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Planet X Carbon Clinchers

60mm or 52mm.

Interesting. Santa is bringing me some cash to put towards some race wheels. I was looking at getting the PX tubs but these have got me thinking.

Pros - no need to learn how to change tubs, cheaper tyres, alu braking rims so no need to change brake blocks (only have one bike for training and racing), 60mm rims should be easier to handle than an 82/101 set.

Cons - 82/101 rims must by definition be quicker than 60s. Shouldn't I just get whatever is absolutely as quick as possible and not worry about handling (I'll get used to them?), tubs are just quicker.

Anyone got any observations? By the way, it's Planet X or nothing. I am happy to accept that Zipps, HED etc will be better than PX, but I ain't got £1000 to buy some. I'm reckoning that whichever PX deep rim wheels I get will be faster than the "came with the bike" bog standard ones I have now.
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Comments

  • You make some good points in your thought process. One question is what will you train on. Will you continue to use your existing wheelset with training based tyres and save your new wheels as a 'Sunday best' race set? If this is the case I would go for the deeper section rims as they should offer better performance charecteristics.

    If on the other hand you are going to relegate your existing wheels to the garage or under the stairs then the question is about which set will offer the best all round performance. If you are doing high training mileage, ridding a lot of hilly terrain on rough road surfaces, then I suspect the shallower rims might be a bit more compliant and offer better ride charecteristics.

    Personally if I was spending a few hundred quid I would not think it a good return to benefit from it for just a few hours per year if cash is tight, the only proviso being I was missing out on winning races consistently by under a minute or so. If money was no object I would have a full range of wheelsets all top spec and through rotating them for the right conditions all of them should last a long time. The difficult ground is the middle which is where I suspect you are at. The compromise is get a set of all round wheels and this really depends on your usual training terrain, for me these are Dura Ace 24's because I train a lot on the Pennine lanes and want a good climbing wheel, if I lived in another region this might result in the choice of a deeper rim. In winter I put Gatorskin 25's on them for reliability. And when it matters being clinchers its easy to shod them in a narrower and lightweight tyre/tube set. For me psychologically this is an improvement in ride charecteristics and makes me faster. Are these the fastest wheels for any scenario, of course not, but they are fast enough for me and I get the benefit from them everyday as long as I spend time servicing them on a regular basis a big factor in my choice of wheelset.
  • JulesJules Posts: 987
    I'm thinking of the new wheels just for racing really, plus a few training rides to get used to them.
  • The answer then should be get the fastest wheels you can afford. In this case why not go deeper?

    If the motivation is improved performance then it is simply a case of getting used to them in training. The only issue being you turn up on a very windy race day and do not have confidence in yourself to handle the deeper rims. In which case would you be expecting to have your best race ever on something 50mm to 30mm shallower, I guess not. In that case make sure you take your training wheels if the confidence level is not high enough.

    To play devils advocate compromise might indicate a lack of dedication to progressivly improve your bike handling skills and simply wanting something to add a bit of bling to your existing bike and look the part at your next race / club training session. If this is your motivation go for it as such there is no need to ask the question on the forum in the first place.

    The fact that you did ask the question, and said you think 82/101 is the quickest kind of answers your own question me thinks. What clouds the issue is there is a lot of product out there and I suspect a lot of it ends up being consumed for the bling factor, rather than being seen as a device for slight improvements in performance. I even found myself thinking last week that Cole wheels would look good on next years Felt B2, thats the designer in me, then I brought myself back to earth with a reality check.

    If performance matters do your homework and get the best functional bang for your buck. If its an emotional decision on what you like accept it for that but don't regret it in future and wish you had gone with something else.
  • fire trifire tri Posts: 173
    Hey
    i've got the 82/101 already and want the 52mm's now too, much too the annoyance of the better half!!!
    The reason I want both is because. i'm quite big at 90kg+ and i asked them at px if the deep ones would be ok, they said fr flat tt ing and undulating courses, not for standing on the pedals rocking from side to side up hills! plus they are a handful in windy conditions.#
    So, the 52's will give me some aero benefits from their deepness but also a lot easier to handle in the wind but also be able to do hilly courses to.
    And got some kinectic one 30mm clinchers for training on already.
    Just gotta save up for em now
  • QuitterQuitter Posts: 160
    I own the 101/82 combo and yes they instantly improved my TT times consistantly moving me up the order ahead of guys I didnt used to beat.
    I once left them on the road bike for a long training ride and as you'd expect they are a big f'off cross sectional area to catch the wind....never again!
    Deffo the more focussed wheel set of the two.

