[ridewt]

I will race the Green Mountain Stage Race time trial this Friday. It is about a 3 mile uphill and then 3 miles of rolling terrain up on top of a plateau. The question is what wheels are best suited for this.

The climbing is not super steep but it is small ring climbing, at least for me. The plateau riding is quite fast and definitely big ring and sometimes crazy fast spin out the 11 fast, at least in a few sections that are slightly downhill.

So, I could ride just Zipp 404s but in the past I've raced with a disc and a 1080 on the front. Obviously, there is a bit of a weight penalty going up but on the fast flattish stuff the faster wheels would really roll.

So, what do you think?

 

[simplyhankk]

zipp 404's got my vote. More versatility and less weight penalty.

 

[spade2you]

If you had more time, I'd probably say to test them both and see what gets the best results. However, off the cuff I'd suggest 404s.

 

[wim]

In my estimation, you're going to spend around 18 minutes on the uphill and around 7 minutes on the plateau. So with the slow climbing portion being about 2-1/2 times as long as the plateau section in terms of time, my suggestion would be to reduce weight at all costs.

 

[Hank Stamper]

You know time trial bikes and bars aren't allowed, right?

I know you just asked about wheels but figured I'd mention it anyway just incase.

I really don't know. I did see lots of guys with disc wheels though. My guess is they were either a. wannabe's making a bad choice for wheels or b. strong enough to big ring it up at high speeds.

The risk/reward wouldn't make any sense to me. I'm not speaking scientifically but the best potential up side is a couple seconds and the potential down side is getting bogged down on the incline for a lot longer than that.

 

[spade2you]

Not all will specifically prohibit things like a TT bike, full disc, etc. However, if it's mostly up hill, TT bikes start to develop a disadvantage in climbing.