Jim’s Tech Talk
by Jim Langley
Some of the feedback on last week’s look at a budget, super light carbon clincher wheelset from the new Chinese company, ICAN Cycling surprised me. So, this week I’m sharing the unexpected comments and responding to provide some thoughts.
To go back and read all the details about ICAN’s feathery hoops (there’s also an unboxing video I took), follow this link: Unboxing ICAN Cycling’s Aero 40 Chinese Carbon Road Wheelset.
Shortly after the RBR newsletter reached inboxes, two roadies asked versions of the same question.
First was Phil Lehmberg who wrote, “There lots of riders out there who weigh in at 240+ and need an article on the lightest weight wheels that can safely accommodate their dreams of climbing.”
Then, soon after, Jon Ingersoll penned, “I weigh 260 lbs, and was pretty excited about these wheels until the statement came on, “Maximum rider weight is 220 lbs.” Do they make wheels for clydesdales like me?”
You Can Chat With ICAN To Learn More About Their Products
To start with Jon’s question, ICAN Cycling has a chat feature on their site. You should use it to ask whether they offer wheelsets for 260 pound riders. The highest rating I found was 231 pounds.
Yet, it’s possible they offer others wheels or might at some point. Especially if they receive the request enough times.
Types Of Riders
Speaking as a mechanic and wheelbuilder, it’s not just how much you weigh. Equally important when choosing wheels is knowing what kind of rider you are. Some roadies – even bigger more powerful ones have zero wheel issues. While others – and not only big riders, are hard on them, breaking spokes and damaging rims regularly.
Wheel woes can come from many things, such as not paying sufficient attention to where you’re riding (this can be related to poor eyesight, too). Striking rather than avoiding rocks, ruts, grates or even worse, wrecks wheels fast. Riders who spot obstacles early and avoid them or when that’s not possible, rise out the saddle and bend their legs and elbows to ensure they baby the wheels over the rough stuff have far fewer problems.
Riding Technique
How one rides matters, too. If you do lots of explosive efforts, such as town line sprints against your friends or accelerations out of corners or up hills, you ask a lot extra of the wheels. Another classic example, you’ve probably been behind riders on climbs who while standing throw their bike so far from side to side that they put massive lateral loads on the wheels – one of the hardest things for rims to withstand.
I’ve ridden with hotshots who can wheelie for miles and bunnyhop tall curbs with ease. Obviously, stunt riding like this takes a toll on even the best wheels.
Any roadie can figure out if they’re easy or hard on wheels by looking back at the rim, hub and spoke issues they’ve had over years of riding. Ideally it would be with several different sets of wheels to rule out one bad set that was causing the problems.
Wheel Features To Look For
When you’ve honestly evaluated yourself you are more likely to be able to choose wheels that’ll work. Among the most important features of any wheelset for a roadie who is hard on hoops is having enough spokes and stout enough rims.
My preference is to stick with 32 double-butted spokes (14/16 gauge) front and rear with 3- or 2-cross lacing. Since they first appeared, I have been a huge DT Swiss spoke fan. The reason I say to stick with 32 spokes is because in my own riding (when I was strongest, I weighed about 170 pounds), I wouldn’t break spokes so long as I had 32. Any fewer and spokes would fail eventually.
For rims, they need to be strong enough radially and laterally to stay true and round no matter how rough the going gets. Aero profile rims are a good choice. The triangular cross section resists both types of loads. The taller they get the stiffer radially they become and more you may experience handling difficulties when it’s windy – though bigger riders stay planted on the road better than lighter folks.
Because more spokes and beefier rims are used in the wheels, they’re not going to be super light. But, they can be a reasonable weight with careful choice of rims and spokes. If you’re not subjecting the wheels to lots of rainy rides or corrosive conditions (such as oceanside riding), you can use aluminum nipples to save a little weight where it counts most right at the rim.
Shopping For Wheels
I recommend going with established wheel companies that you can reach out to and discuss your needs. That way you can talk about any wheel issues you’ve had over the years, the types and brands of wheels you’ve used and go over your ideal new wheels’ wishlist to ensure getting what you really want.
I think of bigger, more powerful riders as having special needs when it comes to wheels. So I would point you toward wheel makers that offer both production and custom wheel models.
Production models will be more affordable and there might be one designed for high performance, at a competitive weight and robust enough for clydesdales. If not, you’ll want to go with the custom option. It’ll cost more, but not if you consider what wheel issues cost with models that break spokes and come out of true a lot. There’s also a lot to be said for a set of wheels that just keeps going and going trouble-free.
