I built up my Reynolds Assault carbon clinchers with Continental 4000s and an Ultegra cassette. The front wheel with tire, tube and skewer weighs in at 1040 grams. The rear wheel is 1490 grams. (versus 980 g and 1390 g for my WH7850 wheels or 160 grams more total) It's pretty amazing that the tires, tubes, and cassette add 1000 grams.
Since this is my first set of deep section carbon wheels, I spent some time thinking up a clear cut test to see if there is any performance gain over traditional wheels. I figure a good and simple test will be to roll down a hill from a dead stop through a valley and coast to a stop on the opposite hill and see which wheel set rolls farther. But I'll have to wait for a calm day.
I got out for my first ride with the wheels today. I was sort of hoping for a sonic boom to happen as the wheels magically cut through the air, but of course that didn't happen. In fact, the wheels felt like every other set of wheels I've ridden. I expected the wheels to get knocked around in the 12 mph winds, but I hardly noticed that. I only noticed that the different weight distribution felt weird on the first couple of downhills I did.
Hopefully I'll get a chance to get some real performance comparisons with my other wheels sometime in the next couple of weeks.
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