Just back from my first ride and here are some thoughts...
The combination of the latex tubes and the Vittoria Open Corsa CX's sure do feel good. I had been trying out the latex tubes on another set of wheels with some Rubino Pro's and those were real nice. With the Corsa's the feel is pretty darn close to tubular in my opinion.
The sound of the wheels while rolling are a bit mutted from the tubular Zipps. But they sound fast which counts for nothing, but it does make you at least feel fast.
On my 6.8 mile climb (avg grade around 6.5%) the depth of these wheels didn't affect my climbing. I was 4 seconds from my own PR on the climb and didn't realize this until I got home and checked the data. I usually climb in the saddle and only get out of the saddle when I need a little extra blood flow to the numb parts. The front wheel is stiffer than my old 404 front and it responds better when I'm standing.
On the descent back down there's a section I coast through and use as a speed trap to capture my top speed. My best previously was 44.9mph; today I hit 47.7. Not sure if this is due to the lower CRR of the latex tubes w/ the Corsa's or the ceramic bearings in the wheels, but it's probably a combination of both that helped. This is nice as descending is one of my strengths since most pure climbers will beat me to the top of a hill during races, but my 200 pounds can usually catch them on a descent.
On the way home I put in some 1400+ watt sprint efforts to feel out the rear wheel. It felt stiffer than the old Zipp 808. Sure, feel is subjective, but I felt the difference. One other thing to note with the rear hub is that on previous wheels I've always used the PT SL hub with the alloy axle. This time I went with the PT Pro since the steel axle is stiffer (albeit with a weight penalty).
As for the brakes I slipped on a set of SwissStop yellow pads. Both the Nimble's and the Zipp's were very squealy/squeaky when stopping. I expected to hear the same thing from the Edge's, but they were silent. Not bad, just unexpected.
Overall I'm really pleased as I feel the aero properties of the deeper wheel will suit my racing strengths and not be too much of an impact to climbing. I also think the wheel might get a tad faster as the bearings break in and get more miles (this happened to my other set of ceramic bearings too in the past).
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2 comments:
The question is, how will they handle at Zamora/Bariani? Will you be riding lower profile rims at windy venues?
Good question...
I hadn't planned to ride anything with a lower profile at some of the wind-blown venues as my weight usually keeps me stuck on the ground pretty well.
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