    The new PX clinchers do look nice. Again 50mm will be a more do it all wheel with the 60mm slightly better but also at times (eg windy conditions) slightly worse. I've experienced speed wobbles using 50mm rims so even they arent immune :roll: And you can know get high tpi clincher tyres that are supposed to compare favourably with tubs but I've not tried any.

    Buy the 60's (avoids a clincher/tub mismatch if you ran a 101 rear) but always take your standard front wheel to races as well just in case.
  • bathtubbathtub Posts: 280
    jules if i was in your shoes i would go for the 52 clinchers , train on your standard wheels and save the planet x for race day . The 52wheels would handle all tri courses + TT 's if you fancied it. When i had just the one choice of zipps for race day it was simple, now i have the luxury of choice between zipp, powertap or disc and it can be a nightmare and very stressfull deciding what best to use.
  • JulesJules Posts: 987
    Just to update I bought the 80/101s after they came down to £350. They look very nice and feel lighter than I'd expected. (Not sure how I knew to expect a certain weight, never seen a pair of carbon wheels before!)

    Santa's budget didn't stretch to a new cassette nor to tubs, glue etc so I won't be riding with them for few weeks (not that I'm riding anywhere in this wind and certainly not deep rim wheels!) but when I do ride them I'll try and remember to report back.
  • I've today ordered my second set of px wheels.... I've plumped for the 60's for training & general use.

    I did have a 101 rear and it was pretty good for the money but hated the graphics so sold it.

    I mailed px and asked if they did a rear 82 and a front 50 or 60 as a set..... They don't and aren't planning too.
  • fire trifire tri Posts: 173
    hmmmmm dont know why PX said that
    check
    http://www.planet-x-bikes.co.uk/i/q/WPP ... 2_wheelset
  • Should make it clear that I asked for a decal free wheelset
  • Not being a bike/brand snob but look elsewhere. Ive ridden px wheels and the quality of finish and construction is pitiful. I dont know of other options but a cheap wheel with a carbon fairing isnt a good way to spend £400 in my opinion.
  • fire trifire tri Posts: 173
    i dont wanna start an argument, i've got some PX wheels, and had no problems with em, I'm not at pro level of cycling by any means so may be different.
    PX are actually doing their 50mm tubs are £400 to.
    What do you reckon to Mavic Cosmic Carboe sl's???
    Is it the price of the PX wheels or the fact their fairings on a rim?
  • shadowone1shadowone1 Posts: 1,408
    Its a personal choice - I've ridden cheaper wheels - didn't like them as I had a set of FFWD to compare them against.

    However - for £400 then yes its a great way to get some aero benefit but I suspect you will quickly reach the limit of the wheel fairly quickly.

    Never seen the PX's but did see a pic of willieverfinish's before hand they do look like the old FFWD or Mavic but with a different hub. However - for me they are not a race wheel but a summer training wheels
  • fire trifire tri Posts: 173
    yes they are cheap, and i think depends what level of riding your at to how much you spend in a way, or how minted you are lol
    Point with the cosmic carbones is they're also metal rims with a carbon fairing glued on but cos you pay £750 quid people dont seem to mind
  • Just thought I would add a few points as the post seems active.

    I read a good post on slowtwitch from an industry insider who listed all the carbon wheelsets in the States which had the same rims and claiming they were all from two moulds one a previous zipp product. So who does have independent design and production, zipp, mavic, campag anyone else? In effect people buy the rims and build up to their own spec. In hitting a price point you have to balance costs and that includes hubs and wheel build costs into the product.

    The retailers will simply supply demand and if there is a demand for deep section carbon wheelsets they will provide it. In assessing product I see little in the way of comment on hubs for example which are really important, I question are people after a well balanced wheelset with costs spread evenly throughout the product or simply anything with carbon? It seems to me that culturally we have lost knowledge of what makes a wheel perform and feel good beyond simple inline aerodynamics.
  • shadowone1shadowone1 Posts: 1,408
    At the end of the day - if they look good and you want them, then buy them.

    Doesn't matter if they are cheap or expensive - if its what you want then who cares

    Its all about the look anyway - if you look fast, then you are fast!
  • If people want to buy a product that is their choice. If I have an issue it is that in the past for this sort of money you went to a wheel builder and explained what you wanted the wheel to do this would be reflected in rim choice. The builder would take into things such as rider weight to assess spoke counts and lacing patterns. A final consideration would then be on the quality of a compatible hub. The point is that some wheelsets are good at some things and others for something else and this can be matched to rider abilities and weight.

