Sur La Plaque: Café Roubaix Haleakala Climbing Wheels

I’m not going to lie to you, friction is an asshole. In the bottom bracket, in the bending of every single link in your chain as it rolls over the cogs and threads its way through the rear derailleur, and in the pulleys themselves, the devils. I cleaned out my rain bike last weekend after a few rides where I was forced to neglect my usual daily maintenance routine and they puked up chunks of grit before they started moving lightly again. Every turn of the pedals, each of those points of friction adds up and take away from your Maximum V Potential at any given moment.

While this next point is true for Cycling in general, it is true for climbing in particular: the trick to riding well is to keep turning the pedals at your current rhythm. Failing that, you just wind up being less awesome than you were a moment earlier. Speed is like time; you can never get it back (it might also be money, but the math is hard to sort out.) You worked hard to get going as fast as you were, and slowing down just means you lose all that effort. What’s worse, if you want to get going that fast again, you have to do all that same work all over again, and even then, you’re just back to where you were, except a little lighter on the V Potential.

Friction may well be an asshole, but its not as big an asshole as gravity. The acceleration of gravity is 9.8 meters per second squared, which means that climbing at a sustained speed is basically like accelerating constantly; in order to climb at that rate, you’re accelerating enough to neutralize the pull from gravity which is trying its best to drag you back down the hill. Not to mention that you’re working against all that friction in your drivetrain.

To summarize, friction and gravity are assholes.

With these two points in mind, earlier this year I had Café Roubaix build me some lightweight climbing wheels. I didn’t really know what climbing wheels are good for, but I wanted to try some and I was thinking that any weight advantage I could find would be a good thing with respect to the winter months and the associated packing on of the wrong kind of weight in the engine room. 970 grams, you say? That sounds good – I’ll have them, thanks.

The first surprise was the box they arrived in, which I was certain must have been empty. Mounting them with tires and a cassette, I got used to how they felt in my hands. Funny how weight works; you grow accustomed to it. When I went to place them in the bike I first removed my rear Zipp 404 from the frame, which in comparison felt like an anchor.

They looked the business installed, but photos do a better job describing that. On to the riding. The first pedal stoke felt good; responsive and light. But nothing crazy, once I got going a bit. There was some more snap, for sure, but it wasn’t like I’d just had a blood transfusion on the second rest day of the Tour or anything like that. But on the hills the world turns on its head as the acceleration of gravity rejoins the conversation. The steeper the gradient, the more the wheels shine; simply put, they just keep spinning. Should you encounter a change in pitch for the worse, apply a touch of V and they spin up like a washing machine.

They almost converted me into a grimpeur. Almost. And, they help answer how the Pros move Sur La Plaque up giant mountains, absorbing changes in pitch like they’re nothing and accelerating away on the steepest sections. I am given to understand that talent and training play a part, but their climbing wheels don’t hurt either. The right tools make all the difference.

[dmalbum path=”/velominati.com/content/Photo Galleries/frank@velominati.com/CR Haleakala/”/]

frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

View Comments

  • @Fausto My thoughts exactly, I wish I could go that quickly on the flat.

    Pantani looks like he's gone round the corner at 1:20 so quickly he's almost gone into the wall on the way out.

  • Whoa. I have been putting up slat wall in the studio and busy like crazy. And I am missing out on all the crazy wheel banter! My wheels at that.

    @Jeff in PetroMetro

    My Haleakalas just left Grand Forks, ND about 2 hours ago, according to FedEx. Ooooooo, I.Can.Not.Wait!!! Thanks Dan_R!!!

    My pleasure. I am nearly as excited as you! Nearly. I have been busy and  we have an number of wheels in stock now for the opening. It is like walking around in a candy store!

    @scaler911

    Them is sexy I must say. Can one have too many wheels? Been eyeing Golden Tickets, but these are mighty tempting.

    What do we need to do to push you over the edge!

    @Barracuda

    Im not a climber, but I love climbing, if that makes sense. The photos of the rims look very nice and, well, carbony!! Whats a set of those clincher style weigh and hit the wallet for landed in Aus @Dan_R ?

    The clincher will come in around the low 1100s, I think. But the rub is that I have been trying to find a good shipping option for both the UK and Australia. Canada Post and FedEx are both too much, due to the box and the declared value I guess.

    If anybody has any ideas, I am open to suggestions. I sell my carbon wheels for $1400 & $1500 respectively, and I want to keep overall cost below $2k for overseas customers.