Check Our Reviews
We’ve reviewed quite a few wheels at RBR. Use our recently improved search function to find and read up on different companies to learn what they offer, such as Boyd Cycling. Also, earlier this year I met Charles Wells of Jet Bicycle Wheels. Charles is a renowned wheelsmith in the San Diego area. Having watched him build a wheel and listened to him explain every step he takes to produce top-quality wings for your ride, I’m sure he could roll an excellent pair for clydesdales. https://www.roadbikerider.com/?s=Jet+wheels
Can You Help Phil and Jon?
To add value to this article and help Phil and Jon, it would be great if you’re a 220+ pounder who has found a great wheelset if you could leave a comment below and tell everyone about it. Thanks!
Ride total: 9,289
I used to race Clydesdale class when I still rode MTB. 220lbs is hard on wheels when MTB racing. My experience was hand built wheels by an experienced builder. I always used quality proven components like DT hubs and spokes along with good Mavic double walled rims. A bit heavier, but being built like a football lineman you have the power to haul them without worry. My braking surfaces would wear out before any broken spokes or rims. And I whole heartily believe that as a big fella you must use finesse, I call it “body english”, to avoid slamming rocks, roots and tight turns. Before I used handmade wheels I folded a wheel while whipping fast around a tight turn, rear wheel hit a root then my large size and inertia and gravity did the rest. As far as road wheels go I’ve never had a problem. Before the Mavic carbon pro wheels I have now I had at set of Specialized Roval CLX40. I thought for sure as light as they are they’d break before too long, but I was pleasantly surprised I never had a single problem, not even had to true them in the three years I had them. It took them being accidentally being run over by a truck before they finally succumbed. Only the rim is split, the rest of the wheel is fine, very impressive. So if I had to recommend a set, I’m gonna have to go with Roval CLX. Hope this helps.
I weigh 265 lbs, and by far the best set of wheels i have ever had were mavic cxp 30’s laced to 32 hole dura ace hubs. however that was 22 years ago! they are still just as true as the day i received them, and a shout-out should go to colorado cyclist who performed some type of magic on them! since then, i have torn pieces of hub flanges off and shot spokes like a bow and arrow.(yep, hard to believe)! the best luck i have had since then is with campy ventos or zondas which will get me at least a couple thosuand miles before the front wheel bearings will eventually one day start screaming like a baby rabbit in the throes of death! it’s always the front wheel for some reason. i’m very careful, avoid potholes, rocks and the like as much as possible, but the law says it’s going to happen!! I think the best bet is to find some velocity deep v’s or mavic cxp 33’s and have em laced tight as hell with some really good hubs, e.g. kings, dt, white ind., d.a. etc. the next time i win the lottery i guess that’s on the bucket list! i’ve got a whole collection of nice rear wheels if anybody is interested, haha! I guess the moral of the story is 265lb super clydesdale + light wheels = oxymoron!
Hello, I’m 240 ibs and interested in the fact you have some rear wheels . Do you actually mean you have some for sale ?
My current back wheel is only 24 spoke and flex’s so much so it rubs against the back brakes when I put power through standing out the saddle on a steep climb . I’m back in London
27 inch back wheel?
Check out Velocity wheels – they have a few in that lineup for both road and MTB. I weigh 220 and ride the Velocity Fusion myself. And don’t forget the Sun Ringle Rhyno Lite. You can use one of those for a shield if you happened to be attacked by roving Spartan warriors.
haha, almost had that happen!!!!
I started riding at 270lbs, now 235. Gravel rides, paved rides. Using stock wheelset that came on my 2017 giant anyroad comax. Running 700×32 in the rear, and 700×28 in front. GP5000’s. Never came out of true and have a bit over 3,000 miles on them.
Hand built wheels by an experienced wheel builder are the way to go. I have done that for many years and it’s the best value over the life of the wheel. They can build it for your needs and in most cases will true and make other corrections at no charge
well said!
