Carbon clinchers

[AshleyN]

carbon clinchers – any recommendations ?
have looked at reviews of a few from Mavic, Enve, Reynolds and Fast forward but would be interested to hear views from anyone whose ridden them or others

[Andrew G]

Personally I wouldn't touch them. Get a puncture and the rim hits the road and you have a carbon edge hitting the road. For me carbon rims are race wheels and therefore I use tubs. Puncture and the tub will flatten and protect the rim which also doesn't have the edge.

Also not a fan of aluminium rims on carbon wheels as although this solves the above you are adding weight to the edge of the rim and creating an unnecessary bonding on the rim.

For race wheels I'd go carbon tubs and good training wheels or clincher race wheels I'd go for a good quality aluminium semi aero wheel.

[mrP(Boonen)VT]

This was a tricky issue for me as I use Boras (tubs) as my race wheels, but when I ride out to evening races I didn't want to be riding out on tubs, and I disliked the hassle of changing brake blocks.

Having looked around at carbon rims (not the aluminium versions that are just heavier versions of normal wheels) I settled on a pair of Campy Hyperons, and they have been superb in every way - super light really strong, responsive and handle really well.

[Phil H]

Paul, you need to go [url=http://www.classiclightweights.co.uk/components/sprint-wheel-carriers.html]old school[/url].

[mrP(Boonen)VT]

Phil
I still have a pair of those, and what is more, used to use them

[Marek]

Waste of money on our crappy roads in my opinion, if you smack a hole and damage spoke/rim you are quite likely to need a new rim. In my mates experience with a very expensive reynolds wheel that was a £700 bill. He decided to just chuck the wheel and get some alloy rims instead.

[mrP(Boonen)VT]

Each to their own Marek - I probably get away with them as I don't weigh much

But I have found the Hyperons to be extremely well engineered and pretty much bullet proof.

[DavidKennett]

+1 for Hyperons, excellent wheelset

[AshleyN]

Thanks for the feedback.
In the end I got some mavic c40 clinchers, wanted something for all ocasions. very impressed so far. used them for a few races, dry training rides and the club 10's. seem solid and fast and braking is no different to my mavic alu rims though not ridden in wet or down a mountain yet

[Wal]

After doing a lot of homework I bought some 50mm deep carbon clincher rims direct from China and hubs from Taiwan and got Dauphin to build them up using CX Ray spokes. They came in at 1500g for the pair. I use Swisstop Black Prince pads, which are supposed to run cooler than others and thus minimise the risk of bead failure due to overheating. That said, I won't be taking these to the Alps! But I decided that for riding in the Southeast the risk of heat-related failure was acceptably low and if I damage a rim following a puncture, a replacement isn't going to break the bank.

500 miles on them so far and they are true, smooth rolling and showing no signs of brake track wear. They look awesome, too .

[mrP(Boonen)VT]

I've heard mixed results from those rims coming out of China....some good, some not so - sounds like you chose well.
Steve Cave has some and cannot stop the brakes squealing

[Wal]

I've heard Steve's wheels under braking - from about half a mile away!