Should you buy carbon fibre wheels? What are they best for?

With the near universal acceptance of disc brakes and a change in thinking on tyre width with a dash of tubeless, wheel rim design for road bikes is evolving.

Carbon wheels are much easier to design and manufacture as disc so the price difference has come down a lot.

Weight in a wheel does make a significant difference to climbing, even for a relatively slow rider where aero is less of a consideration.

We recently had a demonstration of the strength of a carbon wheel. A friend was at a junction, and a taxi had misjudged his emergence. He decide to reverse back, and didn't here mateycs shouts and reversed onto his front wheel. The taxi trapped the wheel and the number wrapped round the wheel. The wheel suffered no damage (straight on hit), the taxi's rear bumper was destroyed.

Anyway, having tried an adequate ALU rim and carbon rim on same bike with same tyre where the alu rim was similar price point of around £600 (as a branded bike replacement) the difference was readily detectable.

My bitter experience with carbon fibre Fulcrums, descending at high speed in the Alps with rim brakes, I burnt through the side wall of my rear tyre at over 70 kph. A few weeks later the front one delaminated on another descent. I threw them in the bin and bought some Easton rim break alu aero wheels. My good experience, I have Campag Bora discs on a new bike and love them. Carbon good for discs. Rubbish for rims. As an aside I have Dura-Ace 9200 rim brakes on those (alu rim) Eastons, they are pretty dam good.

A generic & correct answer to any "Should you buy this expensive piece of cycling equipment?" question is "If you have to ask, then you should not buy it (unless you are super rich and want to impress your cycling buddies)". When you became good enough to need it and spot the difference, you will know.

This is a pretty ancient article that is really out of date. Disc brakes are now here and are the perfect match for carbon rims. Some manufacturers are only supplying disc brakes road bikes now. No questionable braking in the wet, or cooking them in the dry as the last poster has shown us can still be an issue. Rim can be slightly lighter if no brake track is required and they can be wider and run wider tyres as they will not be limited by a caliper brake. Most of your downsides with that combination are negated. As for weight, unless you are going straight uphill out of your door and doing constant hills for the whole ride, then weight has been shown to come second to aero. And deeper section aero rims are certainly more aero than any box section alloy rim. When I swapped to them, on average my rides were 1mph faster for similar effort. The aero benefit is huge, no matter what the claims of the manufacturer. Why do TT bikes have a deep section front and a disc rear? Pretty obvious really.

In my experience, handbuilt wheels with carbon rims, bullet proof hubs like Hope and strong spokes, with a sensible spoke count (28 rather than 20 or less) have absolutely transformed my bikes for well under £1000 a pair. They are bombproof, serviceable, aero, and in the case of my 50mm deep set, certainly not heavy feeling when climbing. And you can discuss with a wheelbuilder what you want exactly - I was fed up of stock wheels with 20/24 spoke counts flexing when climbing, so wanted really strong wheels. My builder made suggestions and we worked together to get exactly what I wanted rather than guess and buy stock wheels with great reviews in cycling mags (because they get paid by the company for advertising!) And the added benefit of a trusted wheelbuilder? They tend to look after you - I get free collection and delivery when I ask my builder to give them a tweak (true and retension) and as I've had a number of sets built by him he doesn't even charge me for the tweaking. Now that's service, hence why I go back again and again and pass his details to all my mates.

I've hit a fair few potholes and never have any of the rims suffered damage. And an aluminium rim would normally splay rather than just go out of true hitting a pothole, so it would be toast if that happened, no different to a carbon rim if it cracked. I've suffered that fate in the past with aluminium rims. Another aspect regarding durability is that carbon rims don't corrode. Every aluminium rim I've ever ridden in winter has corroded, especially around spoke holes etc. No such issue with carbon. And there is no weld or sleeve joint to fail either.

As for instability in strong winds, well if you ride in windy conditions and you are really lightweight, buy lower profile rims! It's a non argument really, it would be the same issue with a deep section aluminium rim, but of course they don't make those because of the weight! I have 50mm rims and don't feel this is an issue, but I'm not 65kg. I have deeper section rims on my aero bike, but I wouldn't ride them on really windy days, up in the hills, I'd swap wheels or just jump on the other bike.

Well, that's my take anyhow.