    @Gianni

    I touched my aluminum front clincher rim today after a steep descent, too hot to touch for more than a half second. What does that mean? Carbone wheels won't work, clincher or tubs? And yet, jets use carbon fiber disc brakes. Maybe heat is not a massive issue, it surely must not conduct away so well.

    @Dan_R or anyone else, thoughts?

    OK, I will step in here. Yup as Nate said, alum does a great job dissipating heat. In fact Shimano is building a lightweight rotor for the dirt crowd that sandwiches aluminum between steel. Crazy shit man, completely awesome too. But that is carbon too. What I mean is, try to find real technical numbers on carbon fiber and you are SOL. That is because you can make it do whatever you want it to do. They make friggen airplane out of the stuff. Including super secret fighter jets. And disc brakes. Carbon is like every other rim materiel. If you ride your brakes down the mountain, things are going to get sporty, but if you treat your gear properly and ride it like you are supposed to most stuff out there will work as it should. We all hear the horrible stories of carbon failures, but perspective is everything. Riding bikes is fun.

    And there is a lot of cool stuff out there.

  • @Dan_R

    @Barracuda

    Im not a climber, but I love climbing, if that makes sense. The photos of the rims look very nice and, well, carbony!! Whats a set of those clincher style weigh and hit the wallet for landed in Aus @Dan_R ?

    The clincher will come in around the low 1100s, I think. But the rub is that I have been trying to find a good shipping option for both the UK and Australia. Canada Post and FedEx are both too much, due to the box and the declared value I guess.

    If anybody has any ideas, I am open to suggestions. I sell my carbon wheels for $1400 & $1500 respectively, and I want to keep overall cost below $2k for overseas customers.

    Keep me posted ....  love the look of the carbon layup on @franks 's Volcano destroying beasts

  • @Chris

    @Fausto My thoughts exactly, I wish I could go that quickly on the flat.

    Pantani looks like he's gone round the corner at 1:20 so quickly he's almost gone into the wall on the way out.

    As I recall, this was the era of Pantani using his brakes on climbs like this.  Its a shame he's not around to offer thoughts about instantaeous acceleration vectors or even the application of Bernoulli's principle to rim profiles.

  • The Central Tool of our Craft offers so many options for analysis. It is an integrated System, and is more than the sum of its parts. Each component of the system can be optimized for each rider and situation. It is endlessly fascinating.

    Surely Velominati everywhere have seen the VeloNews article on analysis of chain lubes. The sole variable to be quantified was "what lube offers least power loss?" And then we argue over what the results imply to each of us.

    Likewise this wheel evaluation. These are cool, cool wheels for sure. Are they for me? Dunno. But it sure is cool to hear about them. Kinda like internet porn: someone sure is having a good time, and it is fun to think about doing that myself, but I'm not sure what it would mean to the rest of my life.

  • Great news, they don't have the Dura Ace hubs they thought they had sold me at Tweeks, so am going for the Ultegra, 32 front, 36 back, which leaves me some mullah to spend on the other bits

    Aim is for stiff set up, as am 87kg (should be 76kg in approximately 2 years time) and need some help on the climbs - what rims should I be looking at - currently my favoured choice is a pair of Mavic Open Pros

    Anyone got any other suggestions - it's for my 2012 Roubaix Expert with Ultegra 6700 groupset and brakes - clinchers, not ready for tubs....or should I make that leap too?

  • @PT

    @Chris

    @Fausto My thoughts exactly, I wish I could go that quickly on the flat.

    Pantani looks like he's gone round the corner at 1:20 so quickly he's almost gone into the wall on the way out.

    As I recall, this was the era of Pantani using his brakes on climbs like this. Its a shame he's not around to offer thoughts about instantaeous acceleration vectors or even the application of Bernoulli's principle to rim profiles.

    Maybe he was working on slingshot principle vectorisation as a way to coalesce the contrarotational decelerative exponentialization factor of the last corner - how can he go that fast up a mountain that big, it's just silly

  • @eightzero

    Likewise this wheel evaluation. These are cool, cool wheels for sure. Are they for me? Dunno. But it sure is cool to hear about them. Kinda like internet porn: someone sure is having a good time, and it is fun to think about doing that myself, but I'm not sure what it would mean to the rest of my life.

    Nominate this quote for the jersey.  Friggin' brilliant.

  • Chain lube, internet porn. An inevitable juxtaposition.

    How much *do* carbon crank arms flex?

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