Monday, May 25, 2009

Never True

My DuraAce WH-7850-CL wheels are really light and have smooth bearings, but the front wheel gets knocked out of true easily. I think I could hit it on the side with a Q-tip and make it wobble. It's likely that it was rubbing the brakes at Westlake last week. No wonder I wore out so quickly and felt so bad the next day! I think I rode a couple of laps with the front brake on!

The rear wheel is very stable. There just aren't enough spokes in that front wheel for our rough Northeast Ohio roads and my heavy body. I'll keep riding with it at Leroy and on training rides until I get more confidence in its ability to survive before I race with it.

I'll swap it out for one of the slightly heavier bladed spoke wheels in my stable for tackling the concrete at Westlake. The DA wheel is 1 kg with skewer, tube, and tire. The old wheel is another Shimano wheel with straight pull spokes and weighs in at 1.13 kg, only a quarter pound heavier 0.1% of the total bike+rider weight, but can take a lot more abuse. In fact, I ride a set of those on my cyclocross bike.

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