Abusing Carbon Rims

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Permalink Reply by Echappe Equipment on August 19, 2011 at 4:06pm

Those DA wheels are surprisingly resilient.  I ran them myself a few years ago and never had a problem with wear or impacts. That being said, no pad will completely prevent wear if you're racing in wet sandy conditions, but the DA wheels certainly seemed to fair better than some.

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Permalink Reply by Kenneth Zukin on August 19, 2011 at 9:11pm

thanks for your reply -- how did those wheels work out for you?? Sounds as though you've moved on.

Were they the 50mm tubulars??

Thanks...

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Permalink Reply by John Mansell on August 20, 2011 at 6:52am

I don't switch out pads, thats the least of your worries when use Carbon wheels for cross. I have said this before, don't use any carbon component for cross that you expect to use after the season. Cross is tough on bike parts.

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Permalink Reply by Echappe Equipment on August 23, 2011 at 6:58am

They worked well.  Won some races, lost some races.  You know, standard stuff.  They were the 50mm wheels.

As some mentioned below, you should know that while they may be resilient wheels, they probably won't be able to be ridden on the road again.  Cross is tough on bike parts.

I'm not really racing much cross anymore myself.  My road season goes from March-October. I'm pretty dead by the time CX season hits.

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Permalink Reply by Kenneth Zukin on August 23, 2011 at 5:31pm

I appreciate the insight; maybe I should re-think high-end carbon tubulars...I've thus far raced on a pair of Ksyrium clinchers -- I'm wanting to upgrade to tubular -- but I can't really see "sacrificing" a thousand dollar wheelset -- maybe some aluminum tubulars would make more sense...

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Permalink Reply by Joey Mullan on August 20, 2011 at 6:11pm

Don't race what you can't replace.

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