Talk to an experienced cyclist about upgrading your bike, and I'm fairly sure
they would tell you that the most important thing you can do is to change
the wheels. The theory goes that a lighter set of wheels will transform the way your
bike rides and unlock new levels of performance no matter what's the starting
point. So, we thought we would take a closer look to see if wheels really are
the best place to invest your cash when upgrading your bike.
As a starting point, we've got this Scott Speedster 40. It's not exactly an entry
level bike but we think it represents the kind of price point at which you'll start
to consider some serious upgrades. And our upgrade wheels is this pair of Reynolds'
Assault SLGs, light, stiff and arrow, pretty much the holy trinity of wheelsets.
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First up, let's deal with the most quoted reason behind the fact that wheels are the
best upgrade for your bike, the effective rotating weight. Now,
the theory goes that rotating mass of your wheels has an effect three times greater
than the equivalent static mass, meaning that if you save 50 grams from your
wheelset that would be like saving 150 grams from your frame. Or in this case,
800 grams from your wheels would be like saving 2.4 kilos.
Unfortunately though, that is only partly true because rotating weight has no
greater or lesser effect on the power that it takes to sustain a speed,
even when climbing than the equivalent static weight. That's not to say that it
has no effect at all. It does. Saving any weight at all from your bike will enable
you to climb faster.
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The greatest benefit from lighter weight though comes from when accelerating and
decelerating. It takes less energy to get a lighter pair of wheels up to speed than
a heavier pair making them more responsive. So, from a standing start,
I will save about not 0.1 seconds by the time I get to 30 kilometers an hour.
And that's about an entire bike length. It might not sound like much but it will
certainly add up over the course of a three-hour ride. And in a race,
it can be the difference between winning and losing.
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Now, you wouldn't have thought that kind of minimal difference would be detectable
out on the road. But I'm pretty sure that even swapping out an already decent set of
wheels that came with this bike that I can feel the difference.
The bike feels faster, climbs well and generally handles superbly,
but the difference might not be coming from the reduction in weight
but actually from a significant improvement in aerodynamics.
You see, the wheels generally represent about 10% to 15% of your total aerodynamic
drag, although it can be as little as 0% or as might just 20%.
That might not sound like all that much but if you swap out your wheels for a
really aerodynamic pair, you might be able to reduce that figure by about 25%,
meaning that your total aerodynamic drag would reduce by about 2% to
3%. And that is not to be sniffed at. Generally, aerodynamics will
have an effect that's much greater on your speed than
lightweight, although, the exact nature of your route or course will
determine that. But if you combine the right set of wheels that have both
lightweight and aerodynamics, then your bike is going to be significantly faster
on just about any course.
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Clearly, though, we need to put this in the context of other upgrades you can make
to your bike. Now, first of all, I'm going to discount training aids like a power
meter, because although these can make a huge difference, they rely on you
putting the work in over a long period of time in order to actually make those
gains and ultimately make you faster. I'm also going to discount
a bike fit, because although those are undeniably a good investment
for your cycling, it's not exactly an upgrade. What about tires though?
A well-chosen tire can save a good few watts of rolling resistance.
In fact, the difference between a really good tire and a rubbish tire can be as
much as 20 watts at 40K an hour, and that's per wheel.
Similarly, changing parts of your bike to increase your comfort is quite a good
idea. So swapping your handlebars and saddle, even your seat post if you're
suffering out on the bike could be a worthwhile investment. But while it might
help you get more out of yourself on the bike, it's not actually making the
bike itself go any faster. Gears are a common upgrade,
given that they wear out anyway and regularly need replacing.
But it has to be said that from my experience there isn't really any
performance benefit when it comes to replacing gears with more expensive ones
when done on a component by component basis. But what is undeniably a
performance upgrade is maintaining what you've already got. So keeping out some of
your hardware, replacing like-for-like as and when needed will keep your bike
running smoothly and efficiently and therefore making you faster.
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But despite all of this, there is one last factor to take into consideration,
aesthetics. Now this is a can of worms many people feel and we know they feel it,
because they, some of you, tell us in the comments section that making decisions
based on aesthetics is shallow, a mug's game. And based on pure performance
data from the lab, that much is true, but I am going to respectfully disagree
with you. To me, aesthetics do matter. Now, I think this bike looks good
as standard but replacing the wheels makes it look seriously
cool. I would be proud to open my garage to a bike that looked like
that. And that's value to me should not be underestimated, because perceptions and
emotions have very real bearing on performance. Now, you, it may not surprise
you to hear, are not a laboratory, hopefully not anyway. Humans are
emotional, and emotions affect performance. Feeling good is a
great way to go faster, fact. Is that a fact? I think it's a fact, fact.
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So, are wheels the most important upgrades? Well, short of keeping on
top of your bike maintenance which wasn't really an upgrade at all then yes,
I think wheels do have the biggest bearing on the performance of your bike.
Tires for rung resistance, lightweight for lower inertia, and improved aerodynamics
for outright speed. However, whether buying set of wheels that cost more
than your entire bike will make your bike perform better than a
new and more expensive one is a matter for debate.
You guys know what to do. Let us know in the comments section down below. Now,
if you want to see a video about the top 10 other things we think might be worth
upgrading, then you can click up there and get straight through to a video on that.
Or for a video about all the different types of tires you can buy then click down
there, and you go straight through to a video about that. Before you go to either
though, do make sure you subscribe to GCN. To do that, you can click on my,
well, upgraded and quite fancy looking bike there. Just avoid that triple chain
set , don't click on that. I'm not sure what would happen if you did that but
yeah.