The other day, a customer (supposedly) was saying
「When I go riding with the workplace cycling team (while others are on road bikes)
I intentionally take my cyclocross bike instead because it suits my pace better」
—spouting such arrogant nonsense that he wanted heavy wheels, so
I built them.
The question of whether heavy wheels actually make for good training—in my opinion, except in very limited situations, they really don't.
Going out to practice with multiple people, racing hard on climbs and sprints,
pushing yourself to full power in ways you'd never muster alone,
barely tapping that ceiling of your potential just a little—
that's what I think is the best training.
But if you're climbing with heavy wheels and get dropped by your usual training partners, then end up just cruising around looking at the ground,
that's no different from practicing alone.
There's also the opinion that you should train on race-spec equipment or something close to it.
A different customer than the one for these wheels told me something like—
for example, if you practice tennis with an extremely heavy racket and then switch to a light one for the actual match, wouldn't that just throw off your game?
He had a point like that.
Plus, if you can normally return a ball but can't catch up with or return it because the racket is extremely heavy,
then the training itself breaks down.
Those limited situations I mentioned where heavy wheels are actually effective—
that's when you go practice alone and have someone act as a hill to climb against.
Even then, with extremely heavy wheels,
the feel of the bike's responsiveness and the behavior of corners and braking change,
so that's something to watch out for.
Front wheel is HB-5800 32H
full strong 6-cross lacing with brass nipples,
rear wheel is FH-5800 32H
full strong 4-cross lacing with brass nipples and no blading.
If I focused purely on weight and went with heavier specs, it's possible,
but factoring in rims from manufacturers with relatively decent precision, decent braking performance,
rim width that fits road bikes, and 11-speed compatible freebody,
this is where we landed as a compromise.
A compromise though it may be, whether this actually became "extremely heavy" training equipment or not...
↑front wheel (just to be clear).
↑rear wheel.
True to the RR585 name, the stated weight is 585g.
That's fine, but the rim inner diameter (ERD) of 582mm is
completely false so watch out.
Like I've written before, if you trust the
Effective Rim Diameter on DT rims, you'll be in for a world of hurt.
Since this is diameter, converting to radius gives 291mm,
but the figure I used this time was 289.5mm.
If you calculate spoke length based on 291mm,
the wheel can technically be built, but the spokes will stick out past the nipple end face.
This customer (supposedly) with these wheels
is the guy who breaks sub-1 hour on Norikura with lightweight wheels,
so I built them with the concept of being「the wheel that absolutely prevents a sub-1 hour Norikura time.」
「When I go riding with the workplace cycling team (while others are on road bikes)
I intentionally take my cyclocross bike instead because it suits my pace better」
—spouting such arrogant nonsense that he wanted heavy wheels, so
I built them.
The question of whether heavy wheels actually make for good training—in my opinion, except in very limited situations, they really don't.
Going out to practice with multiple people, racing hard on climbs and sprints,
pushing yourself to full power in ways you'd never muster alone,
barely tapping that ceiling of your potential just a little—
that's what I think is the best training.
But if you're climbing with heavy wheels and get dropped by your usual training partners, then end up just cruising around looking at the ground,
that's no different from practicing alone.
There's also the opinion that you should train on race-spec equipment or something close to it.
A different customer than the one for these wheels told me something like—
for example, if you practice tennis with an extremely heavy racket and then switch to a light one for the actual match, wouldn't that just throw off your game?
He had a point like that.
Plus, if you can normally return a ball but can't catch up with or return it because the racket is extremely heavy,
then the training itself breaks down.
Those limited situations I mentioned where heavy wheels are actually effective—
that's when you go practice alone and have someone act as a hill to climb against.
Even then, with extremely heavy wheels,
the feel of the bike's responsiveness and the behavior of corners and braking change,
so that's something to watch out for.
Front wheel is HB-5800 32H
full strong 6-cross lacing with brass nipples,
rear wheel is FH-5800 32H
full strong 4-cross lacing with brass nipples and no blading.
If I focused purely on weight and went with heavier specs, it's possible,
but factoring in rims from manufacturers with relatively decent precision, decent braking performance,
rim width that fits road bikes, and 11-speed compatible freebody,
this is where we landed as a compromise.
A compromise though it may be, whether this actually became "extremely heavy" training equipment or not...
↑front wheel (just to be clear).
↑rear wheel.
True to the RR585 name, the stated weight is 585g.
That's fine, but the rim inner diameter (ERD) of 582mm is
completely false so watch out.
Like I've written before, if you trust the
Effective Rim Diameter on DT rims, you'll be in for a world of hurt.
Since this is diameter, converting to radius gives 291mm,
but the figure I used this time was 289.5mm.
If you calculate spoke length based on 291mm,
the wheel can technically be built, but the spokes will stick out past the nipple end face.
This customer (supposedly) with these wheels
is the guy who breaks sub-1 hour on Norikura with lightweight wheels,
so I built them with the concept of being「the wheel that absolutely prevents a sub-1 hour Norikura time.」