When I worked at a bike shop, I built up a set of Mavic CXP 30 rims (32 spoke) with Chorus hubs, under the tutelage of the shop owner. This was in 1998. All I’ve done to those wheels since is swap and repack the bearings. I don’t have another set of wheels. These are my all purpose wheels. When I raced, when I go out to CO and go up and down mountains…These are it for 20 years. I was around 175lbs when I first built them and now hang out in the 215lbs range. These wheels are bullet proof, bomb proof, nuclear blast proof…I’m sure I can get lighter, fancier but, I would happily build up another set of these to last me the rest of my riding days.
same here other than da hubs and just about the same year too! seems i have more of a problem with the front bearings than anything else but these are as you said, true as the day i got them and bombproof. i wonder if cxp 33’s are just as rugged although getting harder to find.
270#, strong, lots of hills and hard cornering. Very happy with Rolf Prima Vigor RS wheelset 0n high-end road bike. Great hubs as well. Scares the heck out of other riders when they see me on these low-spoke-count wheels (14F/16R), but they are quite up to the task. By contrast, I had pretty quickly destroyed two sets of supposedly robust Mavic Ksyrium Pros (replaced under warranty, thank goodness) before my LBS talked me into the Rolfs. On another bike (single speed) I have more traditional custom wheels with 36/32 spokes, DT Swiss Comp double butted spokes on DT Swiss tandem rims, and White hubs. Cost was not bad at all compared to high quality off-the-shelf wheels, and they are apparently indestructible.
re: wheels: Mavic Ksyrium SSL. Utterly bombproof. Ask anyone.
I’m not a heavyweight. On the other hand, my Ksyriums are 15 years old and are not the slightest bit out of true or round. I put them in the wheelstand every winter just for a laugh.
Im 265 and regularly dace and train on cobalt 11 carbon CRANK BROTHERS WHEELS with zero issues after 3700 miles. Im hard up and down on my wheels and couldnt be more impressed. Im a big boy but. Have much muscle mass.for sprint and lots of strength for long hill climbs. These wheels spin great and I would never recommend anything else. Ive tried them all.
I am about 246 pounds right now. In the distant past the guy who ran the bike shop where I lived told me that if I wanted to make a rear wheel last more than a month or two that I needed to become a spinner.
My current wheels are Rolf Echelon and they made one season without incident, then I broke a spoke which Rolf repaired under warranty. The rest of the season was without incident.
I’m about 200 miles into this season and so far so good. I might add that a season is about 3000 miles.
At 220 lbs, the rim weight is your least problem when climbing.
I’m 6’1 235 and 225’ish during summer riding season. I live outside Boulder CO and climb a good amount which means lots of downhilling and breaking at speed, not so much sprinting anymore. I try to absorb big bumps as much as possible and don’t bunny hop unless needed. I’ve used the 2013’s Mavic Kyserium elites on my old Cervello and now on my 2020 Cervello R3 with pad breaks. Never blown a spoke and they feel stiff still, pretty solid wheelset. I am shopping for new wheels mostly because I want a newer “look” on my newer bike. I’ve read great things about Reynolds wheels, wondering if any bigger riders have experience with their /models.
I’m 6’2”, and usually run between 255LBs and 265LBS, and I swear by Campy. I have ridden Neutron Ultras Eurus, Shamal Ultras, and I am currently riding their carbon Bora One 35’s. I have put thousands of miles on each and have never had a problem. I even have an old pair of Campy Electrons on my gravel/cross bike and they can handle me getting a little bit of air without a hitch.
I bought most of my Campy wheels in the days when their wheels did not have a weight limit, but the Shamal Ultras and Bora One 35’s are more recent and have a 109kg./240Lbs limit. I ride both with no concerns or perceived performance loss. That said, I used to own a pair of Zondas and they seemed noticeably flex -particularly the from wheel. I got a lot of brake rub with the Zondas. They did not seemed to tolerate Lateral stress very well at my weight.
I have also tried Fulcrum racing 5s, 3s, and 1s. The Racing 5s were heavy and had what I perceived to be slow and dead hub bearings. They became my turbo trainer wheels. The 3s seemed like the perfect balance between stiffness, comfort, speed, and robustness. However, they are training rather than racing wheels at heart. The 1s were plenty fast and strong, but to stiff for me to tolerate and I sold them.
My favorite of all of my Campys, other than the carbon Bora Ones are the Eurus. Light for alloy, they can take a beating, but are fast and reasonably comfortable.
The final thing I would add is that Clydes that do not ride like Neanderthals should not have to settle for heavy wheels. Just because we are bigger and exert more force does not mean we are unaffected by wheel weight., I have yet to ever feel that my extra weight-related torque ability overcomes heavy wheel weight.