Wheel Choices

After the Chain Reaction Cycles group ride last Wednesday, there was another rider extolling the virtues of his Rolf Prima wheelset. Super fast he said, like you are riding on rails. To him, they were the best wheels available. He really didn't want to ride anything else.

I'm sure they are fast, but I asked him:

What happens when you break a spoke?

He claimed that would never happen. He said the bladed spokes were so strong that they were almost unbreakable. Well, it does happen. I have a set of Rolf Vector Pros from about 10 years ago, and I have broken spokes on them. One of the issues with Rolfs (or most any "Aero" wheel set) is that one of the ways they achieve more aerodynamics is by reducing the spoke count. Many of these wheels have only 16-18 spokes. While that is good for aerodynamics, if one of the spokes does break, the wheel will be way out of true. On my 32 spoke wheels, I've broken spokes, and the wheel goes out of true. However, I can just open up the brake and ride home. On a reduced spoke count wheel, breaking a spoke often results in the wheel being so far out of true that is will rub on the frame or fork. And then you get to call your family and friends on your cell phone to beg one of them to come get you.

Another thing to realize about wheels that each spoke is under a certain amount of tension. This is what keeps the wheel in true. If you have fewer spokes, each spoke has to bear more of this tension. You don't need an engineering degree (though I have one) to figure out that as each spoke is under more tension, it is more susceptible to some sort of failure. The more tension a spoke is under, the more sensitive it is going to be to any external trauma. True, bladed spokes are thicker than a conventional spoke, but at the bend where the spoke threads into the wheel, they are not. And at this bend is the weakest point of the spoke anyway. So if there is some sort of external stress to the wheel (like hitting a pothole or some rough road) you have two things working against you now. First, all of this stress is going to be absorbed by just a couple of spokes, rather than 6-8 on a conventional wheel and two, these spokes are already under significant tension. There is nowhere else for the additional tension to go, so often times, it results in a spoke failing.

During the GLR 200 km brevet I did on Saturday, I hit a bad pothole while riding in the rain (I never saw it due to how hard it was raining). As it turns out, it did pinch flat my front wheel. But otherwise, my wheel remained true and no spokes broke. The wheel was able to absorb and dissipate all of the impact of hitting that pothole, and I was able to continue the ride and finish. I have no doubt that if I would have hit that same pothole with a reduced spoke wheel, I would have broke a spoke.

There are places for reduced spoke count wheels. They are fast and aerodynamic no doubt. If you are racing, doing time trials or triathlons then maybe they are the right wheels for you.

But at the same time, we also have this mentality in cycling that lighter and faster is always better. Remember that lighter and faster often come at the expense of durability. Pro riders (who endorse all of these things) don't care about durability because they have a team car loaded with spares following them around on every single ride that they do. For the rest of us, durability takes on much more importance. None of us want to be sitting beside the road waiting for a friend to show up because our equipment has failed us. For me, that means riding conventional 32 spokes wheels that are built for strength and reliability. And even if I do break a spoke, I know that I can get home.

The reader can draw their own conclusions about what wheel set is right for them. And the "right" wheel set may even vary by ride. For the types of rides I do, durability rates first on my list.