wheels, if they sell anyway? plus, alloy rims with carbon/plastic cover are heavier than full carbon wheels, which is what most people buy anyway
I agree with you on all of your points, but why hasn’t a company come out with them? If you charged $200 per wheel I know a ton of people would by them. Who cares if they are a little heavier… aero trumps weight in tris
because there is already a ton of people buying 1800,- wheels. i doubt you’d have 9x more people buying cheap plastic cover wheels.
you’ll always want the look and exclusivity, too. if not, everybody would drive a Kia
Carbon IS plastic…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fiber_reinforced_plastic
Really though the poster has a point. There are a lot of Al box rim wheels with carbon fairings that sell for big $$. A cheap moldable plastic fairing would have the same benefits at lower cost than carbon. Not as cool but seems like something a alex or kinlin might want to market, they don’t sell upper end deep carbon wheels.
Styrrell
You make it sound like it is cheap to make carbon gear. Maybe sheets of carbon is cheap. I don’t know. When I toured Edge Composites I was blown away by all of the industrial equipment used to make wheels, forks, bike parts, etc… While there is no doubt carbon companies can make lots of money, start up would cost a ton and take a long time to recover I bet.
i like this idea. make one wheel and have different plastic fairings you can swap out for different courses.
even if you couldnt swap out, at 200 bucks a wheel its still better than paying 1200$ for the same aerodynamics.
Fairings could be (I would think) mass produced via a centrifugal / injection molding process to very high quality and strength out of all sorts of polymers. Aren’t carbon fiber molds laid up by hand? Eliminating personnel costs would be huge by itself.
Ya, I never though about the whole swapping them out idea, that is sweet. I feel like they would rattle around then and it wouldn’t be cool, but even if that wasn’t an option, would you rather buy 5 sets of wheels (all different sizes) or one set of zipp 404’s? You could have so many options.
You make it sound like it is cheap to make carbon gear. Maybe sheets of carbon is cheap. I don’t know. When I toured Edge Composites I was blown away by all of the industrial equipment used to make wheels, forks, bike parts, etc… While there is no doubt carbon companies can make lots of money, start up would cost a ton and take a long time to recover I bet.
well if you think e.g. of mavic cosmic carbone SL wheels, which are basically alloy wheels with a simple carbon cover, then yes, it’s really cheap and easy to make. way less difficult than making Xentis monocoque wheel, for example
the problem with the interchangeable plastic fairings is that it wouldnt be UCI-legal. and very very few companies would be willing to design and make a tri-specific cycling product because it’s difficult to market (triathletes tend to buy stuff that’s ridden by the Pro Tour teams, regardless whether it’s beneficial for them or not…) and the number of produced items is significantly lower