Price Paid:
$700.00
at used Favorite Ride:
The Beach Bike Setup:
Aluminium frames, 10sp Dura-Ace, DT 1.2 rims. Summary:
These wheels are flexy, weak junk for anyone over about 75kg who ever gets off the saddle to stomp! I hate them and have given them away.
This is for the 2006 model with 24 and 20 black DT Aero spokes in a 2-cross pattern, and black hubs.
I had a similarly bad experience to Flyin Z: my rims are uneven over the side surfaces, with waves or large ‘bubbles’ in the carbon!! The rear is worse than the front. What’s up with that?! And they haven’t been ridden that much. Although this is very disappointing, I can handle such imperfections, but what I really hate is the flex, and these wheels are too flexy for what I like. I’m 85kg and a bit of a grinder. When I squeeze two spokes together with my hand, the rims start to fold over like a taco! I couldn’t believe it. And when I wobble the rims from side to side by hand, the rims easily hit the brake pads. The spoke tension is fine. Maybe I got some duds; I dunno.
They also sometimes make unnerving creaking and crackly sounds, and I feel like I’m gunna bust them every time I stomp off the saddle. The carbon is starting to raise slightly around the spoke holes, but I don’t know if this is normal.
They have cheap, generic Joytech hub internals, which is one reason I think they’re too pricey, although they run pretty smooth. I bent the rear axle (God, I hate alu axles!!) just enough to make the hub run rough, but found another Joytech one in another cheap hub.
I spoke to a guy at a race a while ago who said he busted one of his rims (he is about 75kg), so that was the last time I rode them. I’ve basically given them to a lighter friend of mine. I can’t really sell them because I feel the waves in the carbon makes them unsellable. I went back to racing my ‘real’ wheels, which are 32-spoke DT 1.2s with steel/real axles. :-)
I got them for a good price ($700, used, is a good price for Australia), so they were hard to resist, especially since they were my first carbon wheels -- I was a little dazzled because I’d never had any before. I had one test ride, but not enough to really feel them, but I still should’ve known; although, as I said, I was a little blinded by the thought of finally getting some aero wheels. :-)
Maybe the newer ones are different, I dunno. They have fewer spokes, but they are the broader Sapims and the front is laced radially. Maybe the new rims have improved. The new hub shells are a different colour (silver), so maybe they’re different. At least the new stickers look better. :-)
On the positive side, these wheels should, by all accounts, be aero, because they have all the ‘right’ stuff: 60mm-deep, toroidal-shaped rims and aero spokes, however, I never noticed any ‘speed’ difference.
Unlike Flyin Z, mine stayed pretty true, even with all the flexing :-)
In my opinion, the weight is ok (about 1840g – I weighed them).
These wheels are probably more than fine for time trials, especially for lighter guys, where they’d be ridden at a constant speed with no sprinting or mashing. I’d probably use the front for a time trial if I ever did one.
These wheels retail in shops for about $2,000 in Australia, which I think is way too much, but good deals can be found on the net, which I suppose makes them reasonable value for someone wanting to do time trials.
This experience has really put me off carbon rims, but I’ve since bought some cheap Token C50A clinchers, which are MUCH stiffer and not ‘creaky’. :-)
Strengths:
Aero. Smooth hubs. Look good. Ok for time trials. Light enough. Weaknesses:
Flexy and flimsy for bigger guys.
They have very bad imperfections (waves) in the carbon surfaces. Similar Products Used:
Token C50As.
FIR Antaras. 
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