Comments on: Enve 8.9 Rims, Just Facts Ma’am

By: Francisco de Almeida

Francisco de Almeida — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 16:55:40 +0000

Perhaps the ability of a full rear disc to ‘sail’ better in crosswinds, adding that tiny bit of forward trust, may help them retain a slight margin in windy time trials e.g. along coastlines. This may be more relevant to triatlon than stage racing.

By: KP

KP — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 01:26:30 +0000

Thanks for the article. I ordered the Enve 8.9s and will get them soon. While getting a wheel design as aero as possible in a wind tunnel is a good start, we all know racing and training conditions are very different. I live and train in Asia so there are ‘strength’ issues with wheels as the road conditions are very different from Country to Country plus another huge issue is cross wind stability. Some of my best bike splits were done in windy conditions on reasonable road surfaces with a disc wheel, however I really am looking for something close to a disc but more forgiving in cross winds and changing conditions (real race conditions). If I can be counted in any stats it is that I chose the 8.9s over the Zipp Firecrest 808s and a Disc after a lot of research and the ‘Smart’ relationship with Enve. This article just confirms my correct decision. My other wheels are MadFiber. Thanks KP

By: sami srour

sami srour — Wed, 09 May 2012 19:01:47 +0000

Good write up of the state of the art for TT wheels. The problem however, is that there has not been any new designs for disc wheels in a while. I have to think that if the industry paid more attention to producing state of the art disc wheels, they have got to be more aerodynamic in zero wind conditions.