PP

I am an owner of S-works Tarmac SL6 with Roval CLX50 wheels. One wheel got damaged during a steep descent after cumulative 3k km in 6 months of usage and I weigh around 65kg. It was a dangerous situation too, because I lost breaking power. Specialized took 2,5 months to respond to my guarantee claim and then rejected it with no clear explanation, but explicitly saying that the reason for the damage is not known. Do not believe their warranty or guarantee and mostly not what Specialized/Roval spokesmen wrote in response to Alto test saying that 'they’re able to handle a wide variety of real-world scenarios one might encounter'. My case is a proof that it is just the opposite. To top all that European Consumer Centres (ECC) warned Specialized authorized dealer to respect my lawful consumer right and they responded with a lawyer who threatened me and ECC to pay for his intervention to represent them, which was of course unjustified and nobody paid anything. They leave no other option but a lawsuit, which most people cannot afford.

Here is a photo of breaking surface of CLX50.

I only buy the £249 60mm carbon wheels off ebay. Work just as well, throw away when they break after smashing a pothole- you will hit a pothole!

Alternatively, choose wheels like HED or some Mavics with traditional alloy outer rim with a lightweight carbon fairing,

Spokes go all the way to the edge for rigidity

Alloy braking surface is the same as traditional wheels

Carbon fairing gives the aerodynamic performance.

Oh and they're cheaper too

Carbon fibre is easily formed into smooth, organic shapes, and as the article states, carbon fibre, being light, can be used to create the deep sections required for aerodynamicicicity with a reasonable weight penalty.

ok, all good, but how the hell a material can improove aerodynamics?? it is the airfoil shape that induces aerodynamic drag and lift and not the material. Mr Arthur, do you have any idea what are you talking about??

Like carbon frames, an extremely important point is always overlooked - end of life.

Carbon frames and rims are not recyclable like steel frames and aluminium rims.

If you are in any way environmentally conscious (and you probably are a little bit, given the cycling you do instead of driving everywhere, e.g. reduced carbon emissions) then it's quite difficult to justify carbon.

I've had a carbon bike and realised when it cracked after 4 years that it was destined for landfill. No recycling options existed (Australia). Trek does have limited recycling options in USA, but it's not very common and the resultant product is not as strong/useful.

I've reverted back to high-end steel frames and alloy rims. I ride Dura-Ace and all up my bikes are under 9kg.

6.8kg UCI weight is not important enough to me to justify the pollution & waste products of riding carbon. I just make sure I'm 2 kilograms lighter than the next bloke on the climb, it negates the weight-weenie-difference!

By the way, if anyone wants to buy a new set of those Reynolds in the picture (Strikes 62mm) give me a shout. They're the new version, tubeless ready. Came with a bike but want to sell on.

In my opinion, disc brakes are probably the best thing to have happened as far as carbon fibre wheels are concerned. Braking has always been their achilles heel. You had to compromise by incorporating a special braking surface, be it an aluminium rim or a textured / treated surface and / or require special brake block compounds. I well remember the terror of descending English Bicknor Hill in the wet on a set of HED trispokes; no noticeable retardation of progress, brake blocks visibly disintegrating before my eyes, all accompanied by the soul sickening, wallet wrenching noise of road grit turning to grinding paste against my beautiful carbon rims, at least the water may have helped with heat dissipation!

By moving to a disc setup it is generally accepted that you get better braking, period. By removing the need to have a braking surface at the rim with all the associated drawbacks, it can be redesigned to focus on the requirements of aerodynamic shape, stiffness and light weight. All attributes that carbon fibre is exceptionally good at fulfilling. Opt for the tubular tyre route and the weight savings are even more impressive as the rim no longer needs to be designed to hold a tyre bead in place.

Still expensive, but getting cheaper and will become more affordable as they become more mainstream. 2016 could be the start of a golden age for carbon wheels with scope for innovation and an enabling technology (disc brakes) that will expand the market considerably.

Having said all the above, I'll freely admit that my number 1 personal reason for buying some aero carbon rims is because they look fecking awesome on my bike.

It seems that top end carbon wheels are great, but the lower/mid end seem to be carbon for the sake of it. The weights don't seem to be any lower than a decent alloy wheel, but a lot more expensive. 

I've bought two wheelsets this year, some aero swisside wheels and a winter hunt wheelset. Both sets seems to be pretty light in comparison to much more expensive carbon, and a hell of a lot cheaper. Very happy with both.

If money was no object, i'd probably be riding Enve though...