    We are now in a culture I believe of expensive product with very little information attatched to it in respect of what this product is good at and what it isn't good at. If technology has reached the point that we had super reliable wheelsets that are good in every scenario why so many options available to riders in the pro peleton? My view is that retailers and individuals assembling and then badging up these products are more than happy to have an ill informed consumer out there partly hooked on the concept of carbon being a panacea for all things bike. We have had this scenario in the past with titanium untill there was so much bad product out there the consumer became very wary of the material. It was not a problem with titanium as a material per see but with people trying to cash in on its initial reputation.
  • shadowone1shadowone1 Posts: 1,408
    If people want to buy a product that is their choice. If I have an issue it is that in the past for this sort of money you went to a wheel builder and explained what you wanted the wheel to do this would be reflected in rim choice. The builder would take into things such as rider weight to assess spoke counts and lacing patterns. A final consideration would then be on the quality of a compatible hub. The point is that some wheelsets are good at some things and others for something else and this can be matched to rider abilities and weight.

    We are now in a culture I believe of expensive product with very little information attatched to it in respect of what this product is good at and what it isn't good at. If technology has reached the point that we had super reliable wheelsets that are good in every scenario why so many options available to riders in the pro peleton? My view is that retailers and individuals assembling and then badging up these products are more than happy to have an ill informed consumer out there partly hooked on the concept of carbon being a panacea for all things bike. We have had this scenario in the past with titanium untill there was so much bad product out there the consumer became very wary of the material. It was not a problem with titanium as a material per see but with people trying to cash in on its initial reputation.
    Erm.... I was having a bit craic... LR.... :roll:
  • Shadow I know you was, I also appreciate you have quite a bit of experience with carbon rims.

    I am having to take a couple of days off trainning and am bored so thought I would try and raise a couple of points. I have nothing personally against Planet-X as a retailer but I am happy that there has been some realism in this post. All too often I find people come on and say a product is fantastic which it might be in comparison to what they had before, but this does not make it a fully informed viewpoint. I think this attitude is most prevelent with wheels. I can understand why bike manufacturers decide not to put decent wheelsets on many road and triathlon bikes. When people then upgrade such machines with anything approaching a semi serious wheelset they are going to see a marked difference often moving from something very average to something reasonable.

    My own viewpoint is that at the top end a product like a zipp firecrest will be I suspect a fantastic wheel at the right depth for the conditions. What i also believe is that around the £400 to £800 price range there must be some fantastic non carbon options which as an allround package will outperfom many carbon alternatives especially at shallower depths around the 50mm mark. When I first got into cycling many years ago wheels looked like wheels but riding a top end hand built wheelset built around a personal specification was lightyears away from a cheap factory unit. I think the same can be said of the carbon rim sector, they may look very similar but this does not mean their ride charecteristics are the same.
  • fire trifire tri Posts: 173
    good comments made here, good debate i reckon, nice to see views and opinions.
    like mentioned before I have the PX carbon tubs 82/101s as this was what my budget would stretch to at the time, I asked them would they be ok for me as at the time i was around 95kg they said yes for flat or gently undulating courses, therefore this is what i used them for.
    I wanted a set of smaller depth wheels for the days when it was windier so have been looking out for some 50mm's, all seemed very expensive, I like the look of the cosmic carbones, but when you read they are a metal rim with a carbon fairing. So they would probably be better for me at my weight for all round work as they woud work like a normal rim and the carbon part is not really taking any loading when going up hills and standing on the pedals.
    So when the PX 52mm's clinchers came out I was interested as having some of their other wheels i thought they were ok.
    As i'm not a pro and dont earn a fortune, I went for them, and just waiting on a new cassette from lbs i will be out testing them next week weather permitting!!!!
  • Personally I have some dura ace C24's on my road bike, and when I get a tri bike I think I might look at some C75's. Aluminium/carbon composites make a lot of sense to me as a top end rim. The carbon is allowing a very thin aluminium cross section to be reinforced with a weave at key points such as eyelets. I for one apreciate the security of aluminium when descending rural roads in the wet. I also think this is important when there has been a lot of agricultural muck on the road which gets picked up on brake blocks.

    I think we have to be realistic about the conditions we experience on a daily basis. We do not have the beautifull roads of the Alps to train on. I personally would have concerns with an 100% all carbon clincher at a lower price point if hitting a pot hole on a camber. I have no experience but I suspect a force which might simply dent an aluminium rim that could be carefully taken back out may lead to a structural failure in a carbon rim.

