09 Zipp 404's

[subzero]

Anyone own or riden the 09 404's? Any feedback or thoughts would be appreciated, thanks.

[Adrien]

Basically the ride is the same as the 08s. The rims, which represent most of the ride characteristic remains unchanged. The hubs are better, they are now butter smooth instead of sandy, and the spoking is mavic alike: radial drive side, and crossed non drive. It helps balancing the stiffnesses of the two sides of the rear wheel.

[subzero]

Thanks Adrien, so the new spoke configuration has made the rear wheel stiffer in your opinion as I had the '06 404 versions and found the rear wheel far to flexy, hitting the brake pads under load. Also if they haven't changed the rim at all won't they still have the problem of the rims cracking?

[pritchet74]

I think that all rims became the "clydesdale" version for either '07 or '08, so the rims would be stronger than the '06's that you had.

[subzero]

I think that all rims became the "clydesdale" version for either '07 or '08, so the rims would be stronger than the '06's that you had.

I did not know that, did the weight change as well as they were still around the 1250gr mark as I remember, besides the flexing my wheels were fine, I had them in a System Six which felt like a reasonably stiff frame and being between 92-95kgs at the time I might just have been to heavy for them. Thanks for the info "pritchet74".

[Giant DK]

As ridden on WW the rims on 404 and 808 has changed!!!

[subzero]

I read the thread on WW and Waldo says that the rims are wider and a different shape but does not mention anything about being changed to the Clydesdale rim, thou this might have happened as Pritch says in '07/08.

[spaniardclimber]

The 09 404 and 808 get a full toroidal shape, and are a bit wider. Spoke count is 16/20 IIRC.
Hubs have preload adjustment, bigger axle and bearings.

[Starnut]

The 404 shape changed a lot. It has the brake tracks like th 808/1080 and the 808 recieved a small refinement in shape.

Starnut

[pritchet74]

I think that 2009 is the year of "uber-fast" aero wheels. The new Zipp & Hed C2 shapes are the cat's meow. The Hed Stinger tubular wheels shape was tweaked a bit from last year & is supposed to be simply amazing. Zipp's are lighter though.

[alienator]

Either Zipp needs to re-educate it's marketeers or the cycling world needs to find a dictionary:

Toroid: A surface of revolution obtained by rotating a closed plane curve about an axis parallel to the plane which does not intersect the curve. The simplest toroid is the torus. The word is also used to refer to a toroidal polyhedron (Gardner 1975).

Every rim ever made was and is a toroid. If they weren't tires wouldn't mount so well. These are all toroids:

[pritchet74]

That's funny.

[Warblade]

I concur! Marketing.....

[WWPantani]

Surely the point is that they're toroidal in cross section as opposed to in plan?