Jed Peters said:
What would your choice be? This is for road races and crits. For a 125 lbs. sprinter chick. Should be relatively stiff.
She's riding Neutrons as race wheels now, Cosmos as training wheels.
These would be a race-only wheelset. Must be Campy compatible.
For anything but the steepest climbing races, a deep profile rim like the Zipp 404's on any quality hub will
be the best choice. Aero trumps drag in almost any situation except very steep climbs. The 200 grams she
would save with GEL 280's vs. Zipp 404's is a difference of only about 0.3% of the total weight of
bike + rider (which is all that matters for climbing and accelerating) but will lower total drag by 2-3%.
A very steep climb is one in which all that matters is overcoming gravity. You can determine when someone
has reached this grade by looking at verticle climbing rate (speedxsin(road angle)) in feet/minute as a function
of road grade. If you plot vertical climbing rate as a function of road grade, you'll find the rate increases until
a critical grade, above which the rate is constant. Above that grade, all the power is going into overcoming
gravity; that is the definition of very steep for that rider.