    I think there is also a big difference in the requirement of a wheelset for the average triathlon course and say a 25 mile road time trial which are by their nature in pretty flat courses. In a classic time trial scenario a big heavy disk wheel is no bad thing once you get up to speed acting like a nice flywheel the same is true of front wheels. Whilst the top end deeper section carbon wheels come in pretty light the price to pay at the lower price points is weight and is this extra rotational weight of a carbon rim worth any aerodymanic advantage against the lighter acceleration properties of an aluminuim rim for the same price point on anything like a technical 'British' triathlon course?
  • AvoneerAvoneer Posts: 174
    Hi,

    I've tried a few variants 50 front and back, 101 and 82, 101 and 50.

    I bought the 82 rear and 50 front and never looked back.

    Pat...
  • shadowone1shadowone1 Posts: 1,408
    You go with what you can afford, end of.

    As I've said before, if you want them then you buy them. However, I appreciate the PX have their place but I always suspect where the savings are made - if PX are indeed FFWD or Mavic's rims in disguise then the savings in the hubs. If not then the carbon or quality of the carbon is downgraded. Remember these all pretty much come out the same mould so its how the carbon is put together. More carbon less resin or more resin less carbon will affect the outcome of the price.

    I've had deep rims - not a branded name and while a wheel is a wheel, I felt it flex under power and the hubs were not comparable to my FFWD or my Reynolds.

    You will at some point get to the end of where the cheaper wheel reaches it potential and I suspect that if most had the option to feel a set of reynolds or Zipps on the road then you would be amazed at the difference, in how they feel, sound, etc

    But you go for what you can afford, none of us make a living out of this.
  • if PX are indeed FFWD or Mavic's rims in disguise then the savings in the hubs. If not then the carbon or quality of the carbon is downgraded.
    Or they just dont make huge profits on each wheelset and just make profit on quantity of sales.Better to sell 10,000 units at £500 than 1000 units at £1000.

    That or mavic are taking the piss and have a HUGE mark up on their wheelsets. FF wheels ( you've had em shaddow) the same.
  • shadowone1shadowone1 Posts: 1,408
    Or they just dont make huge profits on each wheelset and just make profit on quantity of sales.Better to sell 10,000 units at £500 than 1000 units at £1000.

    That or mavic are taking the piss and have a HUGE mark up on their wheelsets. FF wheels ( you've had em shaddow) the same.
    Thats a good point Ben.

    I would still love to own my FFWD for the Argon... they were top notch
  • There are questions to be asked, but I suspect finding answers is not that easy.

    The reality is a company such as Zipp has always been a market leader and as such they are in a pretty unique situation along with only a hanful of other concerns such as Mavic. What this position allows them to do is put money into resarch and development and bring out inovative product and as such charge a premium. To manufacture such product requires massive tooling costs. The likes of Zipp are then able to offset such tooling costs by selling on moulds etc part way through their production lifecycle. This is how Dawoo began car production using Vauxhall tooling.

    The point then is what grade carbon fibre, what resins, what standards of quality control are then at the core of subsequent products. The truth is the far eastern based producion facilities can play about with these ingredients to create a variety of products out of the same moulds and sell product on. This is the same for frames as much as it is for rims and other components. Some of this product is the same but badged differently. Some of it it similar but with different hub/spoke configerations. What is similar is that this section of the market is not as transparent about what you are buying as the top end the best you might get is a weight for an overall wheelset.

    My personal opinion is that this is not a lot of information for something costing a few hundred quid, but then again I might be unique in wanting to compare technical data between a number of products.
  • Fire tri
    I await your Planet X 52mm clincher test with great interest. Cannot find a single independent review anywhere! I was dithering about an order desperate for your review BUT mine are actually on route now. Any news on the first test run????

    Have I done the right thing? Do they feel 'fast' and are they affected by crosswinds?
  • fire trifire tri Posts: 173
    well, i've got em with pro race 3's on, they feel very smooth, but they are brand new so they should, free wheel has the loud clicking noise which is ok.
    They look good
    they break well even when coming downhill at speed.
    only done a couple of rides with em upto now, and both times it was blowing a gale! they do feel the wind more than some 30mms i have, but very controllable still, went out on sunday and didnt get blown about anymore than the others on standard rims.
    Hopefully this sunday will be a dry calm day and can try em on the tt bike maybe!!! (but if its that calm i might use the 82/101's)

    Dont forget ur valve extenders lol
  • Thanks f t. Will be here today. Can't wait!
  • fire trifire tri Posts: 173
    cool,
    let me know what you think of them to
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